Once we crossed the border of Nicaragua into Costa Rica, we hopped on a, what was supposed to be, 4 hour bus ride but actually was closer to 7, towards San Jose. Lucky for Joe and I, our tardiness bought us the 2 best seats in the bus where we could stretch out our longer than life legs. The scenery in Costa Rica was noticably much more lush and dense with wild jungle. It was the most beautiful bus ride we had taken. We swirved around and through cloud forests, zipped by small towns in the middle of nowhere and were pleased to see little to no trash on the roadsides, a view we had become very accustomed to in other Central American countries.
We arrived into San Jose at night and it the middle of a heavy heavy rain shower. We pulled up to a corner just loaded with people and as we walked off the bus we were advised by a few locals to basically get the hell out of there as soon as we could. Not the safest part of town. As I waited for Joe to get our bags I was approached by several rather busted ass looking ladies with no teeth offering me a taxi. Yea, right.
There happened to be another traveler on board with us, Joanna, who would soon become our travel buddy. The 3 of us jumped into a cab and gave a sigh of relief to be out of there. We opted to spend the night at a quite famous and way too big hostel. San Jose appeared much more industrialized than any other capital in this region and much much more appealing for travelers, with large well known hotels everywhere.
The next morning we had another long day of bus rides. The 3 of us then met Mariake, from Holland, and she joined our group. Sorry if I spelled your name wrong, Mariake, haha. In order to get to Tortuguero, we had to take a few buses to a boat. The boat dock was in the middle of a large organic farm plantation and made a very interesting bus ride. We then had to take a 2 hour boat ride through the jungle with animals such as mokeys and crocodiles sharing our path. Yikes. The river was really shallow considering the time of year, and the boat engine kept getting sand caught in it. At one point all the boys on the boat had to hop out in the shin deep water and push the boat.
Tortuguero is literally in the middle of nowhere. No roads lead to this town\National Park. You can only arrive by boat and there are no cars or roads in the town. It is just surrounded by jungle and a river on one side and the fierce ocean on the other. Tortuguero is famous for all the Sea Turtles that come each year to the beach to lay their eggs. The government made it a National Park and protected area years back in order to prevent the extinction of all the species of turtles that come to shoer each year. The locals belive that the turtle eggs act like a natural form of VIAGRA, so you can imagine how many they left on the beach to hatch. Ha.
The thing to do there is go on a midnight hike along the pitch black beach (that is lined by jungle and Jaguars live there)to find turtles coming up the beach to lay their eggs. Sadly, we did not see any. Not the season. We walking many kilometers on the sand and saw nothing. Hiking on a beach in the middle of the night is quite interesting though and our tour guide was good fun. Joe tried again the following night but also had no luck.
Our last day we all went on a canoe tour through the canals of the jungle. Our tour guide showed us handfuls of animals such as howler monkeys, white faced monkeys, spider monkeys, iguanas, crocs, lots of birds including toucans, and huge spiders. I think the best part of the trip was watching Ricardo (the guide) look for animals. Eyes like a Hawk, I have no idea how he spotted these animals.
So we left Tortuguero and took a 4 hour boat ride down the coast of Costa Rica to a small Rasta beach town called Cahuita. The rain was terrible so one night there was suffice.
We are currently in Bocas del Torro, Panama. It is a cluster of islands near the border of Costa Rica and Panama. It is a Carribean paradise here. More about that later...
