My last weekend in Costa Rica

Well, this was my final "fin de semana" in Costa Rica. I went to Tortuguero, which is on the Caribbean side of the country to the north. It was another GREAT trip! First we went to a banana plantation, which was quite interesting. The "recinas" are really big - 80-82 pounds of bananas (110-120) on one cluster. With machetes, the workers cut bunches off and put them in water to clean them. The plant I went to also shipped some to a factory that makes baby food (Gerber, I believe, but here the company is called Frutas). After cleaning and inspecting them, they get put in the boxes that you see in the stores and get shipped primarily to the U.S. and Europe.

How do you like this Rhinosaurus beetle? That's one BIG BUG!!

Next we went on a boat ride in Tortuguero. The canals of Tortuguero are REALLY long! We saw Roseate Spoonbills (the only pink bird in C.R.), and a beautiful bird called a Northern Jacana that has big "toes" so it can walk on the water plants on the river . Our hotel was called Evergreen and had beautiful cabañas (cabins). I just loved this place!

After lunch, we went to an area for shopping (always!) and then went back to the hotel to wait until the turtle walk that night. Tortuguero is known for the turtles that come back to nest. This is the beginning of the high season for the green turtle (tortuga). Our tour didn't start until around 10 and then we walked for what seemed to be hours and hours. The good thing was that we were rewarded with being able to see two! You walk behind the beach on a trail with only a few flashlights. Once you get on the beach, only the guide is permited to carry a flashlight and it is red so as not to disturb the turtles. The first turtle we saw was busy covering her nest with sand. Then we walked another good distance and were able to see a turtle actually laying her eggs. She makes a deep hole, lays the eggs, covers it up, then often makes another hole so as to confuse any predators. They lay about 100 eggs at a time and the turtles are really big. I couldn't take any pictures, because they don't want to do anything to disturb them, but it was really interesting. We didn't get back until 12:30 or 1:00 and then after a shower, Katherine and I went out to do some stargazing for a few minutes. What a great day!

Baby crocodiles

We met a nice man from Bogotá, Columbia on this tour. We were able to speak with him in Spanish and most of the time we understood each other just fine, which was pretty cool. On Sunday, we took another boat ride on the canals of Tortuguero and saw more monkeys, birds, iguanas, and some baby crocodiles. On the walk afterwards, we saw snakes, lizards, birds, and other animals and on the beach we saw the tracks of the giant turtles and also of a jaguar! What a great last weekend!