Weekend at Tortuguero

This weekend, Beth, DeAnna, Katie, Christine, and I went to this small island off the Caribbean coast called Tortuguero. It's not the easiest place to get to. We started by taking a bus from San Jose to Cariari (about 2.5 hour ride)

where we transferred to a smaller bus for a ride along dirt roads to La Pavona (about 1 hour)

where we then get on a boat which takes us on an hour ride to the town of Tortuguero.

Luckily we made all our connections and so we made it to our hotel within 6 hours (I swear everything is 6 hours away from San Jose).

Tortuguero is a very small island. There are no cars. Only dirt walk ways. The Caribbean Ocean is on one side and if you walk about 50 yards you are at the other water's edge which is a river that runs through the National Park. Both waters are very brown and gross. The sand on the beach of the ocean is almost black. The waves were too rough to swim in (even though we broke the rules and went for a dip - see below). There weren't too many restaurants and even fewer bars/clubs (only 2 on the whole island).

 

  

 

We spent Friday afternoon just walking around the town and going to all the different little shops. To let you know how small the town is - we walked the entire thing in about an hour (that includes shopping). They had a lot of fun jewelry and I bought a bracelet, ring, and earrings. We checked out a few of the places to eat and that night we ate a Miss Junies. It was one of the first places on the island and had the typical Caribbean food.

Since the restaurant didn't open until 6 pm, we walked back home for a little rest and to get cleaned up. On the way back, Katie found a coconut that she was determined to crack. Back at the hotel, she found a guy with a machete who kindly cracked it open for her. We sat on the dock drinking coconut juice and eating fresh coconut while looking at a very atractive tico working 2 houses over. It was great!

At 8, we headed back to Miss Junies. I got marlin in a spicy coconut sauce. I quite enjoyed it.

  

 

The waiter took us around the restaurant to tell us about the history of Miss Junie. Unfortunately it was mainly all in Spanish so I didn't understand most of it. Oh well. But then the waiter started annoying us pretty badly. We came over and just started talking with us and hitting on us all. As we were wanting to leave, he was telling us that if we really wanted, our dinner would be free. But it wasn't - we had to pay. He also asked if we were going to the Karaoke bar that night and we said that we probably would (remember - only 2 places that are open past 9 pm). Then we left.

Well...you guessed it! He followed us to the bar and latched onto us like a lost puppy. He was sitting next to me and I was trying my best to ignore him, but it's hard to ignore someone tapping your back for too long. I got so fed up with him that I finally just got up and walked over to the other side of the table to talk with my friends. Then we moved to the bar and HE FOLLOWED US AGAIN!! I mean - get a hint man. No one wanted to talk to him and he asked each one of us if we wanted to dance and we ALL said NO! We didn't stay too long at the bar since they were playing crappy music. We heard the real party was at the other bar so we checked that out. There were maybe 5 people there so we walked in and then left. Needless to say...we were back in our room by 11 pm. It was probably best though since we had an early morning.

 

(notice the Diet Coke - that's me!)

Saturday morning, we woke up at 5:20 am to go on a tour of the park on a bus that left at 5:45 am. I don't know the last time I had been up at that hour and we all struggled getting out of bed. We were all pretty dead.

It was definitely hard to get up, but the tour was TOTALLY worth it! The tour guide was noted as one of the best tour guides on the island and I can tell you that he didn't disappoint. We hadn't been in the boat for more than 5 minutes, when Katie reached out to put this in Chris's hair:

She thought it was some sort of goo that she was going to use to play a chiste (joke) on Chris. Anyway...this frog is actually rarely seen in the wild because it is so good a camouflage and is indangered. However...it is seen on all the Costa Rica tourist crap since it's so bright and colorful. It was a great way to start of the tour. We had a feeling we would not go away disappointed now.

Here are some of the amazing animals that we saw while on our 3 hour boat ride through the Tortuguero National Park:

 

The great egrit (spelling?)

  

 Not sure what this is called - but it's cool

 

Monkeys!!!

(this is a white faced monkey - we also saw spider monkeys and howler monkeys - the 3 species of monkeys in Costa Rica)

  

A blue herin drying it's feathers

We also saw toucans, a sloth, parrots, other cool looking birds, and a jaguar. Hahaha! JK about the jaguar. We did see all the other stuff though. Our guide had seen jaguars there before - and crocodiles. But we weren't fortunate enough to stumble across either.

We did get caught in a major down pour though. February is supposed to be the dry month at Tortuguero, but yet it rained every day we were there. It rained sparatically (side note - that word always reminds me of Clueless) throughout the boat tour, but the last few minutes were the worst. Luckily we had these amazing rain ponchos.

 

  

After our wonderful tour, we went back to our hotel and crashed! I didn't sleep for too long, but it felt wonderful to just lay on my bed and read while everyone else slept. We all needed that nap/rest. When we all woke up, we went walking through the jungle of Tortuguero National Park. In order to go into the park, you have to wear rubber boots. They were HOT! It was amazing that 5 white girls sweaty & gross wearing rubber boots walking down the road still got whistled at.