Tortuguero

To get to Tortuguero we had to take 2 separate chicken buses past huge stretches of banana plantations followed by a motor boat ride through a brown, crocodile infested river surrounded by lush fields and amongst jungle foliage.  The town of Tortuguero itself is quite small, consisting of a concrete sidewalk as the main highway through town with smaller offshooting dirt paths forming the more minor streets of town.

Our first evening in Tortuguero we participated in the viewing of a large leatherback turtle laying her eggs.  The experience was both entrhalling and aggravating.  On a typical day there are many turtles that drag themselves up along the sand to dig their holes and lay their eggs.  However, it happened to be near the end of the turle-laying season, so there was one lone turtle doing her thing.  So three groups of paying customers, totalling approximately 30 people, crowded around one solo turtle to observe the amazing natural process.  The turtle was quite disturbed by all the attention and commotion and began to scramble down to the water before completing her egg-laying process, dropping eggs in a line as she ran down the beach.  The conservationists fortunately retrieved the eggs and placed them gently in the whole, then burried them for the frightened turtle.  However, part of their process also involved measuring and tagging the turtle meaning they stopped her and held her and turned her around and covered her eyes and pinched and prodded her before finally releasing her to the ocean.  The poor thing was clearly aggravated by the experience.

Next, we were also very lucky to be present when the eggs in a nearby hole began to hatch and tiny baby turtles began scampering down the sand towards the tumbling ocean.  30 people did their best to crowd around and get the best view of the little critters getting much too close for comfort and making me fear that at least one of the little guys would get trampled.  One ignorant tourist even went so far as to poke one of the babies.  At this point, Carlos, Kendra and I became pretty upset and uncomfortable about being part of the experience that clearly disturbs the turtles, and sat back at a distance trying to debrief ourselves and get a little comfort from one of the volunteer conservationists who insisted that while it is disturbing, the tagged turtles return from year to year and the disruption is much less than that of poaching.  We all agreed silently to never be a part of something like this again.

After the observation session we lay a sheet out at the beach and took in the beautiful ocean scenery beneath the full-moon, until we got kicked off the beach, being informed that it was actually illegal to be on the beach after sunset since it was part of a national park and could disturb the turtle laying process.  Sheesh, I´m pretty sure us sitting quietly on the beach was less disturbing than 30 people surrounding and gawking at one nervous turtle.  Since the fresh air was much more  comfortable than our stuffy hotel room we camped out on the lawn in front of our hotel under a tiny mosquito net and were awoken by a beautiful pink sunrise over the carribean ocean.

We retreated to our room shortly after sunrise to catch a couple more hours of rest, then ventured out excitedly to explore the "Tortuguero National Park," a series of rivers and channels gliding through the jungle.  We rented a canoe at a very reasonable price, thanks to the charismatic negotiating skills of our fluent-Spanish speaking Carlos, and spent the day paddling upstream while enjoying the tranquil jungle sounds of birds, tree frogs, turtles leaping into the river, monkeys jumping from tree to tree, crickets chriping, and the water lapping gently all around us.  The day was one of the most peaceful I have ever experienced.  Once we were relatively tired of paddling upstream we all lay back in the canoe, rested our tired arms and faced the jungle canopy above us, then let the slow current nuzzle us back downstream.  When our movements were halted by a tree branch or a curve in the stream we would take turns paddling calmly to reengage the movement downstream, then return to our relaxed position.  It was beautiful to observe so much jungle life and feel completely unobstructive or undisturbing of the natural order and we were grateful for having taken the quiet canoe rather than the noisy grumbling motorboat.