San José - Tortuguero (day 2)

Buenos dias! Today is our first full day in Costa Rica. The day started really early (and hectical), we should have been picked up at 6:20 AM at the hotel and the breakfast started at 6:00 AM... short amount of time for a quick breakfast! Well, forget it... we served some food on our plate and just wanted to take a seat at a table but then our tourguide had arrived, 15 minutes too early! So quickly putting the spread on the sandwich and drink (in a plastic cup) in one hand and the luggage in the other hand, that's how we walked to the touringcar! Now we're heading towards the Eastern part of the country (the Caribbean part), but first we picked up some other people at other hotels in San José.

After an hour driving we arrived at a restaurant where we had part two of our breakfast (this time we had 40 minutes to eat) and there was a butterfly garden, so we checked that out as well. When the 40 minutes had passed, we continued our way, 1,5 hours driving until we arrived at a place where we changed transport: we swapped the touringcar for some sort of ramped up tour boat (just as you'll know them from the Amsterdam canals). At full speed we navigated over the river, which later turned out to be a sideriver. Because the river merged into the lagoon, where also the eco-lodge where we will be staying for the next 2 nights. On our way we came across some wildlife, but no caiman unfortunately. We did see some birds, a iguana and a lizard. Once we arrived at the lodge (which is constructed in Gaudi style with a lot of mosaic artworks) we got a briefing at the "batcave", an open building where there is a collection of bats in a corner. At this briefing we got an explanation about the rest of the program for today and the very busy program of tomorrow. Finally we were told who got which room number (the keys were already in the doorlocks). Now we had an hour for ourselves and with this sauna-kind of temperatures I enjoyed the fan in my room. At 15:00 PM we had to gather again at the docks, because we we're going for a walking through a nearby village, so we could see something about the local life. Upon arrival the tourguide told the history abouth the the region (Tortuguero) and the history of it. It turned out that the original inhabitants used to hunt on turtles and other animals living in the area. Later on in history there came a person who thought it's not right to hunt on these animals, so he made them into protected animals and founded the National Park as it is to this day. Tortuguero is by the way only accessible by boat. After this story we started our walking tour through the village that took us via the main road to the Caribbean Sea and via the cemetery (where only the village oldest are buried) right next to a football field, towards the commercial road. Here were people selling coconuts, but there was also an artist who created small pieces of art (in the shape of a turtle for example) from almond shells. During this walk we saw a swarm of macaws, brown storks and birds of prey flying over. At the end of the tour we got back in the boat and returned to the lodge. The rest of the evening we had some time of, so we took a refreshing dive in the swimmingpool right in front of our lodges. That was really nice! After that we freshned up again and went to the bar for a drink (it was still too early for dinner, that's only beeing served from 19:00 PM on. Once it was time we had some dinner (at the bar there was live music by a duo that played for one of the guests which is his birthday, so they played a birthday-song and later on they played limbodance and musical chairs). After dinner we were really tired and above all we had to be ready again at 5:15 AM. Becasuse then we will be doing a wake-up tour. This means wildlife spotting in the early morning when the animals are waking up (the animals are slower in the morning so they won't flee that fast and so it's easier to take pictures of them). So I'm gonna sleep quickly now, despite it's only 21:00 PM now, but I have to say I'm qutie thrilled knowing that nocturnal animals around here come to life at night while I'm sleeping. For example whilewriting this article I'm hearing (what I think is) coconuts falling on the metal roofs of the houses nextdoor, that really makes loud bangs! Besides that the rain is pouring from the sky right now, despite the beautiful weather we had all day long (quite unusual as I understood). Adios for now, tomorow another adventure! Now I have to quickly post this, before the power cuts down again...

Day 1

Travel overview

Day 3