I waited in Belen for Felipes arrival for 2 days. Our first day we journied to san jose to take the bus to the carribean unfortunatly we missed it by 5 minutes so we had to stay in a scary hostel downtown. In the morning we bussed for 4 hours then took a 2 hour boat ride through the swamps to the small town of tortuguerro. This place is famous for the large amounts of nesting sea turtles. The first full day we rented a kayak at 6am and paddled are way into the estuaries of the park. It was beautiful old growth jungle filled with monkeys, flocks of parrots of all types , river turtles and crocodiles etc. We kayaked for about 6 hours and saw so much , at one point a green viper slithered froma small island onto my crotch area, when i flipped out and it did as well and swam to land.We also found a crocodile nest so i decided to take the oppurtunity to snorkel with the crocs. It seemed like a good idea but as i entered the murkey muddy waters and became engulfed by darkness and sludge and water creatures i had a panic attack of sorts.
That night we went on a turtle hike to the beach with a guide and watched giant green sea turtles lay their eggs in dug out nests on the beach. Theses turtles were atleast 400 lbs and were around 100 yrs old. It was magical to see these giants. We also found a giant hercules beetle and a very cute tarantula which i took the opportunity to pat.
After 2 days we took the ferry and bus back to san jose where we started the next leg of our journey.
