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We had the privilege of staying at Casa Marbella, Tortuguero on our adventure in Costa Rica. Lets face it, when you’ve travelled the road (much!) less travelled to get to Tortuguero independently, you are hoping desperately that the accommodation lives up to its reputation. I need not have worried. I was not disappointed.

The reviews of Casa Marbella had built it up so much that I had spent the weeks before the holiday trying to manage my own expectations downwards. Not easy! But it was everything I expected and more.

It’s a homely and comfortable B&B. There’s no frills, spas or room service, but that’s not why people stay in Tortuguero village – you instead choose a place that has amazingly comfortable beds, is very clean, has powerful cold showers, and a decking from which you can watch the wildlife and locals sail by. You choose your B&B for the friendly welcome you’ll receive, the scrummy breakfasts eaten outdoors and privileged access to incredible guides like Daryll and Roberto. Not to mention the added extras like that fact that they have a kayak that you can use for free to sail the national park alone, free to explore the stupendously beautiful landscape at your own pace in contemplative silence. What’s more it is incredible value – we paid $55 per room for a superior river facing room on the ground floor.

Whilst staying there for 3 nights we went out on the early morning boat safaris with Roberto almost every morning (we chickened out the morning of an almighty thunderstorm, worried that our already watersodden camera lenses would not survive another trip). The safaris were fantastic. Roberto was a great guide and introduced us to a host of species – informing us of their habit, calls, activity etc. Here’s a small selection of some of the experiences he created for us:

a) He found a two toed sloth high in the trees and stayed with ‘him’ for half an hour or so, enabling us to watch, take pictures and experience this rare moment (many other tour groups turned up, waiting 5 mins (noisily) and left!

b) He navigated to a small side canal where we found a troop of white faced capuchin monkeys. We must have spent an hour with them, and a pair of toucans, drifting silently. We drifted toward the canalbank into hanging vines where the monkeys (now accustomed to our presence) hung and playfully came to see who we were and what we were doing. We could have reached out and stroked mothers and curious babies. It was amazingly beautiful and felt so natural.

c) He found sleeping Iguanas on the bushes of canal banks and allowed us to get close enough to observe the colourful scales and spines on its back

d) He explored canal banks to look for sleeping Boa Constructors on branches hovering above the water’s edge

e) He warned us (wisely) of the danger of standing under howler monkeys in tree branches and allowed us to track animals by smell and sight (lets just say the Howler Monkey ‘deposits’ have a less than savoury but extremely distinctive smell’)

f) He shared a passion and enthusiasm for wildlife that was infectious.

Thank you Roberto! You helped us to fall in love with Costa Rica more than we thought possible.

Details of how to travel independently to Tortuguero are available in our Costa Rica trip log.

Driving in Costa Rica is highly recommended (by me, at least!). It’s a fabulous country to explore and having a vehicle gives you the freedom to break free of public transport schedules and tour groups and do what you want, when you want. Other drivers seem quite patient and tend to drive quite slowly, making the experience somewhat enjoyable and, crucially, it’s easy to adapt when picking the car up and taking your first drive. The only exception to this is San Jose at rush hour – we found ourselves going through it three times (we never learn) – and basically you just stand still for a couple of hours and then everything magically clears.  With this in mind, one significant tip to note is that San Jose control freight traffic – they are not allowed in the city centre until 9am so basically:

a) people tend to start work at 8am in San Jose, late-comers strggle in until 8:30.

and…

b) If you can time your trip through the city centre from 8:30am to 8:50am you should ‘sail through’ and miss most of the traffic (we can inform you of this in hindsight having cracked it the 3rd time round!). This is very useful information if you’re driving the airport in the morning.

As we were travelling in the green (wet) season we hired a 4×4 from Vamos. I have never driven a 4×4 and was initially quite nervous of it, but I relished it once I got behind the wheel. I loved driving on gravel tracks, dodging and weaving potholes, drifting around corners and swerving to avoid snakes – it’s a much more exciting experience that I ever get on an inner city ring road!

One thing to expect / prepare for, is that as you increase your elevation, clouds roll in incredibly quickly. If you couple this with hard, driving rain and very windy roads with few markings,  you have yourself a challenging situation – which is nothing to worry about, just proceed carefully and slowly (everyone else will be doing likewise)!

