Our final included trip for our final week of Spanish school was a night in Tortaguero on the edge of the national park. Tortuguero is on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, and consists of a small remote town surrounded by a protected wetland area. We had an early start from Puerto Viejo, leaving at 6am, stopping at Siquirres to have breakfast at the tour company’s base before boarding another minibus for an hour’s drive over a bumpy potholed road. We arrived at the dock and transferred to a boat for a 1.5 hour ride through the canals to reach the town of Tortaguero. This boat ride was part of the experience, stopping to view a crocodile en route and we also saw some fascinating birds and enjoyed the journey through the wetlands.
When we reached Tortaguero town a guide boarded the boat to tell both Alex and Sandra, another lady on the boat, that they’d be staying in Hotel Liah. It quickly became clear that Alex had been named as leader, not just for Alex and I but for the entire group of four of us which included Luisa and another Spanish school student Isis, a 20 year old Dutch girl, who we’d become friendly with during the week and who’d opted to join us for the weekend. Our guide escorted us to our hotel where we were offered either a room with two double beds or a room with a double bed and two bunks. While we’d been joking for the last 5 weeks about being a weird family I’m not sure any of us had expected it to extend to a family room, especially not Isis who had only just become our latest adoptee!
All of this was quickly forgotten however when we were warmly welcomed to the hotel by the owner and shown to the pool, bar and cafe which we immediately ordered lunch from, taking a swim while we waited. There wasn’t anything vegetarian on the menu, but the owner was more than happy to put together a ‘casado‘ for me with eggs and cheese in place of the meat.
After food and a relax by the pool, we reported back to the boat dock for our afternoon tour of the town. Last time I was in Tortaguero it was barely a settlement, I really just remember a sand road, a hostel and an upmarket hotel further up the beach, but in the intervening years it’s grown from maybe 300 people to nearly 2000 fueled by the growth in tourism. Our tour took in the main sites of the town including a walk down the beach to spot monkeys, a variety of birds, although despite searching, no sloths!
After the tour we explored the souvenir shops and, after returning the hotel to get ready, we went out to El Patio, a place that specialised in Caribbean food and had a view of the water.
The next morning was another early start, leaving the hotel at 05:45 for a morning ‘canoe’ through the backwaters. In reality the canoe was a small boat that accommodated our group of four plus a German couple and their two small children. The boat was powered by a small electric outboard motor and driven by our guide Roberto who came to life once we reached the canals, finding monkeys, Iguanas, three types of heron, interesting flowers, and countless other flora and fauna. He was obviously enthusiastic about the national park and keen to share his knowledge.
Towards the end of the tour we veered off the larger canals and Roberto switched to a paddle to take us through some tiny channels in the hunt for caiman. Caiman are small crocodiles and although the smallest appear to the untrained eye to be baby crocodiles, some can be as little as a metre long fully grown. After quite a lot of searching Roberto spotted a caiman in the water with just it’s snout exposed. We got to within a few metres, close enough to get some good photos and moved on. A few minutes later we saw another one sitting on some branches in the water and as a result fully visible. Both were very small but being able to get so close to these prehistoric creatures was a great experience and had been one of my enduring memories from the visit 21 years ago.
After some more wildlife spotting we returned to our hotel for breakfast. The chef had remembered that I was vegetarian and my scrambled eggs arrived without ham which was I grateful for!
After breakfast we had enough time to pack our bags and it was soon time to return to the boat for our trip back. The boat ride was followed by the minibus over the potholed road and we reached Siquirres with enough time to grab a quick lunch. This time our bus was not taking us to Puerto Viejo but to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, so we said goodbye to Isis who was returning to the Spanish school and Alex, Luisa and I loaded our luggage into the minibus for our transfer to the capital. Luisa had a flight to catch at 8pm and was understandably concerned about time especially as another group on the bus asked to stop at a supermarket. The other group turned out to be a group of (I think) Christian students from the US who were in Costa Rica to paint a church and we dropped them off soon after leaving only Luisa, Alex, myself and an Englishman called Jack who we quickly got talking to. Jack works in fresh produce and was visiting Costa Rica for work, taking an extra day at the weekend to go whitewater rafting. Our hostel was the first drop off in San Jose and by now we’d realised that Luisa should be in plenty of time for her flight so we gave Luisa a hug, said our goodbyes and waved as the minibus drove off with her and Jack onboard. Luisa later told us that when they got to Jack’s hotel, he waited with her until she was safely in her taxi which was very sweet of him.
Arriving in San Jose we were now really on our own for the first time since we arrived in Central America. We had a rough plan for the following week or so, but decided to take an extra day in San Jose to catch up with some admin and plan the next leg of our journey.