clog blog: Turtles, Toucans and Treehouses

Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua, Panama, the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The population is ~5 million people with 1.5 million living in the capital of San Jose and about 70% of the population living in the central valley. Agriculture, mainly coffee and bananas, and tourism are the staples of the economy. In 1948 the army was abolished and the military budget distributed to education, healthcare, and environmental protection. (How cool would it be if more countries followed their example??) While Costa Rica occupies only 0.1% of the world’s landmass, it possesses 5% of the world’s biodiversity. This amazing biodiversity can be accredited to the variety of ecosystems and 12 climatic zones found in this postage stamp-sized country; so many niches, so many species. With all this in mind, we packed our bags and headed off for hopefully some sunshine, animal spotting and hammock time!

River and forest in La Paz Waterfall Gardens

Traditional cart for carrying freshly picked coffee beans

Waterfalls at the gardens

Pura Vida!

You will hear this expression a lot in Costa Rica. Directly translated it means ‘the pure life’ and is the equivalent of Hakuna Matata, live with no worries. Used as a greeting, a farewell, a statement of agreement, a synonym for excellent, and pretty much everything inbetween; Pura vida is more than an expression, it is a Costa Rican way of life. Ticos strive to live a laid-back life, one low on stress and full of happiness. They must get it right since Costa Rica regularly ranks in the top spots for happiest people on earth. We certainly felt more relaxed after 3 weeks of living the good life.

Aiming for a planning and stress-free holiday, we decided to join an Intrepid tour covering most of the country. We arrived in San Jose on the Thursday evening giving us two days to explore San Jose and surrounds before the tour officially began on Saturday evening. The game plan was a full day tour on Friday and city exploring on Saturday.

The full day tour took us to Doka Coffee Estate, Poas Volcano and La Paz Waterfall Gardens. At Doka, a small family run coffee farm, the process of making coffee, from the planting to the roasting of the beans, was explained, with samples of course. It was here that we also had our first beans and rice for breakfast! Ticos eat beans and rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Seriously, they do. Poas Volcano is one of the largest and most active volcanoes of Costa Rica. Poas has two summit crater lakes, one of which is one of the world’s most acidic natural lake with a near 0 pH. It is quite interesting to see how vegetation grows normally upwind of the acidic lake but a black landscape covers the downwind slopes where nothing grows. La Paz Waterfall Gardens was the last stop of the day but probably our favourite. The garden has paths through rain forest dotted with waterfalls and is also an animal rescue centre. We loved the butterfly garden, the hummingbird garden, the ranarium (frogs), the opportunity to see some jungle cats we probably wouldn’t see out in the forest in the coming weeks, and our first up close encounter with toucans!

Coffee beans drying in the sun

The final product, roasted and ready to be enjoyed

The steaming acid crater lake of Poas Volcano

Justin getting up close and personal with a chestnut-mandibled Toucan, we'll call him Sam

In the butterfly garden

We really enjoyed watching these beautiful and amazing birds zip around us in the hummingbird garden

A pacing jaguar

Over the weekend we had time to explore San Jose and honestly, two days was probably too much time, there really isn’t much to do or see in San Jose. We explored Central Avenue, the small parks around town, the large park at the edge of town and the Mercado Central. The cleanest and most hygienic market we have seen since moving to South America, San Jose’s Central Market is the only one I would consider eating at. It also has a mish-mash of household goods and curios on offer. Our favourite was the small parks around town, they were very vibey on Saturday with hula hoops and various games set out for everyone to enjoy undercover from the rain which was sure to follow in the afternoon.

Playing checkers in the park (Bron lost...)

And then it was time to start exploring for real! First up: Tortuguero. Despite its remote location (we took two public busses and a canal boat to get there), it is one of the most visited national parks in Costa Rica. With the Caribbean Coast on one side of the park and Tortuguero River and a system of canals on the other, the biodiversity here is huge due to the presence of eleven different habitats. Tortuguero means ‘land of turtles’ and the beaches are key nesting sites for four species of sea turtle. Tortuguero town itself is one dusty street long with nature literally bursting into the town. We had 2 nights in Tortuguero and stayed at the lovely Miss Junie’s Lodge on the edge of town looking onto the river and backing straight onto the beach. First up was a swim in the warm Caribbean Sea and later that night one of the highlights of the trip, a turtle watching night tour.

Canal boat to get to Tortuguero village

Camera at the ready!

Resting fruit bats

Great Egret

Cool waterbird

Please forgive us for not knowing the names of all the birds!

