Well, this morning started way too early. 4:30am! We had to be in Los Yoses by 6am (a neighborhood of San Jose). I got up and did my bathroom thing, heating up water for some ginger tea and completed the packing I had almost finished the night before. At 5:30 Cindy (a neighbor and student) was at our gate and by 5:40 we had gotten a cab. We arrived at some institute in Los Yoses at 5:57am and found a crowd of people there. Apparently we were put in with another large group from the States. They had 13 people. Zori (another neighbor and student) and her boyfriend were also already there. Right after 6 the bus/van vehicle showed up and we were quickly on our way.
We left San Jose a different way than I have gone before. We got to see on of the soccer stadiums on the way out. Then we began to climb the mountains out of the central valley. The road we were on was built in the 1970s or 1980s. It was amazing. It wasn’t pothole ridden! As we went we didn’t have any sort of view. It was so thick you couldn’t even tell were the cliff began. All you could see were a few trees next to the road. After it started clearing our lady guide told us that we had just been through part of a cloud forest. No wonder we couldn’t see anything!
When we were about half way to the port we stopped for breakfast at a very nice restaurant. It was buffet style with rolls, eggs, gallo pinto, tea, fruit, etc. It was great. There was a mountain stream that went by this place; I love that sound. Anyways, we continued on our way and were soon out of the mountains. And you could tell. It was almost an immediate weather change. It got hot and humid quite fast, but thankfully our bus/van had A/C.
As we continued along we saw pineapple plantations and banana plantations. If I heard correctly we saw the Dole plantation. On all the trees there were these blue bags that were covering the developing bananas. According to our guide they’re infused with pesticides to prevent insect damage to the fruit. (Oh, and if you have a choice, buy the La Chiquita brand of bananas at the store. Dole, Del Monte, etc apparently still use some of the “dirty dozen” chemicals on their fruits. It’s illegal to use them in the States, but not in Costa Rica. They’re bad for the environment and also really bad for the people who harvest and take care of the banana trees. La Chiquita has been working towards better working conditions for their workers and using less pesticides and avoiding the dirty dozen.) After the plantations came the shipping centers. They were pretty much a huge fenced area with gazillions of cargo containers either labeled Dole or Del Monte. Also there were lots of tractor trailers as well.
We arrived in Port Mion shortly there after and got a glimpse of the Caribbean Sea. There was a huge cargo ship in the port that was being loaded up as we went by. We crossed this tiny bridge and then went of the paved path into a typical Costa Rican road—muddy and pot-holed. But we weren’t on this road for long because we turned off onto a driveway that led to a motel, restaurant and a dock on one of the canals. We got off the bus/van and used the restrooms (there were 2 men’s restrooms and only 1 women’s restroom…I have no idea what universe those people are living in…anyways…)
After that pit stop we go on our boat and that’s when I noticed my bug bites. My ugly nasty bug bites. I didn’t feel them at all, but whatever it was it had a big mouth or stinger because all 6 of them were bleeding a bit. I didn’t feel it at all, nor did they itch or anything! But they looked really bad. Right after I saw that I started spraying the bug spray and fumigated everyone on the boat. (I had planned to do it then anyways, obviously I wasn’t quick enough on the draw.) I didn’t pay much attention to the bites after that since they weren’t bothering me. We started along down the canal. Our chauffer told us that the canal we were on was man-made, and that it was created for the use of loggers, but since logging is illegal there now the canals are only used for tourism. (The guy that was operating the boat is the husband to our lady guide that picked us up in San Jose. Those two run their small business together.)
The wife had binoculars and was on the lookout for wild life each time she saw a bird we’d slow down or stop and try to get a look or a picture of it. (since it was rainy and cloudy many of my pictures were blurry). Stopping for the birds was fun, but after the 5th time we stopped for the same species of bird it got really old. It was like being in Woodruff Road traffic. We’d start going and then stop. A green heron. We’d start going and then stop. Here’s another green heron. It was stop go stop go stop go almost all the way there. Since it was raining we didn’t seen any other wildlife on the way there.
As we went along we went from man-made canals to rivers, to man-made canals again. 2 times we got to see where the Caribbean meets 2 of the rivers. On each side of the canals and rivers were mainly mangrove forests, swampy areas and sometimes land where there’d be a house or a business. What most impressed me were some species of palm. They were massive. Imagine a big old oak tree, like the ones in Charleston or on the coast, and then imagine each branch is one palm leaf/branch. They weren’t super tall, but they were huge!.
Later we went past an area that was off limits to boats. It is a manatee sanctuary. A lot of times along the way you’d seen signs warning boaters to keep their speeds slower so as to not injure the manatees. After 2 ½ hours of stop and go we finally entered Tortugero National Park and then arrived at the village of Tortugero. Tortugero is a small “island” Caribbean on one side, canal on another, and then mangrove forests on the other two sides. We pulled up and hopped off and were sent to the Princesa Hotel (well, one of their locations) . This place had the ocean view. But , when us 5 got there, we were told that since we booked last minute that they didn’t have a room for us there, but that they had a room at their other location. So we were led through the rain (it just suddenly out of nowhere began to pour) to the other Princesa location. Cindy, Ashley and I were given a triple room aka 2 twin beds and 1 double bed. And Zori and her boyfriend were given another room. Our room was a lovely green color and had a high vaulted ceiling with exposed beams. Very pretty. It was also very humid and our A/C wasn’t responding to our button pushing.
