Costa Rica: Tortuguero

Jessica and I got to have a SPLENDID adventure to Costa Rica! Jessica called me earlier in the summer and said that she wanted to go on a trip to Central America during her summer vacation from teaching in Saudi Arabia. She wanted to speak Spanish and sip Pina Coladas on the beach. I said, "I'LL GO!!" Sounded GREAT to me! So my dear husband took a full week of vacation from work to take care of the kids at home while I got to go have such a fun trip with my sister. I felt so very lucky!!! 

The same as I said about Teresa's visit is true with Jessica also. I think when you come from a big family, you don't have a lot of one on one time together. I couldn't remember the last time I spent with just Jessica. These days when I talk to her, I am interrupted nineteen times within a minute by one of my kids needing something. I can't even say how much it meant to me to have this time with Jessica. It was so much FUN!!! Seriously, she is a fun girl. We laughed a lot and it was just fun to hang out. It was also great to have so much time to talk. I heard lots of stories from her fascinating life. It was easy to be with her. She was very laid back (except when it came to my picture taking). She knows a lot about travel, which made things very easy for me. She speaks Spanish like a Latina, which also made things easy for me. We both loved getting to speak Spanish. She struck up a conversation with anyone and everyone she could get her hands on. It was awesome to really be with the people of Costa Rica instead of feeling like such a tourist sitting at a resort. I really truly loved every minute of this trip. It all went so smoothly, we saw a beautiful country, met wonderful people and had a splendid time together as sisters. Thank you, thank you, Jessica for one of the best adventures of my life. 

We took off from Denver about midnight and flew into San Jose, Costa Rica, arriving about 5 am. We strapped on our back packs and headed out of the airport and right onto a public bus into the middle of the city. We were on the bus with everyone else headed to work in the morning. We found some breakfast (empanadas y una batida de guayabana) and sat in the plaza to watch everyone hustling around town. 

We then made our way by taxi to the bus station that would take us about three hours out to the boat transit.

Our snack that a guy came selling on the bus - Mango Verde con limon y sal.

We drove through lots of small towns in the country. I had never seen banana trees before. We passed through these plantations for a long time.

Jessica and I made it to the end of the line for the bus. The little town we were going to can not be reached by anything other than boat. We paid for our ticket, they threw our backpacks on and we got in. We traveled through thick jungle on a crocodile infested river for one hour. I kept thinking that we really didn't know where they were taking us or what they would do with us. Who knew where we were? Luckily, we made it safe and sound after a really cool jungle boat cruise.

Looking toward Nicaragua.

House on the river. They all live on the river and use boats for all transportation.

This made me laugh. It reminded me of loading up the mini van, she just uses a boat.

Arriving to the town of Tortuguero. The biggest city around.

The kid from our hotel took our back packs and loaded them into his bicycle basket to ride them to the hotel for us.

Our hotel. Painted in very bright colors.

The hammock circle turned out to be a heavenly place to take a nap listening to the ocean.

The hotel sat right on the Carribean Ocean. This was my first time ever seeing it or touching it. Too bad the rip tide and sharks make it not a friendly place to swim.

We went walking through the town looking for lunch. I had to take a picture of "the park" to show my kids.

These are the streets - foot traffic only.

Boys out playing soccer. Nice spot right on the ocean, right?

The elementary school. When Brielle saw this she said, "Wow. They must have some good field trips."

Our first meal and just the beginning of many, many, many fruit juices.

I finished it off with coconut water. Loved it.

So, I'm sorry to report that the most fascinating part of our time in Tortuguero does not include any pictures. The reason we traveled all the way out there was because it was turtle nesting season. Thousands of green sea turtles come to this beach nightly to lay their eggs in the sand. We went to see the turtles. So, we met up with our guide and group at night when it was very dark. We went wandering for a bit out toward the beach. It didn't take our guide (who was BFFs with Jessica by now) long to find a turtle in the sand laying her eggs. He brought us right up close to the back of her. I didn't quite know what to expect to see, but was blown away when he put his red lamp over her. There was this huge sea turtle in the sand. I was kneeling in the sand right behind her and looking down into the hole she had made in the sand. We watched eggs drop from her and into the hole. There were probably 60 eggs. We just watched, completely fascinated. Then we watched her cover her hole with sand and then start to make her way back out to the ocean. We followed right behind her with the red lamp and saw the waves take her out into the water. The whole thing was so incredible! Definitely a once in a lifetime chance. It was just amazing!

In the morning, Jessica and I went to walk on the beach to see if we could find where we were the night before. We found hundreds of tracks from turtles in the sand. All of them from the night before.

All these holes are nests with baby turtle eggs in them. They will all be hatching and scurrying their way back across the sand in October.

Back up into town, this is my favorite picture of the trip. I love the colors.

We were walking along the path to the hotel and a woman called us over to show us an "oso hormiguero". We had no idea what she was talking about until we saw this guy poking around in her tree in front of her house.

We caught our boat ride back and made our way on the river through the jungle again. 

We traveled all day again by boat and then bus and then taxi to a very nice Courtyard Marriott. Felt quite luxurious to be there. We went searching for dinner and found the coolest restaurant called "Just Shrimp". It was all shrimp, but made in every different way from countries all over the world. So good. And, of course, more jugo de fruta.

In the morning, we packed up again to head to the bus station. We had a little while to wait and there just happened to be a whole street full of vendors selling fruit and vegetables. I saw so many fruits I'd never seen before. I was so curious to try them all and figure them out. We had been served jugo de guayabana a few times, but never knew what it was. We finally found it here - this huge green fruit.

My favorites were the Mamon - the red ones with little spikes.

And of course, more jugo de fruta. Mine was a mixed fruit drink that was down right delicious!