South for the Summer: Tortuguero!

We went to Tortuguero - an island and National Park on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. This was my favorite trip! We took about a three hour bus ride, then had to get off the bus and get on a boat in order to get to where we were staying! We were on the boat for about 3 and half hours - it was about a 50K trip, but we were also stopping to see birds, monkeys and other wildlife that we encountered along the way!

This was our boat - the Francesca.

Tortuguero protects 22 miles of beach where sea turtles come to lay their eggs. These turtles only come out of the water once a year to come on land and make their nests. They return to the sea without ever looking back, and the baby turltes later hatch and make their way across the beach to the water. We weren't there during the egg-laying season, but we got to watch an informational video about it!

Traveling down the river - it ran parallel to the Caribbean Sea.

We finally saw some monkeys, which pleased many aboard the boat, but especially Christine and Jonny. I learned that monkeys travel in troops! Which made me think of girl scouts, and seeing these little guys with vests on selling cookies.

We stayed at Laguna Lodge - which was really cool! The architecture and designs of everything reminded me of Gaudi, the architect of La Sagrada Familia, which is still in progress in Barcelona, Spain. As soon as we got off the boat they gave us cool towels and a glass of some mixed fruit juice.

Our rooms were literally a two minute walk from this black sand beach. We couldn't swim becuase the water was too rough and the currents too strong, but I stepped in the Caribbean Sea!

Since we were on the eastern coast of the country, we decided it was logical to try and see the sunrise. We got up at 4:45am, but it was a little cloudy...