Costa Rica

Do you know the way to San José? As far as we’re concerned, it’s a short flight to Auckland, a 14-hour flight to Houston, Texas (like there’s any other Houston), followed by a 3½ hour flight to Costa Rica’s capital, San José. We took off on Friday afternoon, and, thanks to the vagaries of the international date line, landed on Friday evening.

Interesting things about the flights and airports: Air New Zealand is the best, and United suck. The food in United’s “Business/first” would just about make the grade for economy on New Zealand or Qantas. Houston airport smells of barbecued beef, largely because there’s a huge beef barbecue place dominating the concourse. And seeing people in ten-gallon hats is still an everyday occurrence.

We arrived in San José at around 10pm, and with a minimum of fuss were through the airport in 30 minutes and being greeted by Carlos, our driver. He took us to a boutique hotel with period charm and great facilities, the Hotel Grano De Oro. Unfortunately we had just seven hours there as we were due for pick-up at six o’clock the following morning, so we weren’t really able to fully appreciate it. We showered, slept, woke, showered, and were downstairs to meet our bus by 6:30am.

We were then driven for two hours to the Restaurant El Ceibo, an establishment clearly popular with tour buses, for breakfast. This took us halfway to our next destination, Tortuguero, but also, importantly, our first encounter with Costa Rican wildlife. Costa Rica, in case you don’t know, has an inordinate number of species. Ecosystems vary from the littoral and maritime to cloud and rain forests. The restaurant, despite being on the main road, is home to some three-toed sloths (or sloths, as some people pronounce it…I prefer “sloths”) who were, quite literally, hanging around in the trees. We spotted them, photographed them, then got on the bus for a further two hours to reach Caño Blanco. The bus, which I’m unfortunately likely to meet again before our trip is up, is of the sort that prioritises extra rows of seats over passenger comfort, so I, and anyone else with a femur longer than the seat pitch, had to manspread one leg whilst dangling the other outside the seat and up the aisle. V. uncomfortable. We swapped that for a boat to takes us the final miles up the canal to our next accommodation, the Hotel and Spa Aninga, in Tortuguero. We arrived in time for a cocktail and lunch, a short welcoming speech from the manager, and were quickly settled in.

After lunch, our luggage turned up (it had been loaded onto a separate boat), and at 3pm we took a short boat ride across the river to Tortuguero village. Every boat trip involves donning a lifejacket (elf and safety, y’know), and there are instructions on their use at the docks. First is “Don’t panic!”, then there’s instructions on how to attach them, and what to do if you find yourself in the water. Right next to this sign is another, which says “No swimming! Crocodiles!” which kind of negates the “Don’t panic!” part. Anyway, the boats look strong and riverworthy, and the canal is calm, apart from the occasional wash of a passing boat, so we should be alright.    

The village of Tortuguero isn’t very big. We were guided across the river by Marco, who’d been with us all day, then he split us into two groups. We were led by Lily, a native Tortugueran, who took us down to the beach, gave us a short talk about turtles, both leatherback and green, which lay their eggs on the beach here. We walked up and down the main street, visited t-shirt emporia to no avail, then had a quick look in at the Sea Turtle Conservancy centre who coordinate all the conservation work that goes on with these species in Tortuguero, which includes protecting their eggs, doing research, tagging the adults, and generally being nice to turtles. Which is a good thing.

We got back in time for cocktail hour, visited the bar, decided not to swim in the pool, had an early dinner, then retired. We’ve got an early start tomorrow (again) for a daybreak tour of the Tortuguero National Park. The plan is to get up at the same time as the animals for the best opportunity to see them. I’ve set the alarm for 5am.