Tortuguero

To get to this small village, you have to take a good 1 1/2 boat ride. There are no cars here, everything is accessible by foot or bike. So our car stayed in a parking lot.

The small village is famous because every year the turtles come here and lay their eggs on the beach. We wanted to witness that. It is only allowed to go to the beach in the dark with a guide. Dark clothing is required. In addition, cell phones, cameras, and any light are strictly forbidden and very expensive if violated.

The turtles are disturbed by the light and cannot find their way back to the sea. Of course, on this tour, it is never guaranteed that you will actually see turtles, but we wanted to try our luck. So we were picked up late in the evening.

The cell phones hidden well in the room, unfortunately, there was no safe in our very basic accommodation. At this time, the green turtles, the second largest species in the world, come. So we stood with the guide in front of the sea and waited. There are so-called "trackers" on the beach, who are employees of the national park and have a kind of security mission. They check the guides' IDs again, search for the turtles at the sea, and pass on the information if they find any. Then the guides are allowed to approach with their group. Great care is taken not to disturb the turtles and that no one moves near the head of the animal. We were really lucky because it only took 10 minutes and we were allowed to go to the beach. There we found the turtle in its hole. The animal was over a meter long. We could watch directly as it laid its eggs. Suddenly, there were excited shouts 10 meters away from us. Some hatchlings had just hatched and were struggling to get to the sea. We accompanied them up to that point and cheered as the crabs below waited to eat them. But they successfully passed by. The giant turtle buried her eggs and then went towards the sea again. Of course, the heavyweight did not move so fast and needed a break now and then. Then it disappeared into the waves of the sea and a little further away, the next giant turtle slowly emerged from the sea.

Out of 1000 turtles, only 1% survive.

That was a wonderful result, even though we unfortunately don't have any pictures as a memento.

The next day we were already on our way back. We had a long drive ahead of us. So we sat in the boat and waited for it to start. Yet we were approached by dolphins and they swam alongside us... so occasionally we are lucky too.😊 We drove along the Caribbean Sea for another good 3 hours. Towards our last accommodation in Costa Rica.