We spent the first two weeks of September on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast. I've got through the pictures from the first part of our trip! We spent a couple days hanging around Alajuela, a suburb of San Jose, where the airport is located and then went to Tortuguero.
Hotel La Rosa de America in Alajuela. It's become something of a tradition that we stay here to start and end our Costa Rica trips and we somehow always get the same room in the hotel! There will be a third trip to CR and we'll stay here again, I'm sure! It's a lovely little place, close to the airport, but not too close; owned by an ex-pat Canadian.
We made a return visit to Zoo Ave too. I love this place. It's a sanctuary/zoo with a focus on saving birds. They have a very successful breeding program for endangered birds and they have lots of other critters too, most that were kept as pets or orphaned as youngsters. This is Hannah, a cougar. Hannah and her sister were orphaned as kittens; they can't be released into the wild again as they are far too habituated to people. Hannah was very noisy during our visit, meowing and purring. It was very close to her lunch time!
Then we went to Tortuguero. There are no road in or to this national park. It's all a series of canals and waterways. It's a stunning, magical place.
This is Playa Tortuguero. It's not a swimming beach! It's got many dangerous riptides, bull sharks and is a protected turtle nesting beach. We were lucky enough to be see a giant green sea turtle nest on this beach at night. No pictures of that! It's illegal to be on the beach at night without a certified guide or with a camera. Turtles are very light sensitive and one flash would send them back to the sea without nesting. Only the guides can carry any kind of light and it's a pale red lamp. You even have to wear dark clothing on the tour. Even without pictures, the image of that ancient creature laying her eggs and returning to the sea is forever burned into my mind!
Tortuguero is full of wildlife; monkeys, birds, crocodiles, caimen and all kinds of lizards! This is a Jesus Christ Lizard...they run so fast with little suction cups on their toes that they can actually walk on water!
Three kinds of monkeys live in the area, including Spider Monkeys.
On the way to and from Tortuguero we passed dozens of banana plantations. I have a whole new respect for that humble fruit! Back-breaking manual labour is required to get it to market; each tree produces one bunch of bananas and dies when it is removed.
From Tortuguero we went to Puerto Viejo. I haven't even touched those pictures yet!
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