Tortuguero and the Terrible Turtle Tour

Tortuguero was my last real destination on my travels in Central America, and I really liked the town. I had my own private room and bathroom (!) at a small hotel recommended by a friend that sat right on the beach. There aren't hostels here, so it was more expensive ($20) since I was on my own. I spent the afternoon wandering the town and along the water and watched a spectacular sunset. That night I went on a turtle tour at 10pm to spot sea turtles laying their eggs on the beach. I'm not entirely sure what I expected, but whatever it was, it wasn't this. Obviously I knew it was dark at night, but I had envisioned spotting the turtles from a respectful distance, watching them silently, and feeling a sense of awe at the magnitude of their task. The females swim hundreds of miles to return (usually) to the area where they were born in order to lay eggs 1-4 times a year. They haul themselves out of the surf, clamber up the beach, dig a giant pit of a nest, lay hundreds of eggs over an hour or more, cover the eggs, pat the sand, camouflage (sort of) their nesting site, and then drag themselves back into the water. These creatures, so graceful in the sea, are cumbersome giants on land and it is a miracle they are able to successfully reproduce at all!

Knowing all of this I was excited to witness "the process" as our guide, Robert, called it. But instead of an awe inspiring experience, he viewed it as his means for his existence and seemed to take only a cursory interest in the animals or the quality of our experience. There were 7 of us in his group, and he literally ran us up and down the path along the beach according to the information he had from the professional spotters about where the turtles were. At first I thought he was worried we wouldn't get to see a turtle, but then I realized he wanted to show us the minimum promised as quickly as possible so he could get home.

On paper it was a satisfactory trip for him. We saw a turtle covering her nest, another one returning to the water (followed at a minimal distance by about 20 people), and saw a final mothering laboring through the laying of her eggs. When he moved her back flipper so we could have a better view it almost made me sick with anger. Instead of amazing it all felt so intrusive, so unnecessary, so voyeuristic.

While the tourism of watching turtles at night is fairly well regulated (you must go with a guide, paths are used in the woods behind the beach so you are doing minimal walking on their actual nesting sites, no regular lights or camera flashes are allowed, only faint red lights from the guides) I asked our guide about beach use during the day time and he said it is open to everyone for recreational use. There is nothing that marks known nest areas, there are no signs that there are eggs shallowly buried in the sand, and there is nothing to prevent people from walking on and digging at the nesting areas. For all their talk of conservation, this is one endangered species that needs a lot more protection, even from many of the people and organizations "protecting" it.

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.

Monteverde

I made it to Monteverde a couple of days ago. The weather finally turned great in Tamarindo and some of my favorite people from Utila showed up to hang out for a few days- Alon and Eitan who I had been traveling on and off with, Jen who just finished her divemaster, and Sarah doing a visa run. We all spent a couple of great days on the beach and Jen and I got surf boards and rocked the waves!! By that I mean we surfed baby whitewash, but we were able to get up a bunch of times and had a lot of fun.

I set off with Pablo, a guy I met in San Juan del Sur and ran into again in Tamarindo. We took a 7:30am bus from Tamarindo and after 2 changes and a lot of bumpy roads, arrived in Monteverde at 5:30pm! On a map it looks like it shouldn{t be too far away, but the roads here and windy and the bus will stop for anyone along the way. Our final leg of the trip was the most scenic as well as adventurous, up a steep and windy dirt road in an ancient vehicle. Every time we stopped and had to start again (which was painfully often) there was a great grinding of gears and we all held our breath, hoping we would actually go UP instead of just rolling back down. Luckily I think the driver has been handling that particular bus for the last couple of decades at

least, and we made it slowly but without incident.

Yesterday we went on a canopy tour with Extremo, which consists of wearing a harness and flying around over or through the tree tops on zip lines. Needless to say, it was fantastic! It was almost 3 hours and at least a dozen different lines. We also did a rappel, where you are attached to a rope and drop straight down, and a tarzan swing which is exactly what it sounds like- jumping off a platform on a long rope and when you reach the end with a lurch you just swing back and forth through the jungle. The final zip line, 1km long and 180m high (more than 590ft!!) and we did the Superman, where you are hooked up by your back and feet, flying stretched out and face down over all the trees and valleys. I imagine it is about as close as you can get to feeling like an actual bird, and it was incredible!

Last night I also opted to do a Night Hike through the jungle at Finca Santamaria. Most mammals here are nocturnal, so your best chance of seeing them is to go out at night, in the dark. Even in 2 hours it was amazing how much we could see! Costa Rica is one of the biodiversity hotspots in the world- there are more species per capita than almost anywhere else, and it was great to see a tiny fraction of this. Within the first 5 minutes we spotted a 2 toed sloth and her baby, and they were eating in a tree maybe 8 feet off the ground and right in front of us! Later we spotted another sloth and in the same tree an opossum and a porcupine! There were a bunch of blue morphos butterflies, an owl and a sleeping brown jay, a couple of walking stick bugs, and an ENORMOUS orange kneed tarantula! We got up close to another opossum and saw an armadillo burrow (sans animal, unfortunately) and I saw some sort of housecat sized feline when the guide wasn{t around. We weren{t too far from the start of the hike, so I asked if there actually were housecats in the jungle. He said he had never seen any and didn{t think so, so it is quite possible I saw a wild jungle cat!! The guide showed us bioluminiscent mushrooms- microscopic fungi that use a chemical reaction when it is dark to create light and attract moths, which land on them and then spread their spores which is how they reproduce. We all turned our flashlights off and hiked for about 5 minutes in the pitch black looking for them, which was quite an experience. The guide was great and very knowledgable about all the flora and fauna of the jungle, and has been working there for the past 8 years so was amazing at spotting interesting animals when the rest of us were just worried about tripping over roots! Such an incredible day, I{m so glad I finally made it here!

Costa Rica in the Rainy Season

I've made it all the way down now to Tamarindo, Costa Rica, a beach town on the Pacific. After sleepy San Juan, I feel like I'm in Waikiki. There is a clear disparity of wealth between the two neighboring countries, which was maybe more obvious doing the border crossing with local buses and on foot as opposed to an international bus that shuffles you across. On the ride down to the Nicaraguan border we took the beat up old school buses, and as soon as we crossed into Costa there were more luxury buses, car dealerships everywhere, and prices of pretty much everything had doubled if not tripled.

I'm actually taking a little break from hostel life and staying with a friend I met in San Juan who is from Argentina but lives here in Tamarindo. It actually feels like a mini Argentina here- she has a big group of Argentinian friends who are very sweet and remind me that my Spanish still has a long way to go when I'm in a group of 5 girls gossiping and joking and speaking extremely quickly!

The only downside to Tamarindo is that it is undoubtedly rainy season here. On my first full day it rained heavily and constantly and that night was practically a monsoon! Roads were waist deep with water, the hostel my friend worked at flooded, and all the clubs and bars were shut for fear of electricity in all that water. Somewhat ironically yesterday, when it wasn't raining during the day, all the city water was turned off for about 10 hours. It foiled our plans of showering, cooking, and doing laundry. Once it started raining again in the evening and the water started trickling I took a gamble and went for a shower. Unfortunately it all stopped running in the shower once my hair was full of shampoo and I had to rinse it in the trickle of the kitchen sink. Thank goodness that was still even semi-working! Everyday has been an adventure, and in a few days I will set off again for the jungle and hopefully the Caribbean coast where I will get to see sea turtles laying their eggs on the beach!