So we decided to try out the ceiling fan. This one would have definitely failed anyone’s inspection. You turned it on (only 1 speed, high) and it started creaking, and then rocking and then sounding like it was going to fall out of the ceiling. The ball-socket mount was broken. It was off balance, etc. So getting the A/C to work was a must since the weather here is very hot, very humid, lots of biting bugs. We couldn’t figure out the machine. It responded to our button-pushing, but it wouldn’t turn on. We figured we’d ask when we saw one of our guides or the owner of the hotels.
Ashley and I walked over to the first Princesa location to have lunch since they had a restaurant. They gave us the menus, one side in Spanish and the other in something pretty close to English. I took a picture of it so you all can read over it. lol I wasn’t in a huge hurry, but Ashley started to get upset at how long we were having to wait. There were 2 waiters 3 tables of people. We waited 5—7 minutes for either of them to even leave the kitchen. At about 10 minutes Ashley stood up to leave and the waiter walked over right then On the menu all the amounts were in dollars, so when asked about paying in colones he told me 2000 colones, which is about $4 dollars. I gave him a funny look and he said 2000 colones again, so I paid. My meal was $6, unless the English menu was messed up. I had a hamburger, fries, and a coke—good ol’ American food. First hamburger I’ve had here.
After lunch, Ashley and I started to walk around the village going in a few of the tourist shops and such. During this whole time it was either pouring or sprinkling. In one of the shops I found a $10 necklace with a very cute wooden turtle pendent on it. Well, I though it was a necklace, but I’m not sure what it is. It’s too large to be a bracelet/anklet and too small to be a chocker/necklace. I haven’t found a way to adjust the length since the knots are glued. Oh well, I can switch I over to something else when I get home.
Since it was so hot, rainy, and muggy Ashley and I decided to go change into our bathing suits and take a walk on the beach. We did so and found that the beach had almost black sand, but it was very soft. Also no seashells. We were strongly advised against swimming since it was turtle laying season because sharks feed off the turtles, so there would be a higher percentage of sharks in the area. So no swimming for us, but we did take a good walk got pretty sandy and then headed to the restaurant hotel location, because they had a pool and some showers to wash off the sand. We waded around the pool a while and when it started to rain again. We got out of the pool and decided to walk around the other side of town a bit. Since we were in our bathing suits it didn’t matter if we got wet, so we enjoyed the feel of the rain while we looked around.
After that Ashley wanted to get in the pool again so we walked back over there. I decided to try and dry off a bit. Cindy came by and said that she would meet with the guide and that we could go get showers and eat dinner. (At 5:30 the guide was going to tell us what time slot we had for going turtle-watching) So we went back, got cleaned up and went to this local place to have dinner. On our way out I tripped over a big cement box that was right next to the path in front of our hotel (I’ve got a bad bruise and scratch from that) The guy who works as a security guard came out and shined a flashlight for us. Very kind. (One thing none of us brought was a flashlight, and that definitely is something that would have come in handy on this trip. Since the beach is a preserve for nesting there are very few street lights, and the light they do have are very dim.)
We came upon a place that wasn’t in the most tourist area and decided to eat there. As we walked in there was this big crab that walked past our feet. We sat down and ordered. Ashley got the dish of the day and I got a grilled chicken sandwich. After that we went back to the hotel to find that our A/C issue still hadn’t been fixed, so Ashley and I trekked over to the first location and found the owner and told her that, and she said she’d have someone over to fix it. 30 minutes later, no one. So we went back over there and told her again. This time she sent a guy with us. He came, didn’t even go up to our room and then told us he’d be back in 5 minutes. After 15 minutes, we had to leave because we had to meet up with our turtle-watching guides at 9:30pm because our time slot was 10-12.
So we met up with our 2 guides along with the group that we rode in the van with. We were squeezed into a small boat and were off. It got really dark really fast. No lights out here. One guide and half of the people were to get off at one location and then the others were to go to another location. It was pretty much pitch black save for our guides’ flashlights. They were looking for something in the wooded area to our right. They found it, but I couldn’t tell what it was. To boat was run up on the shore and the first 8 of us got off including me. I was handed a flashlight by the guide and told to walk in the middle of the group to help light the way. So we started walking on this tiny trail in the middle of the night. It was probably one of the more creepy things I’ve ever done. But soon we came upon a sheltered area where we sat down on a bench.
At Tortugero they have a very nifty system. Guides are assigned certain sections of the beach. Then there are turtle-spotters that walk the beaches looking for turtles. When they find one they radio back and tell the guides the exact location, and then we follow our guides to that location.
