Today we hired a shuttle to take us to Tortuguero. We were picked up in the morning for the seven hour journey. We hired the shuttle because the public buses would take at least twelve hours. The shuttle drove us for around five hours through bumpy and often unpaved roads. Our shuttle dropped us off at La Geest a tiny town on the Rio Suerie river. Our stop was on a private property owned by the banana plantation that surrounded us. Our shuttle driver spoke no English and the two other passengers that shared the shuttle with us and they spoke even less Spanish than us (Yes it´s possible, one asked Shelley what ´´Bueno´´ meant). Anyways he drove off and it was unclear how long we would need to wait at the river. While waiting I tried my hand at harvesting a coconut. It took ten minutes but I got to the center and enjoyed a wonderful snack. We also got some great shots of Jesus Christ lizards named for their defense mechanism of running on their two hind legs across water.
Our boat arrived and we headed towards Tortuguero. This boat journey was one of the most scenic rides we have ever been on. It took one and a half hours through the rain forest rivers and finally to a huge beautiful canal. The boat driver pointed left stating that was the way to Nicaragua and right would bring us to Tortuguero. Once in town we quickly realized we needed to know more Spanish. We did manage to book a room, a tour, and get directions to the beach. Tonight we did the most amazing tour of our life, we saw gigantic Green Sea Turtles nesting at night on the beach. We were the only two in our small group that did speak Spanish well enough to understand the basic tour, so the guide pulled us aside from time to time to tell us what she had just told everyone else in Spanish. She guided us in a single file line by her tiny red LED flash light (most of the time she just left it off though). The first turtle we encountered was laying eggs we could get very close (about 2 feet away).
The second turtle that we saw was filling in a hole of eggs she had just laid. We could see many other turtles on the beach in the moon light. We were both very impressed at how professional the tour was. It was conducted by park rangers who forbid flashlights and cameras on the beach. We had our guide and then four other rangers on the beach protecting the turtles to make sure no one tripped over one. The turtles are very sensitive to light and it is believed that a single flash from a camera could prevent a turtle from returning. On the walk back we found toads! The first amphibians of the trip!
