I arrived in San Jose on Tuesday 20th July, after 14 hours flying with 2 changes , in Chicago and Miami. There was no problem with the changes, but I did panic slightly at check in when my American electronic visa didn´t work. After two more tries it worked, but it left me a little stressed and with not much time to spare, despite arriving at the airport in plenty of time!

Anyway, I basically got some much needed sleep at my hotel in San Jose, before being picked up at 6.20am on Wednesday, for my 4 day trip to Tortuguero National Park. It took quite a while to get there, as the usual, more direct road, was closed. To start with probably about 6 hours by mini bus, with a stop for breakfast and also a stop at a banana plantation to find out how the banana business works, which was interesting and gets you thinking about where our bananas come from! Some lovely scenery, including a smoking volcano, but I missed some of it due to dozing off! After the bus ride, we boarded our boat for the 2 hour boat ride to our lodge, Turtle beach Lodge, which was north of the village of Tortuguero. The area of Tortuguero can be reached only by boat, and is made up of waterways and canals. The waterways are surrounded by forest and monkeys and birds can be, and were, spotted.

On arrival at our very beautiful lodge we had lunch then got our rooms. The lodge is set in a fantastic position, the canals on one side, beach on the other. That´s why I picked this one! The rooms were grouped together in fours and had mosquito netting in place of windows so the sounds of the forest on one side and waves on the other filled the room.
First activity was a short walk in the forest. Finally found some wellies I could wear (ie that fit me!), which were needed because it was pretty muddy and we set off with our guide. The highlight of this walk was seeing a baby spider monkey playing in the trees not far above us! Very cute! After this it was around 5pm and was time to relax. I wandered to the beach and sat there and enjoyed a nice breeze,I havent mentioned yet how hot and humid it was there, it was very hot and humid! Dinner, buffet style, was at 7 (very nice food at the lodge) then I went to bed, 1) I was very jetlagged and 2) had to get up at 5am the following day for a wildlife spotting boat tour!

In the morning I was disappointed to hear that one of the leatherback turtle nests of eggs had hatched and that people had been able to see the babies coming out. I consoled myself with the fact I´d seen something very similar whilst in Mexico, although that had been at a conservation centre, not in the wild. Anyway, we set off on our 3 hour boat tour and we saw various birds and both howler and spider monkeys, and lizards, which they say can walk on water! After the tour and breakfast it was time to make a trip into the village, a 25 minute boat ride away. First stop was the carribean conservation centre, where they are working to protect the turtles and we watched a very informative video of how they came to start protecting and monitoring them, as they had become endangered by people harvesting them for their meat and shells. Next stop was a wander through town, which was quiet small, one main sandy street going through, no cars obviously since it can only be reached by boat. I watched a man pulling a cart full of soft drink bottles, when he couldnt pull it over a bump several men came to help and some people were cycling. It was too hot to do anything than have a short walk then sit with a cold ´refresco´ (soft drink) and people watch . It was then back to the lodge and after lunch and a much needed dip in the beautiful turtle-shaped pool, I went and lay on the beach, in the shade, very relaxing! Some volunteers involved in the turtle conservation came to look at the nest from last night, i just watched from a distance as they were pulling out all the turtles that didnt quite make it out to the surface and the ones which didnt hatch, I know it´s natural but was also a little sad.

The evening was the highlight of the trip to Tortuguero, a night watching tour to see the turtles come up and lay their eggs on the beach. The Leatherback- egg laying season is over, it´s now the Green Turtles´ time. The tours are well organised and they limit the number of people on the beach at any one time, and torches and cameras are banned so as to cause least stress for the turtles. They have guides and turtle spotters who let the guides know when a turtle has been spotted in your group´s allocated area. You can never garantee it as it´s nature after all, but were were lucky enough to see a turtle laying her eggs, they were almost like ping pong balls, but a little bigger and she just kept laying and laying them, typically they lay 80 to 100 eggs. Although we didn´t get to see her digging her hole in the sand, which would have been interesting as it really was a really big hole, we did get to see her covering them up, using only her two back flippers.The whole process must be pretty tiring for them and takes around a hour. We saw two turtles going back down the beach back into the water and another going up onto the beach. All in all it was a great experience and was top of my list of thing I wanted to see/do in Costa Rica. However on return to the lodge at about midnight we discovered that the second leatherback turtle nest was hatching and I got to see lots of baby turtles slowly making their way down the sand to the sea. The lodge staff helped them out as apparently the eggs had been re-nested by some of the conservation people, but not in great loication and there were roots where the baby turtles were trying to get out. They counted about 40 that came out. They are so tiny and survival rate isn´t great, but hopefully some will survive. I think it´s amazing that turtles return to the beach where they were born to lay their eggs in the future! We were really lucky to have this experience, as it wouldn´t be usual to have nests on the lodge´s beach and that they hatched while we were there was very lucky.

On Friday morning the other 7 people in my group left but I´d booked an extra day, knowing I´d not have had much chance to relax and wanting to enjoy the surroundings. I was out sunbathing at 9am, but was too hot by 9.30! Alternated between pool and sunbathing for about 90 minutes but then I just had to go in the shade. After lunch I went on the beach in the shade as it was a bit cooler with a nice sea breeze. Despite my best efforts to avoid it, I got a bit sunburnt :-( I fell asleep really early on Friday evening, partly still catching up on sleep but partly the heat just takes it out of you, as it really is so hot!
It did rain in the night, heavy rain, but not for that long and that was the only rain I´ve had so far, which is pretty good considering it´s the rainy season and I expected rain every day. Let´s hope I´ve not spoken too soon! Though actually a little rain might be refreshing from this humidity!

So that brings me to today, Saturday 25th. Rather than take the transfer back to San Jose I came further along the caribbean coast to a little town called Cahuita. The lodge and guide recommended getting Interbus, which is a service for mostly tourists, but it was $40! To get local buses it would only cost about $8 (2 buses and a taxi inbetween stations) so I braved it, ha ha! After the boat and some of the bus ride they dropped me at the bus station in Siquirres. It all went fine, just a shame it was so hot and it was a fairly long travel day 8.30-4. The hotel I booked didn´t have a pool as it stated in the Lonely Planet, so I went in search of one with a pool. Found one and could have jumped in fully clothed I was that hot! I did have a quick dip then went for an early dinner, very nice prawns carribean style, just a shame I forgot to put mosquito repellant on as got bitten quite a few times. Not 100% sure on my plans til my tour starts on 29th July back in San Jose, but think I may take a walk in the coastal national park tomorrow, which is the main reason I stopped in Cahuita then head off down the coast on Monday, we´ll see....but so far, so good. It´s been a great first 4 days here!