Tortuguero

This morning I visited the Tortuguero village which has an entrance to the national park and like I already wrote in another post, can be reached only by boat or airplane.

Formerly they hunted for turtles, jaguars and so on here, because of their skin, but nowadays it is sustained almost entirely by eco-tourism.

The population is estimated at around 1200-1500 and the word "Tortuguero" can be translated as "Land of Turtles". The village is situated on a sand bar island, separated from the mainland by Tortuguero River and bordering the Caribbean Sea. Tortuguero is renowned for its navigable canals that run through the rainforest in the national park, and has such earned the nickname of "Central America's Amazon".

So this afternoon I will go through this canals by boat.

The beaches around Tortuguero are key nesting sites for four species of sea turtle, including two critically endangered species. The ocean here can be dangerous to swim in due to rough surf and strong currents.

So no swimming neither in the canals due to the crocodile nor in the sea due to the the strong currents...Read more