Thousands of turtles come to lay their eggs on the beaches of Tortuguero every year. While we were there it was Green Turtle nesting season. The beaches are closed to people from sunset at 6 pm so as not to disturb nesting turtles. The turtles nest much higher up the shoreline than we expected them to, on the edge where the vegetation starts. The female first digs a body pit using mostly her front flippers which takes about 40 minutes, and then a second smaller hole for the eggs with her back flippers. After laying her eggs, she covers them with sand using her back flippers. Finally, she camouflages the nest with sand using her front flippers to distract and deter predators; however, she doesn’t fill in the body pit and hundreds of these can be seen almost in a row on the beach in the daylight. The same turtle will return to lay eggs 3-5 times during nesting season, every 3 weeks or so. During this time she can lay up to about 1000 eggs. Of these, one turtle will reach adulthood. That’s a pretty low survival rate for such an energy demanding task. Females will nest once in 3 years but males can breed every year. Turtles are very vulnerable while nesting. Jaguars use nesting as an opportunity to attack turtles but they only eat the soft parts under the neck. We saw a few turtle carcasses on the beach; it seems such a waste for such a small piece of meat.

During our turtle watching tour we saw a turtle lay her eggs, cover the eggs, camouflage the nest, and return to the ocean. Nesting is an energy demanding task and by the end the female turtle is very tired. The turtle we saw return to the ocean was so tired, she got a bit confused finding the way back and did some circles along the way. Nesting also takes a long time; we saw a different turtle in each stage of nesting otherwise the tour would take hours. We were amazed at the size of the turtles, more than a metre long; according to our guide these were still young with some growing still to do. The tour is conducted completely in the dark since turtles are sensitive to light and will return to the ocean without laying their eggs if disturbed in anyway. Therefore light, phones and photos are strictly prohibited. We really enjoyed this tour and feel privileged to have seen a turtle nest and lay eggs. We were sad not to see any hatchlings though. Eggs incubate for about 60 days and since nesting season started late this year none of the nests were ready to hatch yet. We hope to see this one day in the future though.

The Caribbean Beach right behind Miss Junie's

Our sunrise shoot on the last morning was thwarted by clouds

The friendly pooch from Miss Junie's kept us company on our walk

The next day saw an early start partly due to the sun and singing birds, and partly because we had an early morning canal boat tour with our group. We spent a few hours in a paddle boat along the canals with two local guides. Apparently it was a quiet morning for wildlife but we saw many birds and some animals. After lunch we all went for a walk together in Tortuguero National Park and back along the beach followed by a well-earned beer for the guys and ice cream for the girls. During the boat trips and the walk in the forest we saw lots of cool birds including many water birds, caimans, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, sloths, Jesus lizzards, basilisk lizzards, iguanas, a blue jeans frog, and resting bats. We really enjoyed our time in Tortuguero and highly recommend it to anyone visiting Costa Rica. Take plenty of mosquito repellent and sunscreen, it is seriously hot and humid!

Our Intrepid group and guide Bill ready for a canal tour

Wildlife spotting with our Intrepid guide Edson (white shirt) and local guide (red shirt)

River and canals at Tortuguero

Basking Iguana

Female basilisk lizzard

Submerged caiman

Spider monkey! (Bron's favourite)

White faced capuchin monkey

Walking in Tortuguero National Park

From Tortuguero we made our way to Sarapiqui by private transfer (read: with aircon). We were really fortunate to stop and see two sloths along the way. We could only see the back of the first one high up in the tree so all it looked like was a furry blob in a tree. We resigned ourselves to the probability of only these kinds of views of these beautiful creatures. The second sloth we saw changed that. This two-toed sloth had nestled itself in the v of a tree at eye level. Such a perfect sighting and photo opportunity. Shame, it must have been quite bewildered with 10 humans circling it. This was definitely one of our highlight sloth moments.

Chilling two-toed sloth in the v of a tree

In Sarapiqui we stayed with the wonderful Alex and his family at Posada Andrea Cristina Bed and Breakfast. Alex and his son hand-made and built most of the beautiful wooden chalets, the two treehouses and some of the furniture of the BnB. A great guy and genuine nature lover, we felt so welcomed and at home. Favourite activities at Alex’s place were reading in the hammock on the deck of our beautiful free-standing honeymoon suite chalet while the rain poured down and frog spotting around the pond, in the rain. This was our first sighting of the red eye tree frog, the symbol on all of Costa Rica’s tourism advertising. The one afternoon it rained so much the guys staying in the treehouse had a small river running down the tree, it was pretty hectic. We weren’t exactly busy in Sarapiqui but chill out time when the heavens opened helped to give the holiday balance, we are very good at over-filling holidays and not always resting enough.

Our beautiful chalet in Sarapiqui

Hammock time!

The gorgeous red eyed tree frog

Our only real activity in Sarapiqui was a guided walk at La Selva Biological Station. Internationally recognised as one of the most productive field stations for research on tropical forests, La Selva is a protected area of 1500 ha of low-land tropical rain forest with the goal of preserving intact forest and providing lab facilities for tropical research and education. Our guide was really knowledgeable and kitted out with a serious telescope and binoculars. The most wildlife we saw at one time on this holiday was during this walk. We highly recommend at least one guided walk in the forest, you see so much more since the guides know where to look, and have cool telescopes. Some of the wildlife we saw include spider monkeys doing some cool acrobatics, blue jeans frogs, toucans, lizards, loads of birds, bush pigs, a drenched moss covered sloth, cool plants and loads of fungi. This walk was one of the highlights of our trip and we highly recommend it if you are in the area.