We started on a little island called Tortuguero. It's a long thin island on the Caribbean coast that is separated from the mainland by a river. We took a bus from San Juan to the mouth of the river, and then rode in a river boat for an hour or so to get to where we were staying.
This is a view from our resort!
That evening we went into the town, which has one street that is 1 km long, but it was raining so hard I didn't even bring my camera and so we have no pictures. No one has cars in this town, just boats, and all of the houses (and even some of the sidewalks) are up on stilts.
That night we went to the beach to see the baby turtles come out. We got lucky and did get to see them, but it was raining really hard still and I didn't get any pictures of that either. After that, we were waiting for the restaurant to open and our guide brought us over to his frog pond and showed us all the frogs! The frogs were super happy because of the rain...they were making so much noise and they sounded like ducks!
The next morning, we did two different river tours. For the first one we had to get up at 5 am to go and come back before breakfast. We got lucky because it had finally stopped raining and we got to see so many different animals! Then we went back to the hotel and got the rest of the people to go down the river the other way.
Three-Toed Sloth
Iguana Yellow-Crowned Night Heron
Howler Monkey
I'm not sure who this guy is but I spotted him and think he's so pretty!
They can run on water! Look carefully-he looks like a branch!
Anhinga- they are fishers but their wings have no oil so they have
to dry them after diving in the water
Iguana Great Green Macaw
Spider Monkey!
Ringed Kingfisher
This part of the river had tannins in it from the tree roots. In the picture on the left you can see it mixing with the other river water. On the right you can see it turns into a mirror basically.
Amazonian Kingfishers
This Cayman wanted us to leave him alone!
After we got back I was so tired I took a nap:
Then we went to a jaguar presentation- apparently they love it here because they eat the momma turtles who come to lay eggs on the beach. Our guide was friends with a scientist who was studying them and he shared some of her pictures that she had taken using a motion sensor camera.
After, we went back out to the beach in search of more baby turtles. This time the weather was much nicer...there wasn't even a little rain and I was able to take some pictures of them! Unfortunately they move really fast and the light wasn't fabulous so the pictures aren't fantastic....
Unfortunately a hurricane came and we were in a danger zone so the next morning they evacuated the island. Some of the islanders came with us but many stayed there. I'm not sure how much of an impact the hurricane had on them but I know that the whole island flooded.
Check the posts for Part 2-La Fortuna and Part 3-Manuel Antonio!
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