Tuesday, April 16th, 2019

Day 4 of Full Costa Rica adventure by Bamba Experience

Todays itinerary:

“Shuttle & Boat to Tortuguero
Early this morning, around 5:45am, you will board a shuttle that will take you to the beautiful Tortuguero National Park. As you travel to this wonderful part of the country, admire the many tropical plantations and the exuberant green vegetation that surrounds you. Along the way we will provide you with a brief introduction to the banana plantations.

Arrive at your accommodation in Tortuguero around noon for check in. Enjoy some time for lunch and to get settled in. After lunch you may go on an optional walking tour of the Museum and the town to learn about the local culture (not included, USD 1). Depending on the season, tonight you can also participate in an optional night tour (not included USD 25), which consists of a boat trip to Tortuguero National Park followed by walking on the beach to observe the nesting of the Giant Green Sea Turtle (available only from July to October).

Overnight in Tortuguero.”

We are picked up by the yellow Toyota at 5:30 am. At the reception a breakfast package awaits us. Coffee is aready ready. We put our luggage in the trunk and head down the hill. At the gate we remember the driver to drop us at the Pale supermarket. He forgot, no problem, we told the lady at the reception more than once, he drives us there.

I like the roof position of the horn.

Our next driver to Tortuguero already waits in the rain. We jump into the minibus. Radio is broken, so the driver improvized with cell phone and bluetooth speakers – unfortunately the bluetooth speakers donot have a microfone – 5 attempts later to do a phone call, the driver knows. He tells us about his life as a crew ship steward, US racism, local living, his kids. We have breakfast at a drive inn together. They do the filter coffee on the table.

We arrive at Guápiles, central minibus interchange of Costa Rica and change driver to “Jungle Tom Safaris” bus.

There is an aged biologist tour guide and already 15 people on the bus. The tour guide, Hermann, is continuously talking and flying to be funny. The jokes are from the last millennium. It is like a tour, where they sell carpets. We see a sloth on a tree beside the street.

Everybody out, here you can take a picture, everybody in. The sloth is totally shocked and blinded by the german, who tried to do a closeup with his new 100 mm – 300 mm telezoom and the new camera. 5 times flash use right in the exploding eye of the sloth, didnot make the close up sharper. While driving on, the SLR terrorist explains his wife the optical technical reasons why it was almost impossible to get a close up from the slot. 14 iphones did the impossible.

We arrive at La Pavone, are split in two groups (low water level, boats need to be half full only), have to walk a km to deeper river level and enter the boat. The driver is new on the water, the boat not. We crash left and right river bank and he has to get several times very annoyed out of the boat into the water to push it of a sandbank. The other boats pass by meanwhile.

At least we spot a crocodile.

Finally we make it to Aninga Lodge. We get bungalow 102 and go for lunch. Food is buffet, the cook is able to cook without salt or spices. No waiter, no chance for a drink. Some kind of salads. White rice, sauted vegetables, something undefined drowned in creme.

We meet at the jetty with Victor, our guide, to do a city walk in Tortuguero, check facilities and caribbean beach and discuss itinerary for the next days. The village is purely touristic, the only ATM is out of order. The beach is not to swim.

They are GoT, too. I wonder if they know a winter.

We check the local market.

We get a surprisingly good coffee at the village bakery. It is hot’n’humid. We head back to the Lodge – pool time.

Dinner is as tasteless as lunch. They even can do tastess fruit juices. The Spanish couple on our shaed table has a connection to the hotel manager. The get prepared food. We look jelous. I go to my room and watch Game of thrones, season 8, episode 1.

#teamaria

Accomodation Aninga lodge