When we were at ILE there were opportunities to take trips to various places around the country to see the sights. Since we had spent a total of 4 weeks vacationing in Costa Rica, we had seen many of the main sights that were close to San Jose. There were, however, a couple of things farther afield that we really wanted to do. One was to go see the turtles!! Their nesting season didn’t coincide with our previous vacations, so when the opportunity arose to take an excursion to see them last October, we decided to splurge.
There are no roads to Tortuguero, where the main turtle work happens in Costa Rica. So, after a microbus ride, we unloaded and got into a boat to take the canals up the coast. There was a lot of wildlife on the trip, so that was a big part of the excursion. We arrived late in the day to the resort (formerly an ecolodge, so take the word resort loosely!), and our guides told us that the trip to the beach to see the hatchlings would be delayed a bit because it was raining. We went to get hot cocoa, asking them to come get us when it was time to go. Well, somehow we didn’t get that communicated, and they went to the beach and saw many hatchlings making their way from their nests to the ocean while we enjoyed our hot cocoa and coffee! Fortunately, when we did go to the beach, we managed to find a nest that had a few stragglers still finding their way to the beach.
The next part of the tour was to go watch a mother make a nest. Around 9 pm we got in the boat to go up to another part of the beach. When we arrived, the guide told us we had to wait at the airstrip, while they went to find a mother. We waited and waited, and had to move under the cover of the small building of the airstrip when it started to rain. Abigail fell asleep on me on the concrete, and finally after about an hour and a half of waiting, the guide told us that we were going back. It was late in the season for laying eggs, and we just weren’t going to see that.
The next morning we were awakened early to the sound of howler monkeys. We headed out to the beach at dawn, hoping to see a mother finishing up, but we did not. We did, however, see the mother’s tracks, which were pretty cool themselves (as seen in photo above). After breakfast we took another tour of the rivers, and saw a lot of wildlife – including sloths, crocs, howler monkeys, a jesus christ lizard and a poison dart frog. We stopped at the town of Tortugera and the headquarters for the turtle preservation organization before making the long trek back to San Jose. It was an exhausting, but rewarding weekend.
The next morning we were awakened early to the sound of howler monkeys. We headed out to the beach at dawn, hoping to see a mother finishing up, but we did not. We did, however, see the mother’s tracks, which were pretty cool themselves (as seen in photo above). After breakfast we took another tour of the rivers, and saw a lot of wildlife – including sloths, crocs, howler monkeys, a jesus christ lizard and a poison dart frog. We stopped at the town of Tortugera and the headquarters for the turtle preservation organization before making the long trek back to San Jose. It was an exhausting, but rewarding weekend.
One other trip that I had always wanted to make was to the beaches of the Caribbean. So, once again, when we had the chance to go on a school trip in April to see that part of Costa Rica, we jumped at it. The last part of the trip is on unpaved road, but the weekend was spent relaxing at the beach, so it was quite nice. One of the great things about the school trips was that the girls had friends to play with while we were away. Abigail actually went on a different microbus than we did, so she could ride with one of her friends! John and I got to enjoy sitting on the beach chatting while the girls were happily playing.
In the end, I think we all decided that we liked the beaches on the Pacific Coast better, but it was a really enjoyable weekend, and I was glad to get to fulfill that dream as part of our year in Costa Rica. The only bad part about the weekend was that we got a bit too much sun even though we tried to stay off the beach during the middle of the day, and use a lot of sunscreen.
As usual, more photos at http://lafamiliamacy.shutterfly.com/