Travel Time and La Fortuna

In my final few days I decided to make the haul out to Tortuguero, an area along the Caribbean coast where sea turtles come onto the beaches to lay their eggs. July and August are prime time for the green turtle, though also rainy season and not high time for visitors. The ever helpful Evan from the Tucan hotel in Monteverde made a million phone calls for me and helped me get a direct shuttle-boat combo from the town of La Fortuna, and a taxi-boat-taxi in order to reach Fortuna. Traveling is not always simple, though it is typically worth it!

My one night in La Fortuna I stayed in Gringo Pete's, which had come recommended to me (and, conveniently, was the cheapest in town at $6 a night). I spent the few dusky hours wandering the town which consisted of one main street packed full of tour operators pushing swanky natural hot springs that turn into discos at night, buffet included for $80. I passed on those. At the hostel, Pete, who was akin to Santa Clause in age and stature, though decidedly less jolly, was not my favorite though I ended up meeting some friendly other travelers. Turns out a Dutch guy there had been through Utila months before and my sister was his divemaster. Such a small world! A group of 8 of us went out for drinks and dancing (though it is not as glamorous as it sounds. It was a Sunday night and the one place playing music was a kind of hall with a man singing karaoke. We were the only people on the dance floor at the beginning, and it seemed the locals only decided to come out because we were doing such a butchery of their elegant moves). We all, however, had a good time and when we returned to the hostel after 2am, Pete came out onto a balcony and I am pretty sure was shooting us with rubber bands and definitely hissing at us to be quiet. It was good riddance to his hostel at 7 in the morning when I was picked up by my transport bus.

I made it to Tortuguero without incident. It was a beautiful ride (the parts I wasn't sleeping through) and we drove by mile after mile of banana fields. A "farm" doesn't do these places justice- truly the only way to describe them is as "plantations". There were complex drawbridges and pulley systems over the road, and the trees were producing an inordinate amount of fruit, each bundle of banana practically pulling its slender tree over. Every bunch was wrapped in a large blue plastic bag, protecting it from insects but contributing to the waste that goes into growing (not to mention transporting) this food. Many of the fields were tagged with Chiquita Banana signs, and undoubtedly end up in our local supermarkets. It is pretty incredible to actually see the early stages of this process- and realize how far our food travels!

The final stage of the journey was another boat ride, this time up a river and through a natural canal system, to the island of Tortuguero. (While not actually an island, it is accessible only by boat or by air). The boats are scheduled to leave at 1:30, and there was a long line of people waiting to get on. Though there are 3 different companies, people are shuffled, in a fairly orderly fashion, onto an empty boat and once it is full it pulls away and the process is started again. The boat I ended up on was definitely one of the older ones available, and before setting out our captain came down the narrow center isle to make sure we all were wearing our bright orange life vests. I have been on some pretty dodgy boats, but rarely has the life jacket policy been enforced- I was a bit worried that they expected their passengers to be falling out. Thankfully we made it in one piece, and the town was worth the trek.