Sloths in the garden and at night in the jungle - Tortugero National Park

On the second day we were picked up from our hotel early, although it wasn't quite as early as originally planned: the bus broke down and a replacement vehicle had to be found, which delayed our departure by about an hour.

Luckily our hotel had breakfast early so we were able to wait full. On the way there was a stop for a second breakfast, where we tried the traditional dish “rice with beans”. It tasted better than expected for breakfast...

We then continued for about 90 minutes by bus towards the Caribbean coast.

To get to our lodge at Tortugero National Park, we then got on a boat.

On the way we saw a crocodile lying on the bank.

After a boat ride of just over an hour, we reached Mawamba Lodge.

It is located directly on a section of the beach where sea turtles lay their eggs - but unfortunately not at this time of year.

We still took a quick look at the beach later. We didn't see any turtles, but we did see several birds that were obviously finding something to eat in the sand that had just been hit by a sea wave. As soon as the water receded, they quickly ran there and pecked at the sand, then hastily retreated as soon as the sea returned.

In the afternoon there was a guided tour of the lodge's garden.

The guide explained to us that the main thing we should do to see animals in Costa Rica is to look up.

He also showed us an unusual example of this in a tree: two porcupines were sleeping there. However, they were barely visible between the leaves.

During the tour we also saw three sloths (actually 2.5 because one could only be guessed at).

One of the animals even moved up the tree at a slow pace, which is not something you see very often.

There was a small boa sitting in a tree, which we would probably never have discovered without expert guidance.

We were also able to spot a very pretty iguana on one of the trees.

Since the sun sets early, we started the “night tour” shortly afterwards, which started at 5:30 p.m.

Nevertheless, it quickly became dark after we took the boat to a short circular hiking trail.

We set out to discover smaller nocturnal animals.

For example, we saw grasshoppers, crabs, a poisonous snake and grasshoppers.

We also encountered several cane toads that traveled from South America to other parts of the world and caused great damage there.

The very small (approx. 2 cm) frogs, which have almost transparent skin, were particularly difficult to discover.

At the end of the path we saw a bullfrog that had sat on our path.

After so many impressions of the first day in Costa Rica and the somewhat short nights, we went to bed early in order to be fit again for the early boat tour before breakfast.