Tortuguero Gone Wrong

Since international travel is at a standstill these days, I thought it would be fun to reach into the archives and share a story I've kept to myself. Most of the best memories from travel come from the unexpected, and my first visit to Costa Rica was no exception. I was headed to Tortuguero, a small village famous for observing endangered sea turtles beach themselves and lay their eggs (Tortuguero translates to home of the turtles). As a huge turtle nerd, this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I could not believe I was about to witness. The village is only accessible by plane or boat since it’s flanked by mangroves and rivers to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east. It was here that I learned Costa Ricans use the term, "dock" very loosely.

I arrived to the La Pavona “docks” during the wet season. There were no structures to tie up a vessel. Instead, there were mangrove trees along what used to be a shoreline and small 25-foot boats “secured" to them with a rope. The locals explained that the location of these "docks" could be hundreds of feet away depending on the amount of recent rainfall. I hopped off of the antique bus and climbed aboard the trusty dingy with far too many occupants for the safe capacity of our "vessel."  Not to worry, however, our confident captain proclaimed we could, indeed, all fit... I couldn't help but notice there were only a few life-vests aboard, but after all, we're in Costa Rica. "Relax," I told myself. After a mere 30 seconds from push-off, we encountered our first major problem...

Somehow, the connection between the single outboard motor and the steering column was disconnected. Meanwhile, the boat was drifting into a section of barbed wire (why there was barbed wire in the middle of swampland I have yet to discern). Our captain's trusty deckhand was on the bow of the boat and noticed the wire just in time to jump over it and grab hold of a sand bar. Once temporarily secured to the sand bar, I glanced over to where we had almost drifted. The color drained from my face at the sight of the angry rapids charging the opposite direction, churning with a vengeance. "Ok," I said to myself, "Now... it's time to panic." 

The captain noticed as well. He rolled open the plastic windows (which were previously blocking the rain, and would've blocked our exit in the event of a rollover), and proceeded to place the few life jackets onto the children in the vessel. So I recapped to myself... even the captain thinks we're going down. By the look of the deckhand in the picture above, I had reason to be scared. If he were a flight attendant, he would've ensued panic! The captain proceeded to talk to the passengers in Spanish, I was really wishing that I had worked harder in my Spanish classes. Just when I thought I could not be any more terrified, I remembered there were caiman and crocodiles in these waters...

Our leader devised a plan. He commanded his deckhand to hold the throttles, freeing him to climb to the back of the small boat and direct the outboard manually by pushing it right or left as needed. When he needed more or less speed he simply shouted to his compadre. The moment of truth came when we shoved off the sand bar and held our breath as we entered the furious water. The captain skillfully commanded the appropriate entry speeds and angles to keep the vessel upright. Thirty minutes later, we entered a large thru-way where the river calmed, and our heart-rates were able to return from the stratosphere. The next 2.5 hours of the journey was a much more copacetic ride that resulted in a safe arrival to Tortuguero! 

The village, was just that, a small and quaint place with a couple of modest hostels, a restaurant, a green space to play soccer, and a large dark sand beach. As the wettest region in the country, the rain did not abate. The soccer field turned into a large puddle that the kids of the village flocked to with ear-to-ear grins and laughter that warmed the heart as they repeatedly swan-dove into the muddy puddle! 

The soccer field wasn't the only thing that flooded, however. After one day in town we discovered why all of the structures were built 10-12 inches off of the ground, the entire village flooded. Walking around through shin-knee high murky water with a mystery as to what you may or may not step on wasn't ideal. After thinking it may be time to leave, my travel companion said, "I'm sure this happens all of the time." It wasn't 1-minute after the words left her mouth that we heard a local say, "This is worse than when they evacuated the gringos..." It was time to go...