Tortuguero

All-diddly-right-skis, it turns out I'm bad at blogging.  Or lazy.  Probably lazy.  But in my defense, I did try to blog on Sunday night when our group got home from Tortuguero, but the interwebz was being all wonky.  Anyhoo, this post is going to be about Tortuguero, the national park area our group went to this last weekend (the 30th and 1st), and the pictures of which I have already uploaded HERE.

Y'all, Tortuguero was awesome frosted with amazing with a side of kick-ass.  Definitely the kind of place that, when one thinks of Costa Rica, this is what they imagine.  The travel part to get there was kind of pain and included a lovely 35 km of gravel road in a huge tour bus with an hour-and-a-half boat ride to our lodge, but it was worth the leg cramps and slight seasickness.

The Tortuguero national park is a rainforest near the sea, of which I posted an info link in (one of) my previous blog(s).  The sea isn't the gorgeous Caribbean that you're probably thinking of with the white sands and azul waters, though.  Our guide told us that if we tried to swim here we might very well be swept away.  Or eaten by sharks.  Most likely both, I would guess.  It looked like the Oregon coast.  You know, except for the palm trees and coconuts.

Beach at the Pueblo of Tortuguero

Our lodgings were basically what would make people say, "This is what paradise is like."  They were little hut-like buildings in the middle of the forest, so we saw large lizards in trees, heard howler monkeys (or some kind of boar, I never really got the definitive word) screaming in the morning, that kind of thing.  There was a little pool, a little bar, wifi in the direct vicinity of the reception building.

The view from the door of my room at Pachira Lodge

The best parts really were the animal-y parts.  Saturday night we went on a turtle watching tour.  Apparently, turtle watching season had literally just started, like, the day before.  We crossed the lagoon at about 930PM on a lancha and hung out on an airport runway while the guide explained a bit about the turtles.  After about 30 minutes (40?  I don't know) our other guide, who had gone off to wander about the beach in search of turtles, called to us to hurry up and get ourselves to the beach.  We scampered down the beach, and I got there just in time to see an enormous green turtle scuttling into the surf.  Wow.  Then we got to see two more.  One scootching to the sea, and one just finishing its egg-laying business then off to the sea it went.  The moon was almost full, and though the sky was clear where we were, there were clouds and lightning out over the sea, and the whole evening really was amazing.  I'm sure someone with better wordcrafting skills could write poems or novellas about it.

In the morning, we woke up bright and early to go on a canal tour by boat, which was basically an animal watching adventure.

Our group on the way to see some wildlife

 It poured buckets on us just as we started the tour, but luckily, the tour included ponchos.  We still got wet.  Once into the canals, the rain eased up, and we saw iguanas, caimans, toucans (and loads of other birds), one sloth high up in a tree, two different species of monkeys, and one of the biggest ugliest spiders I have ever seen.  Then, as we were returning to the lodge, it decided to rain like crazy again.  And it's so humid here in Costa Rica, so I pretty much did not dry out all day.  It was just an amazing experience all around, rain and bugs and motion sickness and all.

Someday, I might get better at conclusions, but until that day, hasta luego!