Tortugas

Reluctantly, we left Cahuita this morning in a minvan north to Moin, just near Puerto Limon. From here we had a four hour boat ride up the Rio Tortuguero to the small village of Tortuguero inside a national park. On the beaches here, hundreds of sea turtles come to lay their eggs every night. There are several types of turtles who use this beach at different times of the year. August is the busiest season for the huge green turtles.

The ride along the river, which parallels the coastline, was beautiful, with thick jungle surrounding us the entire way. We saw huge iguanas, lots of basilisks, monkeys, a caiman, a gorgeous rosette spoonbill, which looks just like pink cotton candy (fairy floss), and lots of other birds. Oh yeah, and a crocodile too. We arrived in Tortuguero village around 2:00 where we quickly found a hostel for the night, finally managed to find a restaurant open for a late lunch, then headed right down to the beach for a swim. The Caribbean here is much rougher than down south and the sand is a gorgeous dark brown. After cooling off, we sat and watched a local girl's soccer match while enjoying a few beers. The village was in full party mode (and had been for 3 straight days) to celebrate 27 years of the national park. Everyone was out and about, kids running around with cotton candy and churros, people dancing and drinking beer and loud music. We were advised by our turtle guide for the night, Castor, that we'd be departing to see the turtles around 7:30 pm, so we set out to find some dinner beforehand. There is not much option here, and went to a cute place right on the river called the Buddha Cafe. We ordered a pizza and waited for over an hour for it to come. While we waited, we watched some really cool lightning lighting up big fluffly clouds across the river. At about 7:20, the ditzy waitress came and told us we'd have to wait a bit longer. Of course we couldn't and, pissed, we left.

We were a bit disappointed to see that our turtle group was 14 big. Everyone must be accompanied by an official guide to get onto the beach at night, in attempts to protect the turtles and eggs from poachers, animals, and just stupid people. We walked for about 30 minutes through the thick, dark jungle. We were hoping to see a jaguar, but no luck. Our guide had seen them a few times before, but he didn't sound too keen since they're such aggressive cats.

When we got onto the beach, we had to "share" our turtle with about 30 other people from 2 more groups. I found this a bit odd seeing as how there were hundreds of turtles on the beach. The turtles are huge, probably bigger than me if I were to lay curled up in a ball. We got a few brief moments to watch the poor girl lay her eggs and bury them, and also got to watch another girl make her way back down into the water after finishing her laying. We were surprised to see how quickly they move. The green turtles are named so because their fat inside is green in colour. During the laying season, they return to the same beach about 2 or 3 times to lay eggs. It takes about 2.5 hours for the whole process. Only 1-3% of the eggs actually become adult turtles. Apparently they have really poor hearing, but exceptional smell and can feel predators (including humans) walking on the beach. As we waited for our turns, we could see, courtesy of the lightning, tons of other turtles making their way up and down the beach. It was pretty cool.

The national park tries to minimalise the impact of tourists on the turtles, so once a group has seen a turtle laying eggs and one returning to the water, their time is up and must leave the beach (you can't watch them come up onto the beach because if she sees us or senses we are there, she will turn back into the water and not lay). So about one hour after setting out, we returned along the dark jungle trail and got to see a cute little opossom too.

Back in town, we tried to find somewhere to eat dinner, but everything but the expensive place was closed. But because of the huge fiesta going on, there was fried chicken shop set up, so we had a great cheap meal at their counter before we headed back to the room to read and go to bed.