Tortuguero - where the turtles live

When we arrived in Tortuguero after about 1 hour of boat, we walked around the small village. There was one street with many shops for tourists, places where they selled tours and various restaurants and coffee shops. As we were walking it started to rain. It wasnt just raindrops it felt like a waterfall above our heads, so we hid in a café and drank a cocktail. I had a ginger cucumber lemon vodka tonic and Noah drank some crazy banana coco loco. We went to bed quite early that night because we had to be ready for the next day! Our alarm was set for 5:12 am, because at 5:45 we had to be ready at the reception for our canoe tour through the Tortuguero Nationalpark. We had actually expected Kayaks but Canoes were okay too since we didnt have to workout that much then:) The tour was very interesting we saw many monkeys, birds, iguanas, jesus christ lizards, more birds, more iguanas, some caimans and we even saw a small sea turtle. We only saw its head, nevertheless it was my highlight. Funfact: the jesus christ turtle got his name because due to its velocity and the shape of its feet it can run on water for a short distance. After the tour Noah had to do some stuff for university and was really tired, so he read and slept for a while and I enjoyed the time I had on my own. First I made breakfast and was entertained by a cute little cat miauing and jumping on the table all the time, then I walked around the village. I walked to one end until I got to the supermarket and bought some food, which I wanted to bring home first before walking on. on the way back somehow I ended up on the beach. As I was walking I found a coconut and decided to try to open it up to see if there was coconut water in it. I felt like Tarzan once again but was happy when I got to drink the fresh water came out. I went back to the Aracari Garden Hostel, left the groceries and walked on. At this point I have to say that the hostel we booked was really nice. Just like it says in its name, they have a huge garden with hammocks and tables, an outdoor kitchen and nice private rooms. I walked back to the village, this time in the other direction. I was a bit thirsty so I got a smoothie and talked with the owners of the place for while. Since I didnt want to drink it while I was walking, I sat down in a small park and soom some children, all boys, came up to me and asked me if I wanted to buy a bracelet they had made. I couldnt say no so I tried one on but it was too small, so I asked them if they could make it bigger and sat down next to them. They talked to me, asked me where I was from and told me they were between 7 and 9 years old and lived in Tortuguero. They wanted to earn some money so them and their friends could all have a picknick together. When I asked them what they wanted to eat they started telling me about delicious cookies, cakes, bread, crackers, fruit, sweets and it made me really happy just to listen to them and watch them. I think it is just beautiful how grateful they are for such simple things. European children would probably buy some online games with their money. But it seems like children here just have a completely different attitude towards certain things. I could feel their appreciation and it warmed my heart. Later on I went to the seaturtle conservacy center, which was kind of a museum and they let me watch a very interesting movie about the seaturtles in Tortuguero, about how everything had started and had been built up by the biologist Archie Carr, and about the current projects. I also visited the second part of the museum where they explained certain characteristics of seaturtles and especially talked about them being at risk of extinction because of global warming and most of all, human impact. After I left I went back to the hostel where Noah was waiting and we went to the Tortuguero Nationalpark Trail. I was tired of walking to be honest but still we did the 5 kilometres in our boots we had to rent because the path was very muddy at some points. Afterwards we went to the Buddah Café again and I had a Cocktail and Noah ate something between lunch and dinner, it was a whole meal though. We watched the sunset, sitting at a really good spot, on beach chairs right at the river on the café’s terrace. At night at 10pm after real dinner, we went on a turtle tour and got to see seaturtles nesting, laying eggs, covering the nest and making their way back to the sea. It was a lot of waiting because tourists were just allowed to see some specific parts of the process, they tried to let the turtles as undisturbed as possible, which I thought was great. At first we were worried it would be a bit of a tourist trap, but then after seeing the turtles we were proved wrong. The next morning i prepared Porridge with fresh fruits and Granola for myself and we left for La Pavona with the boat. At some point during the ride the waves got high and water came into the boat. Noah got pretty wet and so did the backpacks and suitcases at the bottom of the boat. Luckily our stuff was on top. Noah tought it was really funny:)Read more