Saturday July 23, 2016

    Today we arrived at the Mawaba Lodge in Tortuguero on the Caribbean coast.  The route to get here was a tough one.  A 6 AM pickup at the hotel and loading of a large transport bus.  We went to many local hotels and picked up various travelers, all of which seemed to speak a different language. Costa Rica tends to attract a lot of Europeans, so German, French, Swiss, and the "Queen's English" are commonly heard.
    The bus ride was down the mountain and took about 3 hours.  We stopped for breakfast at an outdoor buffet that served traditional Costa Rican breakfast.  Rice and beans (gallo pinto), plantains, fried eggs, tortillas, and coffee.  Not bad.  Davis has fallen in love with gallo pinto and request it be served at every meal.  He is rarely disappointed.

Rice and Beans Boy

    There was a small trail near the restaurant that proved "gold."  One of Davis' goals was to observe a poison dart in the wild.  Mission accomplished.

Blue Jean Poison Dart Frog

Davis pointed out we should "avoid eating this frog"

Pretty stream near the trail.

    The last 40 minutes of the road was not paved.  Put-putting along, we finally made it to the dock along with 4 or 5 other busses.  We got our luggage and proceeded to the boat.  Boarding long boats that held 40ish people for a ride down the river.  The 1 hour 20 minute boat ride was uneventful.  Too long and our driver was definitely the slowest driver on the river.  At least 10 boats passed us up.  Usually not a big deal, but we were tired from a long day of travel and were anxious to get there.

Rio to Tortuguero

     Finally arriving at the lodge, we were greeted with a fresh tropical drink which wasn't bad, but it was a little hot.  The resident manager met us and organized us and assigned rooms.  I should have known the service at the lodge was a little below average when two things happened - the first was the phrase by the manager of the place "please realize this is a lodge and not a hotel."  Next, we were all asked to bring our own bags to the room.
    When we got to our room, I realized I have been in much nicer duck camps.  Two beds were present.  That's about it.  There was a fan attempting to circulate air, but failed.  I saw a speed control for the fan, already on the highest setting.  Mind you, it was HOT.  85 degrees, but felt like 105 degrees with the humidity.  I thought I was back home, but without the ability to go into an air conditioned house.  There wasn't even adequate room to put our luggage down.  No storage at all.  Pitiful.
    The lodge did have a nice pool for us to cool down.  A pina coloda succeeded in bring my body temperature and level of disappointment in the room down a little.  Lunch and dinner were served buffet style and reminded me of being at camp when I was a teenager.  Not bad, but nothing to write home about (oops, I just wrote home about it!).
    All of the discomforts were forgotten when we went on our night tour - the reason we came to this specific spot.  At 8pm, we met our guide, and with another family of 4, we were escorted to the beach area.  Park rangers were present and had identified giant green sea turtles starting to nest.  We could not observe them coming ashore or digging the hole as to not scare them.  Once the turtle begins to lay eggs, she will not stop.  The green sea turtle lays 120-130 eggs in a process that takes a total of 2 hours.  She digs a hole, lays eggs for 30ish minutes, then begins to cover them up.  She then digs a hole near the eggs to trick other animals into not finding the eggs.
    It was really incredible.  The guide used a special red light to view the turtle - the least stressful light to the animal.  The boys were smitten with awe.   This animal had a shell that measured just under a meter.  Naturalist with the park ranger service tag animals, record measurements, and mark the location of the area of the beach where the eggs are laid.  Pretty cool stuff.  Lights of any kind were prohibited.  No cell phones, cameras or any other sources of light were even allowed on your person.  Pretty strict, but all in the best interest of the turtle.  One of the most incredible natural sites I have ever seen.