Oct 27-Nov 2: End of MST, Back to Site, and off to Tortuguero

Fortunately, because my illness struck during a Peace Corps training, I did not miss any commitments at site. I’d recovered enough by Monday that I was able to return to the colegio and jump in where I’d left off prior to Mid-Service Training. On Monday, I was looped into a couple different English-related activities at the high school in which I helped co-teach a technical class for 11th graders and then hosted an English chat for a couple of English teachers there. Later in the week there, I also helped observe other English classes while they took oral exams and held a meeting with one of my Servicio Comunal Estudiantil groups where they presented the report to me about senior citizens and leaders in the community. Meanwhile, at the escuela, I continued with my PE sessions with American football.

On Friday, I took off for one of the few remaining destinations on my Costa Rica travel bucket list: Tortuguero. Tortuguero is a small fishing village located in the province of Limon on the Caribbean. Whereas some other places in Costa Rica may be luxurious with robust infrastructure, Tortuguero is much more rugged, remote, and adventurous. In fact, getting there is part of the adventure. There are no roads leading to Tortuguero - you can only get there by plane or a boat ride through canals. A one-way journey from my site to Tortuguero tallies 3-4 buses, a taxi, and a boat ride in total. 

On the way to Tortuguero, I met up in a town called Cariari with a Peace Corps friend coming from the eastern part of the country. He and I had been wanting to travel to Tortuguero together for almost a year. This weekend was the town’s annual “TortuFest” celebration marking the end of the turtle season and celebrating the town’s Caribbean culture, so we figured it would be the perfect time to go. Our first night in Tortuguero, we walked around the town to get a sense of the layout and enjoyed some live music. We were both pretty exhausted by the trip but happy to be there. Although we got back to our hostel at a reasonable hour and were pretty tired to boot, the festivities were so robust that the music didn’t subside until after 4:00am and we didn’t sleep too much.

On Saturday, we got up and took a boat trip over to San Francisco de Tortuguero to do a short hike up “Cerro Tortuguero”, which is the highest point on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. Afterwards, we headed back to the main town area to have lunch and eat one of the most traditional dishes in Costa Rica’s Caribbean region - “Rice and Beans”. In the afternoon, we enjoyed parades that took place both on land and in water. Following the same theme from lunch, our dinner was a unique Caribbean dish called “rondón”, a fish-based soup that I hadn’t tried before. 

Tortuguero means “Place of the Turtles” in Spanish, and turtle sightseeing is the town’s primary tourist draw. We knew the turtle season was slated to end that week, but we figured we had to try and take a turtle-related tour. So, after polishing off the rondón, we left with a guide that night on an evening walk through the jungle and along the beach. Although we saw cool things like tree frogs, toucans, and even turtle tracks from the day before, it became apparent that we’d missed a chance to see the turtles by just a day. That was a bit of a bummer, but I know we would’ve regretted making it all the way out there without trying to spot turtles. We made it back in time to enjoy some more concerts and Caribbean music that TortuFest had to offer before preparing for the trek back to our communities on Sunday. Tortuguero is without a doubt one of the most fascinating destinations I’ve been to in Costa Rica. Being there for TortuFest only accentuated its unique vibe and culture compared to the rest of the country.