We spent the rest of Christmas Eve in strip mall heaven ( if there is such a thing …) Our hotel was close to the airport, hence a bit of the way out of town. Inertia and stunned body clocks after 24 hours on the move decided the agenda, so we stayed local rather than heading into the city.
Keen to help reset our body clocks we went for a walk in the sunlight, ending up at a Walmart about a kilometre down the road. Interesting place – as is often the case in places that may otherwise seem outwardly familiar, when you look closely some differences emerge. For example, we were reassured to see Walmart taking firearms sales seriously. There is absolutely no way any random person can buy a firearm there….unless they meet the high bar of being 18 years old and having photo identification.
It was interesting to see Australia’s favourite export’s Mum as a Christmas garden lamp manufactured in China being sold at a discount in a US store.
We also found out where Australia’s other famous export 😉 ended up:
Ribs , tacos and more margaritas for dinner and we were done.
Christmas Day
We were up early for the shuttle back to DFW as our San Jose flight departed at 10 and we were unsure of what the situation with crowds and security would be. It turned out to be very smooth and we were in the American Airlines Flagship lounge by 0830. Mark was in plane spotter heaven with the view of one of the aprons and runways. The glass of Xmas Bolly we were offered on entry helped the mood!
After an uneventful departure and a smooth flight over the Gulf we tracked over a bit of Mexico 🇲🇽, Guatemala 🇬🇹 , Honduras 🇭🇳 and Nicaragua 🇳🇮 before landing early in Costa Rica 🇨🇷. We then had airport fun for a while.
The distance from our gate to the other side of the immigration gate was around 250 metres if walked directly. There were so many simultaneous aircraft arrivals that the arrivals hall was heaving. It took 30 minutes just to get to the arrivals hall and another 90 minutes through an endless series of chicanes to get to the immigration desk. To give you an idea of the situation, Mark’s Garmin recorded 7,900 steps between leaving the aircraft and the immigration gate.
San Jose
Our transfer driver was waiting and a smooth run into our accommodation followed. The rest of the evening was spent in pre- tour briefings, meeting our guide and six travel companions and repacking to leave behind in San Jose stuff we wouldn’t need until Mexico in a few weeks time. And another margarita – somewhat disappointingly normal sized ( it appears that everything is indeed bigger in Texas).
San Jose to Tortuguero
We were up early for coffee and first breakfast before piling in the minibus for the drive to our first destination. San Jose is in the so-called ‘central valleys’ of Costa Rica, wedged between two (volcanic) mountain ranges at around 1000m AMSL. We were heading across ( through) the eastern range and down to eastern ( Caribbean) lowlands. Our destination was the Turtle Beach Lodge in the remote North Eastern corner of the country in the Tortuguero National Park. The journey takes between 3-4 hours, depending on traffic and ends with an hour long-ish boat ride as Tortuguero is only accessible by boat or air.
After stopping for coffee and second breakfast ( this tour was seemingly designed by a Hobbit) we were driving through the outskirts of a small town when the driver slammed on the brakes and pulled over. Our guide had spotted a sloth!
This was a three toed sloth. Fun fact, apparently all sloths have three toes – the phalange difference between the three toed and the two toed sloths is an apparently the ‘fingers’ on their forearms.
After another hour-ish of driving through fields of bananas, pineapples , papayas, cassava ( manioc) and some beef cattle we arrived at the river head and transferred to our boat.
Some things seen along the way:
The lodge is called ‘Turtle Lodge’ reflecting the fact that between roughly May and October each year four species of sea turtle – the Leatherback, Green , Loggerhead and Hawksbill come from all over the Caribbean to nest along this 30 km stretch of coast. All of these species are endangered in some way, some are on the critical list.
After lunch and a little rest it was back in the boat for a spin to the village of Tortuguero itself, on an isthmus between a lagoon and the sea. ‘Tortuguero’ effectively means ‘turtle town’ or region in Espanol.
The village is quite small, with a focus on turtle tourism now and the adjacent national park. Previously, and especially during the colonial period, the focus had been on clubbing, eating and exporting turtles to the US, Canada and UK.. with predictable results for the turtle population. At the same time US logging companies were smashing the life out of the adjacent rainforest to get a lot of exotic hardwoods such as mahogany.
This all came to an end in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s as they started to run out of both turtles and suitable trees. The focus then turned to conservation of both and the national park was established.
Two pictures of ‘Cutter’ ants follow. These ants cut up leaves and take them back to their nest. They don’t eat the leaves – they masticate them and turn them into to food for fungi that they feed … they then eat the fungi. Essentially, these ants are mushroom farmers!
We also went to the sea turtle conservation centre and had a great briefing on the turtles and the conservation program from an informative and enthusiastic local researcher
After the turtle briefing it was back in the boat for a run in the dark back to lodge, dinner and bed.
During the night there was an epic deluge – very common on the eastern side of the ranges / country , hence all the rainforest….
We were up early ( 0500) for a ‘game spotting’ open boat trip through the waterways. Mark ended up staying ‘home’ as he had a delicate stomach and a small open boat with eight others isn’t the best place to have an exploding butt.
After a late breakfast ( and Mark’s recovery) we went a very muddy but fascinating guided walk through the rainforest, having the ecosystem explained by one of the guides.
Incredible skills for an amphibian to use a poison dart, right ? Turns out this little red frog excretes a toxin to make it unpalatable to predators. The local indigenous folks would wipe their blowpipe darts with this toxin and use it to stun / kill prey.
We also saw a small group of Broadbill Herons nesting over a creek.
Ness’ and Mark’s Wandering 