We hired a sat nav (we got it free when ‘liking’ Vamos on facebook) – this was a godsend. Once you are off the main highway there is very little in the way of signage – though, to be fair, there are very little opportunities to turn off – it’s one road and you follow that until the end. However, the roads can quickly disintegrate into nothing more than a gravel trap or forest dirt track, and you will find ourself wondering if you are going the right way. This is when the sat nav comes into its own – it encourages you to carry on when you’re likely to quit and it’s right to do so, especially in the dead of night. Accompanying the sat nav was a book of ‘Eze-codes’ listing all major hotels, attractions and locations. It was  merely a case of locating the code and popping it into the sat nav – and off you went. Eze-peezy! This is what ‘saved us’ when trying to locate our hotel in the dead of night.

On this subject – we were warned not to travel at night, but this is less for security reasons and more for life saving reasons. Due to us mis-timing a trip through San Jose, and then taking 1.5 hour de-tour to find petrol, we found ourselves climbing the hillsides of Costa Rica to get to Santa Clara in the dead of night. This would have been ok if it was not for the people who walk the streets at night with no illumination (you have to swerve to avoid them) – couple this with abandoned dogs wandering the highways, thick clouds rolling in and potholes the depth of mini wells, and you have one heck of a challenging drive. Miraculously we made our way up the windy roads, avoiding plummeting to our death down the mountainside  in thick cloud – but we did not realise just how perilous the journey had been until we did the reverse trip in daylight! It was sobering to say the least.

On this note – many car hire companies do not allow you to take the vehicle to Monteverde because the roads are so bad. Please do ensure that you look for this in the small print before you travel – because it is well worth the journey but your car will suffer – so don’t risk it, as you risk a very hefty excess payment at the end of the trip, instead – choose a provider how allows the car to be taken there.  Please also be aware, it is also not an exaggeration that there are no petrol stations in Monteverde! Whilst some maps might show a petrol station – it is physically still there, but not operational. You therefore need to heed all warnings from car hire companies that you MUST fill up before you get there at the last available station – something we failed to do on account of losing our bearings and thinking we were much closer than we were – the result – we had to ‘watch’ the petrol ferociously during our 4 day stay there and just about got down off the mountain and into a petrol station in time to prevent the car from coughing to death on sand.

That reminds me – tarmac – whilst you have it, adore it! It’s a distant memory as soon as your turn off the Pan American Highway. You don’t necessarily need a 4×4 in terms of off road capability – but we were incredibly relieved that we’d hired one for the clearance it provided us with when bounding over pothole after pothole, swerving around boulders on mountain gravel traps and dodging off-road to avoid wildlife.

Safety wise, we never felt threatened – quite the opposite. Locals would holler and run after the car at the first sign of mechanical trouble to warn us ( we had a spectacular puncture on our trip back from Torteguero). We were, however, warned not to leave anything visible in the car – with a 4×4 with a non concealed boot this proved be a challenge.  When we were in the situation of having to leave luggage in the car – we were relieved that we had huge towels to cover the bags, and we always parked the car in sight of a shop or local tourist attraction that we frequented.

Our car hire was great value for money – we cannot fault it. We grew to love our wee 4×4 (and the colony of ants who lived in it and accompanied us on our every journey). To put you in the picture – when we picked the car up, there were simply too many scratches and dents to report on the inspection report – we knew then what type of a country Costa Rica was an how many adventures we’d have along the way. This pretty much set the scene for our expectations and experiences driving around this amazing country.

Go, explore! Photos from our Costa Rica adventure are now available on-line.

We set off at 8pm with Roberto (our guide from Casa Marbella) and two other guests. It was a short, dark walk to the beach front of Tortuguero. From here on it would be a 15 minutes to 2 hour walk before (if!) we spotted anything. We stumbled down the dark beach, banging into logs and debris, tripping over rocks and walking in the surf by the light of the moon and stars overhead. Lightning was striking the horizon, lighting the beach front up temporarily, allowing us to spot turtle tracks in the soft sand leading from the surf to the back of the beach. The sky was alive with a million stars – all seemingly visible with the naked eye. Roberto stopped to highlight turtle tracks, leading lines from the water to the foot of a palm tree – alas, the occupant had been and gone so we continued onwards.

The brief sea breeze offered a moment’s release from the harsh humidity of Costa Rica. I paused to enjoy the moment,  a pleasure that lasted just seconds, because any pause would allow sand flies to start feasting on me. Slapping myself silly I pressed onwards, always scanning the immediate horizon for turtles and tracks.  Every 5 minutes or so we’d stop to do a group count and ensure we had not lost anyone on the way.

Our eyes frantically scanned the shoreline – we were to look out for black spots in the surf. This I found incredibly difficult – not only because my glasses kept steaming up in the humidity, but also because I had no comprehension at all as to how big these spots should be. I’d never seen a wild sea turtle and had not idea what to expect. I knew I’d be looking for either a giant bulk or a minute blob on the horizon, but did not know which and I was therefore next to useless.  I was informed to look for a black spot about 1.5 m long, moving faster than you might expect for a turtle. I tried and tried and tried….

