BootsnAll Travel Network



Planes, Trains and Automobiles to Tortuguero

We decided to go out to Tortuguero, a national park on the northern Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.  It’s a national park that is home to 4 different species of turtles, and the area is supposedly full of wildlife.  There are a lot of tours packages that take you out to Tortuguero.  They are expensive and we were not willing to spend a lot of money to get out there.  I had done a lot of reading on how get to Tortuguero independently.  It isn’t all that far, but it is relatively hard to get there since the park is actually only accessible by dirt roads and then a boat.  In the end it took us a 2 hour drive, an hour bus ride and then another hour long boat ride to get to Tortuguero and cost us only $10.00/person.  When we got there we wanted to line up a boat trip to go look at the wildlife: monkeys, sloths, birds, manatees, etc and spend a few days exploring the area.

 

In the reading I did about Tortuguero I also heard it is one of the worst malaria regions.  I was the master packer for this trip and picked the perfect clothes for us all.  William and Matthias have pants with zipper legs, so they would be cool during the day and covered up in the night.  For Julian and myself I packed light cotton clothing so we could cover up in the evenings.  We all had one pair of shoes that would be perfect for small hikes in the turtle reserve and stable enough for traveling by boat and bus.  We were totally informed and prepared for a couple of days in Tortuguero.  Or so I though.

What I didn’t prepare for was torrential rains.  We didn’t see a single mosquito in Tortuguero – probably because they were all hiding in their homes from the torrential rains.  I first started to realize I was unprepared when we got on the boat and everyone had rain ponchos, long pants and coats on.  We were all in shorts, tank tops and sandals.  Once we got off in Tortuguero Village we walked to a hotel, got settled and decided to start exploring the town.  At that point it was lightly sprinkling.  We went for a walk on the beach and were hoping to see some turtles.  It’s sort of the “off-season” for turtles but some people had told us we might see a few baby turtles on the beach.  Well, we didn’t see any turtles.  Suddenly it started pouring, and was showing no signs of letting up.  We sat in a restaurant and all had something to drink, but after a while we decided to just run back to the hotel as fast as we could.  By the time we ran the 50 meters back to our hotel room we were all soaked down to our underwear.

One thing we’ve learned about humid climates is that wet clothes in high humidity don’t dry quickly, and they start to smell fast.  There is a really rank smell that creeps in after about 24 hours and (luckily) we’re accustomed to it.  All my clothes were wet and stank, and the humidity in our room was making all our dry clothes slightly moist as well.  That’s when Matthias said “One night in this place and we’re out of here.”  It was kind of heartbreaking because it was such an ordeal to get out there, and I still had so much promise of it being really amazing.  But the rains were so heavy, it was impossible to do anything but sit in our hotel room and complain about how much it was raining.  There was a 2 km loop through the reserve where you are nearly guaranteed to see monkey and birds.  It would have been perfect for us with the kids.  2km is a great distance because even if they refuse to walk, Matthias and I can each take a kid on our shoulders and carry them the entire way.  But the trails were so flooded and muddy that they wouldn’t let anyone out unless they were wearing rubber boots.  So much for packing the perfect shoes.  Disappointed that this outing didn’t turn out like I had hoped, I gave in and we decided to take the 11:30 boat back. 

Matthias agreed to watch the kids until the boat left so I could go on the 2km loop by myself.  I ran through town, rented some boots, bought a rain poncho ($1.60 for a glorified garbage bag) and raced out to the trail.  It was actually more frightening than fun.  The first 400 meters were fine and clearly marked.  I knew a section of the trail was along the beach and then went back into the jungle.  But of course, there was no sign anywhere, no people and there were a zillion trails leading off the beach.  I had to be back by 11:20 at the latest in order to make the boat.  I had seen one trail that was a little more developed than the others, so after walking for about 10 minutes past that trail I finally turned back and followed it back into the woods, hoping it was right.  The section of the trail was even muddier and more flooded.  My boots kept sticking in the mud and at times there was no more trail, just water.  I was alone and it was dark since the jungle can be really thick.  And guess how many monkeys I saw.  Zero.  Guess how many birds I saw.  Zero.  Do you want to know why?  Because they are all not even half a stupid as I am and they don’t go out in that weather either.  

GoGoBootHiker     CrankyGermanFedUpWithTheRain

Despite the rest of the trip being a bust, the boat ride out to Tortuguero was worth the entire trip.  The boats are narrow (2 seats wide) and long (15 seats long).  We drove along a narrow river surrounded by dense jungle.  The boats are very tipsy, and they sit so low on the water that at times you are sitting at a 45 degree angle just inches from the water.  Most of the river was brown from all the rain, but in the densest parts the water was black – not much light gets through and the rain doesn’t fall there and stir up the water.  Normally they scream down this river, but occasionally they slow down to avoid trees or other obstacles in the river.  Luckily they passed out rain ponchos so we were able to stay fairly dry. 



Tags: , , , ,

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *