19-21 June - Tortuguero

Tortuguero is an isolated national park on the North Caribbean coast, which is only accessible by boat or air. This area is known as Costa Rica´s "mini-amazon", and more particularly for the large groups of loggerhead, green sea and leatherback turtles that nest here annually.

We were lucky enough to run into Victor, who works there. He held the boat for us, and we enjoyed the 3-hour trip by boat through close canals surrounded by rainforest, even seeing a crocodile on the way up (and back) along with a lovely sunset mirrored in the still waters of the canals. We also picked up Emily and Mark from an isolated town along the canal, a lovely dutch/english couple we spent much of the next few days with.

We enjoyed a 3-hour canal cruise, which included being soaked, but was enjoyably punctuated by some local narrative on the wildlife. Pity the wildlife was at home keeping warm and dry, unlike us! We chilled through the day, then went out at night with a different tour guide to see a nesting Green Sea Turtle, she was laying a good 60-80 soft-shelled ping-pong sized eggs, then covering it up with her hind flippers... it´s actually quite amazing to see in real life. Turtles are big.

Next morning cruised out again along a fast-flowing river, and were deposited on the doorstep of a banana plantation, unsure of when a `connecting` bus was going to show up. Uneventful trip into San Jose, we´re now here planning a couple of volcano visits, hikes and dives.

Costa Rica really does spoil you for choice.