Costa Rica - Tortuguero - 2022

Today I arrived at the Sea Turtle Conservancy Biological Station in Tortuguero, after two days of travelling :)

My Journey started at 3:30am on Thursday when we left for Heathrow Airport bright and early! We were greeted with a 3 hour queue for baggage claim and so after an hour it was decided we should part ways and I waved my sister and parents goodbye and began my solo journey, with not much time until my flight once my bag was dropped I quickly got through security and made it to my gate in time for my flight to Frankfurt. The flight to Frankfurt was very quick, just over an hour and was mostly just ascending and descending. When we landed in Frankfurt I had a short stopover for a couple of hours and after meandering through the airport to the correct terminal I found my gate and waited about an hour until boarding. 

The flight from Frankfurt to San Jose was around 12 hours long, but was pretty smooth all in all. We were slightly delayed leaving as the plane was refuelled but made it to San Jose not long after we were scheduled. I enjoyed my aeroplane food (and the fact that as a vegetarian I was brought my special order food nice and early before everyone else) of tofu tomato curry and Dahl with chocolate mousse to finish. I watched some questionable films (note to self, only watch films I've seen before on flights from now on ☺) and also some familiar favourites. I arrived in San Jose at around 18:00 local time (7 hours behind the UK) and was taken to my lodgings in San Jose for the night by Marco the taxi driver. I went straight to bed once I arrived in preparation for another long day of travelling  😴.  

This morning I woke up at around 4:30am local time and then waited to get ready to be picked up at around 6am by the tour shuttle that was taking me to Tortuguero. We drove through San Jose to collect other groups and travellers and headed to a breakfast stop where some people were heading to some  rapids for an adventure experience whilst the rest of us headed on the shuttle to carry on to Tortuguero. Whilst we were stopped for breakfast I saw a wild iguana, sloth and lots of leaf cutter ants carrying leaf up and down trees. The journey allowed me to appreciate just how biodiverse and green Costa Rica is, as its also considered the most biodiverse country in the world! With Coati running along the road and a plethora of different birds flying in the skyline beside the cloud forest. I also learnt that Costa Rica has no Army and has made it to nearly one year relying solely on clean energy.

We arrived at Cano blanco and disembarked the shuttle bus to continue the journey by boat along the river to Tortuguero. I met a few other people travelling from the UK, a few from the US and a family from Germany. The boat ride took around an hour and was something like out of an adventure film, with vast expanses of Vegetation, trees and water on either side, we saw a few river turtles and different birds but unfortunately no manatees, Tapirs, Jaguars or Caymens yet. 

Once we arrived in Tortuguero I had about a 10 minute walk to the STC (sea turtle conservancy) station where I am staying and working for the next 5 weeks. I was given a quick tour, given some lunch and met the other research assistants at the centre who are from all over the world. I'm sharing a room with a girl named Sue from Costa Rica and was given an introduction meeting before dinner. Everyone seems really nice and I'm excited to get started. Tomorrow morning I'm out on a track survey to count how many turtles nested in the night. 

As I lie in bed finishing off this entry I can hear two small geckos croaking at each other and scuttling across the wall next to my bed 🦎