08.10.2012 – 08.10.2012  29 °C

Early start this morning as we needed to be out of the hotel by 8am. I just made it on time, I swear this bag takes me longer to pack than my usual suitcase. Anyway, we all piled into the mini van with all of our junk and headed for the local bus terminal. Today we are off to Tortuguero NP, time to leave the urban jungle and find the real McCoy!

Our first bus was a tight squeeze. It was a normal long distance bus (so normal comfy seats not the usual suburban bus seats) but the gap between each seat seemed to be really narrow. My feet spent the whole trip hanging out into the corridor, and poor Marcel (also Intrepid traveller and 6ft tall) had no hope!! Luckily, our big bags were under the bus but we still all had our back packs and stuff with us so it was a pretty tight squeeze. This bus took us up and over the mountains in a generally north easterly direction towards the Caribbean side of the country. The road seemed in good repair, but it was very twisty and windy and was pretty slow going. The mountainsides seemed to be composed of really lush jungle overlaid with a good amount of fog. It made visibility low, but what I could see looked pretty amazing.

After we got over the mountains we stopped and swapped to a local bus to take us out to the boat launch for Tortuguero. The local bus was air conditioned (a big step up from the San Jose bus) and was of similar grade so we had a more comfortable second part of the journey. The local bus was aptly named. We stopped at the corners to many random country lanes, we picked up the school kids on their way home. One of the ladies even carried onto the bus 6 baby chickens in a box! In complete fairness, both buses cost just over 5USD so we nabbed a real bargain! I can’t even get to downtown Brisbane for that much on the train!!!

The landscape on this side of the mountain was much more rural. Plenty of green grass being consumed by big Brahman cows, banana and papaya plantations. After an umpteen number of stops the bus finally reached the terminus at the boat launch for Tortuguero.

There are only two ways into the NP, either by boat or plane. Our mode of transport was private boat (which was pleasant because the public boat was pretty crowded). By the time we arrived at the boat launch we were again being rained on. We all unpacked our pack covers and rain jackets and settled in for a slightly wet but enjoyable boat ride out to the NP. The trip was about an hour and fortunately the boat was covered, so although we were damp by the time we got to our lodgings we weren’t wet.

The boat trip reminded me of a Disney boat ride thru the jungle. Only difference, no real queue for the boat, no automated route or fake monkeys hanging from the branches.. today’s ride did get us wet, was thru the jungle and we saw some animals (no monkeys though). Because of the rain, our animal sightings were limited but we did see some birds and a crocodile so not a completely animal-less trip!

We arrived at Miss Junies (our lodging for the next two nights in Tortuguero) mid afternoon and headed for some fried sea bass and rice and beans for lunch (which was delicious). Straight after lunch a few of us hit the black sand beach for a swim (not quite your typical Caribbean beach but still great), no surf but super warm water and a quick rest. Before we knew it dinner rolled around and we all headed to the local pizza joint for a couple of pizzas. From dinner it was straight out to see Turtles! It’s non-stop action today!

Tortuguero is famous for its turtles. Every night between May and October, turtles come up on the beaches of the park to lay their eggs. We were lucky enough to see two turtles, one leaving her nest and one laying her eggs and closing up her nest. These turtles are BIG- at least a meter in length and half a meter wide. They are easily spooked, so no lights are allowed on the beach (or near the beach) and so our wander was largely in the dark. Once the turtles start to lay their eggs they go into a type of trance so at this point we are able to approach the turtles to see them doing their stuff, albeit by a the light of a small red torch. I’m not sure how many eggs she laid but she was busy for a good twenty minutes (and who knows how long she had been laying before we were allowed to approach). I was surprised by how dextrous she is with her flippers. She digs out her nest with her flippers and covers it back up again with them too. Pretty good for an animal which only really comes on land to lay eggs.

Well past midnight and I finally got myself into bed.. 5am wakeup in the morning to go canoe-ing… And here I thought this was supposed to be a holiday? As a depressing sideline, I think I’ve contracted a cold, could be a crappy next couple of days…..