Tortuguero

On the road again, this time to Tortuguero which means place of turtles... We didn't see any for those who were going to skim the rest of this page to find out about the turtles. We started with another bumpy bus trip on what you could barely call a road, more potholes than road and mostly flooded from all the rains. We then took a boat to Tortuguaro, along a very flooded river to arrive at our very flooded accommodation. We had to wade ankle deep to get to our cabin, one night we every found a toad taking refuge on our door...probably hiding from the crocodiles.  The lodge is right on the river's edge and on a small land strip, the carribbean is 100 metres behind us just across a small airstrip, yep we had to cross a tarmac to get to the beach. We wouldn't swim in either the river or sea given crocodiles in one and sharks in the other.

We had some time to look through town in the afternoon, given the town is one small dirt street, that didn't take too long. We all had dinner back at the lodge followed by a competitive game of dominos with Willis, our host.

After a late night of games and drinks we were up at 5am to do a boat safari. We found a Python in the middle of his breakfast, we believe a basilic lizard but all we saw was the tail hanging out of its mouth and later, just a large bulge in its stomach.

Back to the lodge we walked the 4km along the beach to the point the river meets, all the while in search for baby turtles making their way to freedom. Though as we'd learned, for every 1000 babies hatched only 1 adult turtle will survive. We were willing to help their survival if necessary.

In the afternoon, it was another jungle walk. This one required gum boots and sometimes wading, occasionally higher than the reach of the boots. The noise from water filled boots, meant sneaking up on anything was impossible. Other than a couple of howler monkeys we didn't see much and went back to town for a cooling daiquiri instead.

Later in the evening we stopped in at the local bar/nightclub. Clearly this place was rocking, you can't see it but the only thing on the dance floor was a dog and later a couple salsa dancing.

The next day we were back on the boat to head to our next destination, Cahuita. The was an amazing boat trip and will be a top highlight for the trip. Mostly for a bathing sloth just hanging out. Our boat was up very close while he just happily watched. The three toed sloth can swim quickly, thankful he was just happy to pose for photos. Perhaps he wasn't aware of the 3 metre croc we saw just around the corner.

Cahuita is a small seaside village with a National Park at its edge. In the afternoon we went for a stroll in the park (really a jungle). We heard that the week before a couple of tourists had been robbed in the park by masked bandits with machetes, thankfully there were a few of us and it was raining...again. We did manage to find 7 sloth, a yellow Lash viper, Agouti, a few howler and white-faced capuchin monkeys and a couple of squirrels. We're getting better at finding critters by ourself. In the first week even when the guide pointed out things, told us where they were, showed us on a telescope, we still found them difficult to see.

That night was a big local soccer match, so we head to a local bar to watch the game, drink Cahuita rum and later in the night sing karaoke (which they just google YouTube videos to sing along to).