Dec. 2-3 Tortuguero National Park-Costa Rica-Rainforests, Volcanoes and Wildlife with Go Ahead Tours

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Two-toed Sloth, Tortuguero, Costa Rica.
More photos: CLICK HERE

Costa Rica-where the people say PURA VIDA (good life). It's a stunning country; they have beaches, surfing, rainforests, mountains, cloud forests, volcanoes and such incredible biodiversity-it was magnificent, a biologist's dream trip!

We traveled to this Central American Country with EF Go Ahead Tours. (We've traveled with them to six previous destinations: Italy, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand, Great Britain, and Spain). They offer large and small group tours. We flew out of Boston on American Airlines on Friday, December 2 thorough Miami to San Jose, Costa Rica. After a long day of travel we arrived at our hotel the Crown Plaza Corbici around 9:30 p.m.

It was a fairly upscale hotel in the center of San Jose. Unfortunately, Saturday night the hotel was hosting a school graduation AND Roger Waters was performing in the stadium near the hotel. As you can imagine-it was quite noisy.

Our adventure began, Monday, December 3 with our luggage outside our hotel door at 6AM (brutal) followed by breakfast buffet and lobby call for 7 AM.

We loaded up the bus and headed to Tortuguero for our boat ride to our lodge for the next couple of days. Leaving San Jose we saw some pretty views of the surrounding mountains.

We stopped for a comfort stop and to stretch our legs and were treated to some very beautiful flowers.

In the town of Siguirres, we cross the railroad tracks that were laid originally in the late 1800s by the Keith brothers-Henry and Minor for transportation of bananas to the coastal port of Limon then on to Europe.



We met up with our "water taxi/bus" at Caño Blano for our hour long boat ride to the Evergreen Lodge.


Along the way we start to see reptiles, birds and domestic cattle.

This is a Caiman that our boat driver, Carlos, spotted, not an alligator or a crocodile.


This is a Crocodile that was on the lawn of a lodge along the river. It's snout is very different from the caiman's above.


These cattle are Brahmans-originally brought to Costa Rica from India.

Making our way along the river we enter the Tortuguero National Park and see the manatee protected watershed.


It's hot and humid, we are truly on a jungle river tour.



The Evergreen Lodge Dock comes into view and we head to our room then to the restaurant for a buffet lunch.

After lunch we hop aboard our board for a trip to the town of Tortuguero. We take note of the dock sign, not that we'd swim in the brown water (heavy rain runoff-we're visiting just outside the rainy season). 


Our destination is a stop at the Sea Turtle Conservancy Center. Just a quick walk around then a walk along the black sand beach where sea turtles lay their eggs every year. During nesting season, an average, 30,000 female green sea turtles nest in Tortuguero.



We spot our first Scarlet Macaws eating almonds. 


We walk along the beach where the sea turtles nest and I dip my toes into the warm Caribbean Sea.


As we turn off the beach to head into town, someone spots a two-toed sloth in a tree and everyone gathers to watch this strange creature making it's way among the branches. It's a Sloth version of Tai Chi.



Back in our boat and back to the lodge for a quick rest before our welcome group meeting then buffet dinner.


The lodge is very basic and rustic, you really cannot drink the tap water but the restaurant and bars have potable water. The mosquitoes were a bit vicious but bug spray helps.


Next up: A boat tour of Tortuguero National Park then an afternoon kayak in the park.

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