Visit to Matias, the journey to Tortuguero, and the conclusion in San Jose

We ended our last day in Vulano Arenal with a coffee tour at Matias', who gives a small, sympathetic tour of his work.

Although he does not have his coffee farm in La Fortuna because it is too low for quality coffee beans, we got a lot of information about how he does his work and, above all, how we notice the qualitative differences. In addition, there are now trees that we planted ourselves 😊

Although he advertises his business (of course), it is far less touristy and commercial than probably all the coffee tours that have offers on every corner.

We liked it, we found it sympathetic (especially that it's actually in a kind of garage 😅), and we would recommend his tour to anyone.

If you feel like it, you can simply google Down to Earth Coffee 😊 we also took two more packs with us to further expand our coffee skills.

After the tour, we continued to make a stop in Puerto Viejo at the Sarapiqui River, where many rafting tours are offered.

Unfortunately, the hotel was not ours, so after one night we decided to continue towards Tortuguero National Park and make the next stop in Guápiles. A hub for bananas, 1 hour from the La Pavona boat dock and still close to Braulio Carrillo National Park.

After the not so clean hotel, we were also happy to see a well-kept facility with a gym 😊. At that moment, it was just right for us to relax by the pool for an afternoon in the national park, then get some exercise.

Rested and refreshed, we set off early to Tortuguero the next morning, also a bit excited about the car ride to La Pavona, whether everything works with the parking, how the boat ride goes, and what the national park has in store for us.

As soon as we arrived, several men approached us, saying that a boat is leaving and with which one we want to go. After reading that the hunters in front of the boats also want to sell tickets and tours for Tortuguero, I was initially skeptical 🤔😅

In the end, we just followed other tourists and locals, and then we felt more comfortable.

The ride was wonderful, in the early morning we could already see some iguanas and caimans. It was a lot for €5 👍

The closer we got to Tortuguero, the more we could see the nature that was waiting for us.

As soon as we landed in the town of Tortuguero, people came up to us to guide us to our accommodation.

Sunset Rooms was located at the end of the town (but the town is really not big) and had only a few rooms. We had the largest one, and in the evenings we could enjoy the sunset at the bar. Some of you may have already seen the pictures 😝

Since we arrived in Tortuguero very early (8 a.m.) and the day was sunny, we first got an overview of the town, had breakfast, and then spent the day at the beach. The water was really pleasant, the waves were high, and the sandy beach with the palm trees was simply relaxing. It had to be done 🙃

In the evening, we had white wine, watched the sunset, and had a good dinner at a local "soda" during happy hour.

With white wine, we also decided to do a canoe tour the next morning, which our accommodation booked for us. The bartender must remember how many joints he smoked that night 😂

But right on time for the next morning, the rain caught up with us again (well, rainforest... who would have thought...), so we decided not to go on the canoe tour during the downpour. We hadn't paid yet. At first, we were sad about the situation and especially that the rain stopped right on time for the tour, but then we broke out for breakfast to think about alternatives.

The day constantly brought us a mix of rain, sunshine, rain, clouds, downpours, etc., but we still used the day to take a walk on the beach (it's also fun to keep hiding under palm trees) and visited the Sea Turtle Conservancy, which is quite small but provides a lot of information about the work with the turtles and the effort they put into increasing the number of turtles, preserving them, and protecting them.

The name Tortuguero comes from turtles in Spanish, so you quickly realize that everything in the town and the region revolves around turtles nesting here and the little babies returning to the sea. Unfortunately, we missed the time from September to November when you can take tours in the evening and observe the turtles nesting.

In addition, you can become a sponsor for a turtle 😅 so if you feel like it,

it costs $30 and you get information for a year about where it is and which way it is swimming.

In addition, you can track the turtles in general on the Sea Turtle Conservancy website to see where they are and the route they have taken.

Mega interesting for all turtle lovers 🥰

In the evening, we went out again to look for a canoe tour and then came across Tortuguero Adventures.

It was the price difference between the tours offered to us at the "harbor" and the price of Tortuguero Adventures that made us curious, so we wanted to hear the offer.

In the end, Deyber convinced us, and we booked the tour for the next day (Thursday) at 6 a.m. The cool thing was that there were only two of us and only Deyber. So it was a private tour for us.

We were super excited and the next day (with another downpour at 5:30) we headed to the office of Tortuguero Adventures, where Deyber greeted us with cookies and coffee.

The boat was filled with ponchos, binoculars, and us, and the weather looked promising and much better than the day before.

Before we set off, all the boats from the other providers passed by, some of them with 10 people on board. So it was worth it 🙃

The canoe tour was really cool, Deyber explained a lot to us about the animals and nature, and took us to places that we probably wouldn't have explored with a kayak alone because we wouldn't have dared.

In total, it lasted 3 1/2 hours, and afterwards, we were able to borrow rubber boots for the national park, which we also explored.

I slowly got an eye for the animals, and we found two more sloths, an iguana in a tree, and at the end, green parrots that are unfortunately endangered. Really cool!

Satisfied and full of information, we unfortunately headed towards San Jose to slowly make our way back home...

The route took us through the highlands again (it was a cool view with mist and evening sun), and we booked the hotel we already had when we arrived.

So our last day was spent in the capital of Costa Rica.

We can confirm all opinions that the city is definitely not a must-do, but still, it is interesting in its own way.

The city center is totally crazy with lots of small shops where you can buy EVERYTHING, in between there are some nice cafes, and if you go deep enough, you will find super nice neighborhoods with bars, restaurants, and cafes.

Just totally crazy... one person even wanted to pay for his coffee with felt-tip pens 😂

So now we are going back home with new experiences, knowledge, impressions, and plans 😊