With 3 buses and a boatride we went to Tortuguero, a little place at
the northern caribbean coast
of Costa Rica. The boattrip was a special one, in a so called
bananero. A small wooden canoe with
engine used for banana-transport. Because this year is El Nino year
again together with the dry season,
it's extremely dry this year. The river was so low, on some spots
there was just 30 centimeters of water.
The bananero had to go very slow and find it's way through the deepest
spots, but we got stuck often.
Some guys had to go out to push the boat, but they didn't like it that
much because of the crocodiles
in the neighbourhood (and these guys couldn't swim either). The river
was also full with dead trees
so the boat had to zig zag a lot. It got stuck under a branch of a
tree and had to be cut loose with
a machete (picture). The river went through beautiful rainforest, we
saw a lot of monkeys and birds.
The trip lasted much longer then planned, so in the end we went in the
dark, finishing it off with a
boatrace in the dark at the final deeper stretch.
In the boat we met
Ann and Frank from Belgium, Frank
is a total fishing addict.
Tortuguero was a little town with a caribbean feel, most of the men
were drunk all day, Bob Marley
everywhere, and very slow pace of life. The town is ruled by two mafia bosses, who
are in charge of the transportation,
accomodation and restaurants. We talked with one of them, he had 20
kids with almost as many wifes.
People running other bussinesses have a hard time, and all visitors
are led
into the direction of the mob. We had a nice night with Andres, a guy
with good intentions willing to
change it all. Tortuguero is famous for its nesting turtles (but we
were in the wrong season), but
these tutles are still on the menu of the locals, because it's very
easy and cheap prey. Garbage is
a big problem too, but a reclycling project is started.
We went fishing with Ann and Frank in a paddle canoe, but we only
caught 2 oversized guppies.
Frank had better luck the next day with his rods in the sea, he caught
2 big manta rays.
Every morning
we were woken up by guys trying to sell us tours, they knocked at our
door at 6 in the morning.
We took a tour in a paddleboat with one of them, we went around in the
park and saw many birds and monkeys.
The guide put his boat to the side, and we had to walk a little trail
in the jungle. Flo was freaking
out when she heard that we were looking for vipers. The guide went in
front with his machete,
and looked carefully around. We saw 2 golden eyebrow pittvipers, and
knowing that there was no anti-venom
in town and after a bite you have only 2 hours, it was a bit scary. A
naive German guy almost
stepped on the branch where the viper was laying on, which would wake
him up. You feel very little in the
jungle suddenly.
We had a permit for the park that day, and wanted to
see it again without
giggling Swiss girls in the boat, so we rented a canoe ourselves and
paddled back into the
park. This was a dream! Rowing through the jungle with no humans
around, a lot of birds, monkeys,
crocodiles, and in our own tempo, the Amazon must be a like this... Once
in the while we met a motorboat
with tourists in it looking very jealous at us with our canoe.
We also went very quiet to
a cormoran, and the bird greeted us with a big dump which splashed
right into our canoe ;-)
(picture)
One night we went to the restaurant and got a table with mouse shit on
the cloth. We thought it was mouse shit,
but after we saw a huge rat running on the roof-balk, we knew better ;-
)
We were victim of crime here for the first time. The bra Flo had hung
outside our room was stolen :-)
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