Tortuguero National Park offered us a spectacular glimpse of biodiversity. We traveled there this weekend to see the green sea turtle complete its nesting cycle. We saw that and quite a bit more.
The trip to Tortuguero was turtle like, requiring a four hour bus ride across the eastern volcanic mountain range and through the coastal plain and an hour and a half of boat ride north along the inter coastal waterway of the Caribbean coast. The bus ride followed a gravel road through a massive Del Monte banana orchard, where we were able to view the packaging operation during a break. Despite the long travel time, we were interested to learn that the highway across the mountains did not open until 1986, and Tortuguero did not have electricity until about 1975 when the park opened. Even to this day, there is no road here – and no cars. All transportation is by boat or plane.
We enjoyed seeing a plethora of flora and fauna covering the entire spectrum of the rainbow. Red eyed tree frogs, blue herons, black iguanas, green lizards, roseate spoonbills, white faced monkeys along with trogans, kingfishers, anhingas, jacanas, caimans, spider monkeys and howler monkeys.
The highlight of the weekend was the turtle tour. We saw a giant sea turtle lay hundreds of eggs, cover them up and crawl back to the sea. While echoes of lightning flashed across a backdrop of the Milky Way complete with shooting stars.
We met our guide at 7:40 pm. We were not allowed to take any cameras or other electronics. Then we proceeded to a waiting place just off of the beach. There our eyes adjusted to the darkness and we were treated to a star-filled sky. (This was definitely a treat, since we have only seen the moon and a few stars a total of 5 times in the three months that we have been here.) They don’t allow the spectators to see the turtles digging their holes. Once the turtle starts to lay, we are allowed to view the “ping pong” looking eggs being laid. This was when we first got a glimpse of the size of the turtle. Her shell was 1 meter in diameter and she supposedly weighed about 300 pounds. She lays about 100 eggs in the nest. She then started to cover her eggs with her back flippers. After, the eggs are covered she camouflaged the hole with her front flippers and then crawled back to the sea. It takes her about 10 minutes to make the 30-yard long trip. According to our guide, she will then be greeted by a bunch of male turtles, that are ready to mate and in 14 days she will repeat the process. The following day we visited the beach, where you could see hundreds of turtle tracks.
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