Our party of 11 on this tour of Costa Rica gathered together in the hotel foyer at 5:45 am. That sounds horrendously early for a holiday but due to jet lag both Maggi and I had woken before five. A quick shower and a little yoga and we arrived downstairs early.
Met our first fellow travellers Janette and Martin from the Scottish Borders. For them this tour is only one stage of a multi-centre trip in Latin America. I’m excited and get on the bus and to head to our first destination.
We left our hotel and then picked up more passengers in 3 further stops that took ¾ hour. Finally we left San Jose and its dirty streets and journey out into the countryside. All the time we climbed until we reached the continental divide. We entered a tunnel and on the other side 85,000 hectares of pristine cloud forest. The road descended on the only road through the forest for an hour.
At the bottom we arrived out our breakfast destination with another couple of coach loads. Rice and beans plus eggs and plantain made up the cooked food. Plain but nice.
Soon after leaving our stop the road deteriorated and turned into a semi-made up road. This slowed our progress. In front of us a bus, behind us a bus, we belonged to a tourist trail. This became even more obvious when we arrived at the boat dock. 6 coaches and hundreds of people all heading towards Tortuguero National Park.
There is only one way to get to Tortugeuro and that is by boat. They loaded our suitcases onto the small boat and we headed along the waterway to the hotel. On the way we were lucky enough to see a young crocodile basking on a log.
When we arrived at our accommodation two swans greeted us sitting on the bed. The rooms were fairly basic but comfortable enough.
In the afternoon we took short trip over to the village of Tortugeuro and paid our dues to watch a short video about the turtles that come ashore to bury their eggs every year. We then walked along the beach, craned our necks to look at the vultures circling above who searched for baby turtles heading towards the sea. and then walked around the village. I indulged in a coconut loco, which consists to an opened coconut laced with some local fire brew poured into the shell. You are then given a straw to suck out the concoction. It was OK.
In the evening we tucked ourselves in bed early after our very early start.