At Tortuga lodge there are only 4 tours offered: boat canal trip, hike through the National Forest/jungle, kayak the canals and a night turtle walk. Because the weather was so great and we didn’t want to risk waiting another day, we also elected to check out the turtles on our first day.
Visiting egg-laying turtles on the beach at night is a highly regulated activity. The Caribbean Conservation Corps, in conjunction with the Tortuguero National Park go to great lengths to protect the turtles, even from the well-wishing tourists like ourselves. There are a very few park rangers that patrol the beach and look for turtles. Once they are spotted, groups of tourists are led by guides and carefully approach the turtles only after they are in active egg-laying mode. Prior to that the turtles can get spooked by people and will turn back to the ocean. When we arrived on the beach there was already a turtle making her nest. We were instructed to wait very quietly until she was done and had entered her egg-laying trance. While we were waiting we observed a second turtle emerge from the ocean and make her way across the beach and start to nest (they do this by digging and flinging sand to make a deep hole).
We got to observe the first turtle lay 20-30 eggs (she will lay approximately 100 total). Other small groups of tourists were also there and cycled in and out looking at the turtle. A group of 5 of us crowded around the turtle, close enough to touch it. The guide lit up the egg-laying with a red light that apparently doesn’t disturb the turtle. The eggs are the size of ping-pong balls. It was all somewhat odd, but wondrous too. Kinda like barging into some random hospital delivery room. Our guide, Geraldo, had been guiding for 30 years and was clearly very proud and passionate about the turtles. The experience was very much focused on turtle conservation and care, and not at all about tourist experience. We got lucky – tourists only get 2 hours on the beach and sometimes don’t get to see a single turtle!
At the very end, we did see a third turtle coming up the beach, but unfortunately a group of about ten tourists led by a guide didn’t see the turtle in time and came right up on it. The turtle quickly (pretty fast for a big turtle) turned and headed back to the ocean. This was upsetting to all of us, but the guides seemed to think she would come back later once the beach was empty of human tourists. We hoped so. Our guide indicated the tourist restrictions put in place are making a difference, and every year the population of turtles are increasing.
The Next Day: Costa Rica: Tortuguero – Part 2
The Whole Trip: Costa Rica: The Summary