San Jose to Tortuguero (1)

 

After our BA flight was delayed for an hour and a half and a 10 1/2 hour flight took 11 1/2 hours we were fairly weary by the time we landed in San Jose and entered the scrum at the taxi rank.
At Pura Vida, our little collection of casitas, ours named " rain forest", set in the former grounds of a finca, with the affable Bernie to serve up a beer and a light supper under the gaze of his two large Alsatians.

Next morning we strolled round the gardens of the finca, the owners' passion, then took an Uber (very efficient here) to the weekly farmers market in Alajuela. Crowds of people with shopping trolleys with masses of fruit and veg for the week. Many fruits and vegetables new to us.

Lunch was in the store holders “soda“, that is, a small café, of tamales and maize pancakes. The kitchen was manic but very good humoured. 

We had our first experience of the more upmarket local cuisine in the evening. Excellent cerviche followed by a remarkably bony fish for Nic.
Next morning, back in an Uber to collect our hire car from Jumbo car hire, a new company and with apparently all new vehicles. Remarkably painless; the Suzuki Vitara Is a four wheel drive, hopefully able to deal with all road conditions though many serious warnings were given and waivers signed about it being forbidden to drive though rivers.
The usual battle to drive through the city onto Routa 32 and up into the National Park mountains into the rain clouds  to cross over to the Caribbean coast. Good roads mainly though many huge US style trucks and two lanes often narrowing into one. Weather changing from sun to rain and back again.

Second half of the day was through attractive first rolling hills then flatter farm land.

A four hour drive got us to La Pavone for the hour long boat in (as there are no roads) into Tortuguero. All very well organised at La Pavone and we were relieved to see that there was indeed secure parking for our nearly new vehicle. 

The boat ride, at speed, avoiding the river debris through the narrows was great fun and the sun shone!

We arrived at Casa Marbella in Tortuguero “ town “ ( it’s actually a village ) and booked into our riverside room. Great view but as we discovered the waterway is well used into the evening and given our 6am starts and early nights that took a bit of adjustment.

However being in the village allowed us to explore plus the beach is a short stroll away. Pleasant for a vigorous session of jumping the waves, but  the surf is too big to enjoy a swim.

First evening was spent exploring the village. On the Caribbean coast and especially here it’s more about the Caribbean heritage, food and music; almost too much Bob Marley!
We ate at Miss Junies, a bit of an institution here set in gardens with some amazing birds including the montezuma oropendola, 

a great name!  Miss Junies has some quirks; supposed to be relatively upmarket but no wine list, offering a red or a white wine without identifying it!
Next morning was our first predawn 5.30 up and at them for an (electric) boat ride into the canals to spot some of the 130 species of birds in the country and the animal life.There had been torrential rain in the night and it continued for little while  but the very effective ponchos kept us dry.

We saw our first iguana in about 20 minutes; as usual the guide spots stuff we would never see otherwise. Also jacana, blue heron, green backed heron, green ibis, caimans, howler and cappuchin monkeys, tiger herons, aninghas...

 

Spot the Caiman

Back to base four hours later for brekkers and a jet lag nap before an idyllic lunch overlooking the water and the activitiy and then we were off for a another boat ride to San Francisco with the same guide. 

Spot the female Green Basilik

Spot the male Green Basilik !

Close up and personal with a caiman

Then a hike to the Tortuguero Volcano, lots of steps at the end and a great view and more game/bird spotting. Monkeys mainly; we are definitely fans of howler monkeys with their 64 decibel howls,

Dinner in a “Soda” ie a cafe, Miss Miriam’s, Cajun chicken , worryingly they had run out of beer but got some takeouts for us!

Up again early for our kayaking, our guide Ray, a descendant of a Trinidad family. He was from one of the few families to still own land in the reserve.He knew his stuff but his English struggled at times. We also realised he was illiterate.

Some of the kayaking was thru really narrow waterways with frequent grounding: we developed an excellent simultaneous rocking motion to shift it. Good close up views of tiger herons and other birds and also first sight of a sloth, albeit visible only as an indeterminate bundle of what looked like sack cloth. And some small caiman!

We took the kayaks out later by ourselves as well ( carefully, because of the crocs) and pootled around in intense sunshine and to demonstrate why you need a guide to spot stuff. Victor, our main guide obtained through Casa Marbella had been a star.
Still hadn’t seen any toucans so we walked around the village fruit trees without success but we did find a massive leaf cutter ant nest to entertain ourselves. 

Six pm found us on a very muddy night walk. Thankfully we had taken seriously the need for long sleeves and repellent.The mossies and god knows what else were the most intense ever! Once again Victor proved his worth: poisonous dart red frogs, in fact every colour of frog, bull frogs, venomous spiders (wandering spider) and a tailess scorpion hence the very strict instructions to keep behind the guide. 

Spot the bullfrog

Back to base for maize coated fish fillets with fried plantains and a spicy sauce; and they had beer! Lucky to get served at 9.15, people eat early here! In fact the pattern of the holiday meant that we were in bed by this time ourselves on many nights!

Sort of a lie in the next morning before our boat back to La Pavone.The rain storms had returned and it was a very different ride back. Also we were travelling upstream and a lot slower. Our boat was full to capacity and grounding was an obvious concern. We also had a big bump with another boat with ours lurching sideways in the water.

When we arrived the rain was even more torrential. About this point we realised Nic's wallet could not be found! Bags and suitcases were unpacked sort of in the car in the downpour whilst Carolyn ran back to the boat to find the wallet, swept into the well under the the seats; phew!
We then had a three hour drive to Arenal. Pleasant enough through the rolling countryside until we arrived at the Lost Iguana hotel, our base for our next four nights. Our room had a great view over the volcano albeit it was shrouded in cloud; in fact, even when the sun shone everywhere else the crater was never completely clear during our stay.