While we were waiting for our first call our guide was telling us that we might not get to see any turtles tonight because of the weather. (The whole time we had been out there it was lightening in the distance a lot and the sea was very rough) He was telling us that only the females that have to lay their eggs tonight would be coming ashore. After he finished that sentence we had the call that there was a turtle on section 24. So we started walking quickly over there. When we got to the path that led to the beach we had to turn off the flashlight and try to walk with the red light the guide had. We got out there and were told to wait a few minutes. We are not allowed to disturb a turtle while she’s making her nest we can only watch when she’s laying her eggs so we don’t scare her off. But since the sea was so rough it kept washing away this particular turtle’s nesting attempts so as soon as she began to creep back to the ocean the red flashlights came on and there she was. She got back in the ocean and was swept away by a wave. Our guide told us that she’d probably try again on another section of beach. So we headed back to the sheltered area and waited some more. We then got the call that there was another female attempting to nest at section 24. We got there just as she was starting back to the ocean. She had run into the same issue of not being able to make a nest. This female was much larger and appeared to be quite tired because she’d stop every little bit as she was heading back to the ocean. Btw, turtles make some pretty nifty tracks in the sand from what I could see.
After we saw this turtle our guide told us that we would not be able to see a female laying eggs tonight. Nesting takes a certain amount of time and we didn’t have that time left, so then we began walking back to the village. Even though we didn’t get to see a turtle laying eggs it was still awesome to see 2 turtles!
When we got back the night guard came up to us with a remote, and wala! The A/C all of a sudden worked. It felt great. We were quite hot and sweaty from all our trekking. Shortly there after I was asleep and didn’t get up until about 7am (which is pretty much sleeping in lol) Got up, got dressed and packed and then we went down to breakfast at the other location. It was quite good. The scrambled eggs were amazing! They weren’t slimy and they were cooked thoroughly (here apparently it’s the norm to cook scrambled eggs with milk in them which makes them more slimy) We also had gallo pinto, toast, and fruit. Very nice breakfast. After that Ashley and I walked around and took some pictures.
At one point while I was taking pictures I saw down on one of the hammocks. Right after I sat down an iguana (or similar reptile) came down the tree right near me. I jumped up and pulled out my camera to take pictures. While I was taking pictures another big lizard came down the tree! Then the iguana came down the tree and ran up another one. It was pretty spiffy!
After that I looked down at my legs and started to get worried about the bites I had gotten the day before. They were red, hot, and getting very very swollen. So I went to a place I thought had a pharmacy, but they told me they had no idea what to do, and that there was no medical type person on the whole island. The guide said it looked like an allergic reaction, so I took a benadryl. We got on the boat to head back and I kept an eye on them, they got even a bit more swollen. By the time we got back to San Jose the worst one was a swollen welt about 4” in diameter. One of the other ones was very swollen and was oozing, and the others were developing blister type things. After Ashley and I got our stuff put down in the house we walked over to the pharmacy nearby. The pharmacist appeared to know exactly what was going on from the questions she started asking me after seeing my leg. First question she asked was if we had been near a beach. She said it was a bad allergic reaction. I told her I had taken benadryl and gave her the bottle to read the type. So then she said I needed something stronger probably. So she gave me 4 days worth of Alegra and also gave me a stronger antihistamine cream. She also told me to take a benadryl with the Alegra. (this morning they’re still big and red, but it doesn’t appear to have swelled anymore) I have no idea what got me, but our guide thinks it might be what they call a Black Jacket. Whatever it is, I doubt we have ‘em at home which I’m glad of.
On the boat ride back to the port, it was actually a sunny day unlike the first day in which it rained most of the way there. So we got to see lots of other wildlife. We saw 2 crocodiles, howler monkeys, and a two-toed sloth. Very cool, got some good pictures too! At the port area we were served lunch of fish, beans and rice, and plantains. Then we got in the bus/van and headed back to San Jose.
After our pharmacy visit Ashley wanted to try to rent a movie. So we walked up the street to Planet Movies and she picked one out. Then since we aren’t natives we didn’t have a phone number, nor an address. We tried to find Gabi in the system, but there were too many Avalos Monges. So then the guy said he’d make an account for Ashley, but he needed an ID. Ashley didn’t have her ID, but I had my driver’s license. lol So I now have an account at a movie store in San Jose. I even got a card. lol
When we got back to the house Gabi’s eldest daughter, her husband, and 2 children were here….ugh. And one of the children spent the night! The 4ish year old boy is a huge spoiled brat. He’s rude as well. Complains. Has an attitude. He told Ashley that he didn’t want to talk to her because she was American. He told me I had a weird name. He kept opening the door to my room, going through my stuff. He started throwing a tantrum at breakfast and then blamed whatever started it on Ashley. Not fun. So Ashley and I are planning on spending the day in town.
Anyways, my trip to Tortugero was quite fun and I really enjoyed it other than the nasty bites that I got. One day I do want to see a turtle laying eggs though, or maybe see the babies hatching. Someday.
:-) Rek
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