The shoreline was dotted with hundreds of seemingly phosphorescent speckles, which I think were shells reflecting the incredible starlight overhead. If I was not so obsessed with turtle spotting it would have been a very romantic moment. We stopped suddenly – a red light flashed twice in the distance. This signalled to us that another group had found a turtle. More lights flashed and my heart skipped a beat. A shooting star flew overhead and my pulse rate soared – this could be it! We pressed on in the direction of the light, picking up speed and tripping over flotsam and jetsam with alarming regularity. Nothing else seemed to matter but crossing the now shrinking distance between the turtles and ourselves. This could be my first ever wild turtle sighting!

We arrived at the light source some 7 minutes later, battered and bruised. It was a female turtle who had emerged from the sea. A tense 10-15 minutes followed whilst we wondered a) what to do b) what to expect. We were informed that once turtles emerge from the surf they spend about 10-15 minutes combing the area to assess its suitability for nesting. At any point they can turn back and head into the surf at an alarmingly fast rate. It was therefore crucial that we did nothing to disturb her and that we remain at a respectable distance. The suspense was palpable – our untrained eyes could see nothing in the dark, no artificial lights were allowed and we had no idea how close she was and what she was doing. I bounced around like a woman possessed, fighting off the biting sandflies and fanning myself in the incredible humidity.  My fidgety patience was rewarded with good news – she’d started to create a nest! From here on it’d take 20-30 minutes for her to complete the nest and start to lay her eggs.  We therefore settled down and waited, admiring the glorious  night sky. I asked our guide question after question, eager to manage my expectations of what we might see once she started to lay eggs.

Whilst waiting, we jostled with each other for position, crouching, standing on tip toes, doing anything we could to try and make sense of the shadows and catch a glimpse of the nesting turtle. Despite my eyes adjusting somewhat, I still could not make out anything.

After a further 15-20 minutes of waiting we heard a frantic shout from one of the guides – he’d tip -toed back towards the nest to assess her progression and she’d gone. Defying her bulk, she’d picked up speed and was heading back into the surf. We ran over towards the tracks and saw her heading back into the water by moonlight. She was so beautiful. Her bulk was tossed back and forth by the choppy surf as she struggled to migrate from beach to water. Moonlight reflected off her shell and she could be seen for 30 seconds or so before she was consumed by the water and slipped out of sight. That was my first ever wild turtle sighting!

Not to be deterred, we turned and hiked to the next set of flashing red lights towards a Green Sea Turtle who’d been on land and nesting for over 30 minutes. We made it just in time to see her lay her eggs!

4-5 groups had gathered to watch so we formed a single line arching around the horizon of the turtle, everyone eager to have their 5 second views of her laying the eggs. Turtles go into a trance when laying their eggs so she was (thankfully) oblivious to our presence. One by one we inched forward..my heart was racing and my glasses were steaming as I stumbled closer one foot at a time, tears forming in my eyes in anticipation. We were given one beautiful and brief moment with the turtle. Gently holding back her flippers, I saw her lay 3 eggs into the nest, where another 50-60 eggs had already been laid. I shed another silent tear- it was a magical moment.

Walking slowly away I reflected on all the people at home who I know had wanted to see turtles laying their eggs, and vowed there and then to share my experiences with them on my return.

Turtles can lay 130-150 eggs in one night, so we subsequently got a second chance to see her lay more eggs before she woke and started to camouflage the nest with sand, using her flippers as shovels. For a brief moment we got to see her wide eyes as she surveyed the crowd present, so we then stepped back into the distance to allow her to continue in relative peace.

It was then that the volunteers moved in to record and measure the turtle.  It seemed necessary but undignified for the turtle. We watched as her huge flippers flicked batches of sand in the eyes of the volunteers as she frantically tried to camouflage her nest. They worked as quickly as they could but fumbled a lot and the whole scenario seemed somewhat dragged out. It’s then I realised the value of professional conservationists and vowed not to become one of the well-being, (albeit teenage), uninformed and unaware volunteers.  I hoped with all my heart that the turtle would break free soon.

From our vantage point we could see the turtle cover herself and the nest in sand. We stayed for maybe another 10 minutes or so,  but then our 2 hour limit was up and we had to retire from the beach. We started the long walk home with huge smiles on our faces, walking in stunned silence. What a night. So many emotions, so many memories.

You are forbidden from taking photos on the turtle walks, so I am afraid I have no specific turtle photos to share. However, photos from Tortuguero are available in our Costa Rica gallery.