Tortuguero Day 1

Up at 5am and we walked to meet our tour group in town. The weather was a little tempestuous, thunder, lightening and rain. Once we had checked in we were told we’d be a little late leaving due to the weather. Eventually it was time to set off. We climbed into the wobbly canoe 🛶 and set of into the wetlands in the rain.

The rain eased during the trip and we saw lots of things:
Howler monkeys
Spider monkeys
Small anteater in a tree
Small cayman
Bats
Green ibis
Tiger heron
Northern Jacana
Keel bill toucan
Yellow throated Toucan
Green macaw 🦜

We made it back just in time for breakfast and then popped out to book a turtle tour for tonight and a night walk for tomorrow.

We relaxed during the heat of the day. Around 4.30pm we went to find out which turtle tour we were going to be on.

We were fortunate to be selected for the early tour and we got a bonus boat ride to our sector. We sat on the (closed) runway watching the fireflies and lighting in the distance listening to our guide. The stars were out, the promise of a green turtle laying eggs (closely supervised to protect the turtles)ahead. Our group is called, we walk 2 or 3 minutes through a ‘forest’ to the beach and the storm hits as soon as my feet touch the sand.

And I mean storm, full tropical storm. Strong winds, torrential rain, sand blowing into us, thunder, lightning. The rain is hurting it’s so heavy. And all in the pitch black because no light is allowed to protect the turtles.

The guide failed to give us much information. We just picked up that it was too dangerous to go back through the forest because of falling branches, we couldn’t cross the beach because of turtles and logs. We just had to stand there and feel the full effects of nature.

We hear the guide tell us that there’s a turtle 10 minutes away digging, we will wait until she starts laying. Ok, 10 minutes across the beach looks rough and Simon tells me there’s holes everywhere, he thinks it looks rough ( the lighting keeps illuminating it).

After a long, wet time the guide comes back and says he’s seen the turtle but the National Park say it’s too dangerous ( falling branches etc) and it’s closed. But, unless we all agree to leave he will ignore that and stay! Some of us voted leave, some of us voted stay.

He leads us to the turtle 10 METRES away. We’d been standing next to it for an hour!

It was huge and beautiful and in a deep hole laying eggs. We saw her for about 30 seconds before being dashed out of there.

No pictures because no cameras or lights allowed but an experience was definitely had.

Back in town the power was out so we finally got to use our torches 🔦 to find our way back to the hotel.Les mer