Tortuguero Village and National Park
Saturday, December 15th, 2007Tortuguero village is small and rambling, with no cars. it is, in my experience, like many afro-carib communities where families blend and take care of each other and the entire family structure evolves very differently than in the US. one can walk the village in about 15 minutes.
One side of the village is on the river, it’s life-blood, the other side on a tumultuous, shark-infested part of the Caribbean coast. when looking at a map I was naturally drawn to accommodations on the beach, but the riparian world of tortuguero is far more interesting and I was glad to have the shady dock at casa marbella to hang out on. For hours I could watch the small boats come and go, the dense forest crowding the canals and the birds that skirt its edges.
the first morning I took a small, motorized boat along with some other casa guests with daryl as a guide. It was a great overview of the park and its the eco-system and we saw lots of wildlife – including the 3 local species of monkeys: howler, spider and white-faced capuchin.
Later, sarah, andrew and dave (of Vancouver), a lovely dutch couple and i took the hike thru a section of the park near the village. We had quite a monkey encounter with the spider and howler monkeys!! Rubber boots are mandatory (verified at park entrance) and are provided by casa marbella. Part of the hike is on the beach where discarded sea turtle eggs abound. Tortuguero, if you haven’t guessed, is named so because it is a turtle nesting ground (tortuga being turtle in Spanish). The previous evening we were able to see a lone baby turtle, just hatched and waddling to the ocean. Talk about an amazing solo-journey!! There are 8 species of sea turtles in the world, 6 of which nest in costa rica , 4 off those in tortuguero.
The next morning I chose to explore the river/canals in a “man-powered” canoe. Alexander, the man powering the canoe with his oars, was an amazing guide and earned my new name for him, Alexander the great! He grew up near the border with Nicaragua and knew all the birds by ear. This allows him to keep his eyes peeled for what he hears and allowed me to see a flock of great green macaws, a highly endangered species. I took this canoe trip with the Roth family from LA, led by Barbara. She and her children are down here for the second time delivering boxes and boxes of school supplies to needy schools in small villages like tortuguero. Kudos!
On my third afternoon I took a sola walk thru the park near the village and had yet another amazing monkey encounter. This one left me with the distinct impression that I was being tracked by a group of howler monkeys. They were getting so close and surrounding me!! I was able to put all the monkey-movie-plots out of my head and enjoy the walk anyway. This time I also wore long pants tucked into my rubber boots to protect my calves which ended up rubbed raw from the boots after my previous hike ☹.
Good restaurants: miss miriam’s for Caribbean fare, villa casona for the same (good food but only had ½ of the menu and took forever – but that’s the carib vibe ☺) – both of those are along-side the soccer field. and GREAT pizza and fruit shakes at budda café – a lovely spot on the river with nice (tho not tico) ambiance and music.
Since I was heading down the carib coast from tortuguero I took the boat to moin (outside of Limon on the coast), which uses a man-made canal, sort of like a mini inter-coastal. There’s an office in tortuguero to buy tickets near the main boat-spot in town (I call it that cuz there is no dock for water-taxis). Best get a ticket and catch the boat upstream (not past the main boat-spot) since it can get full despite the “reservation system”. I flagged it down from casa marbella and was the first one on. It’s 3.5 hours long and flies by due to the lovely scenery but costs a rather pricey $30. I grabbed a taxi with 3 other travelers from the dock in moin to the bus terminal in limon ($2 a piece) and grabbed a bus to cahuita from there (about $1.30).
i’m only providing some of this info, like prices, in case other central american travelers find it helpful :). onto cahuita!
Peggy Rehm