We are on the move again and hug the coastline northward. In this region there is no Uber, so our host asked a neighbor if he would drive us the hour north to make some cash on a Sunday morning. Let’s just say the car was in such a beat up shape we were glad we got to the port in Limón on time!
Limón is the main Costa Rican Caribbean port, whereas Puntarenas is the Pacific one and between them they handle the export of all the bananas and pineapples. You see hundreds if not thousands of Dole containers each one with their integrated AC waiting for their loads.
Our little part of the harbour in Moin only serves local traffic to Tortuguero through an intricate system of rivers and canals.
The distance is around 80 km, our speed was very variable. In the beginning we went slowly because the river arms were narrow, then there were some faster passages, but sometimes the water was so shallow that we had to navigate carefully. Every so often we would join a big river and see impressive ocean waves breaking just to the right of us at the mouth, then rejoin a canal or smaller stream back into the jungle.
The good part about going slow is that you can see and enjoy more of nature.
But speed is exhilarating, when we went with nearly 40 km/h or 25 knots.
Chris let her hair blow freely in the breeze.
Our lodge looks nice and is only 50m from the ocean, so close we can hear the surf breaking, unfortunately the room is small and pretty dark.
So we will have to spend more time outside.
Tortuguero, or “turtle town”, is famous for being the prime turtle nesting place, where around 20.000 turtles crawl up the beach every year to lay their eggs.
Unfortunately, it is not turtle season, so we will miss that. Nowadays with the higher number of tourists but also because of other endangering factors it is not so simple to see turtles.
In the old days you could just go down the beach and wait for one appearing out of the ocean, slowly making their way up, digging a hole and then laying their eggs. After finishing this, they close up the hole and return to sea.
With the increased number of tourists this is now not allowed anymore and you have to go in an allotted timeslot, with a guide, flashlights and cameras are also not allowed anymore.
But humans are not the only things that endanger the nesting process. Of any 100 hatched turtle babies only 2 make it to adulthood. The others are dug up by racoons, picked up by vultures on their way to the sea or eaten by fish or seals, who literally patrol the turtle nesting stretches of the beach in hatching season, as soon as they are in the water.
To tilt the scale here, there is a massive program running, where volunteers patrol the beach, dig up nesting sites and relocate eggs to safe nesting places. And as soon as the little turtles think it is time, they are safely guided to the sea. Then they are on their own, but I am sure this has a huge impact on the total number of surviving turtles.
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