Costa Rica Travels, Part 4, Tortuguero to La Virgen

Tortuguero, continued:

To see map showing travel in this portion of the trip, click here.  The route followed in this portion of the trip is followed with a green line and yellow balloons at significant junctions.  Previously traveled route is indicated by a black line and black balloons.

Room in Hotel  El Icaco

At Tortuguero we had dinner at Miss Miriam's located next to the soccer field.  She offered delicious Chicken with Caribbean Sauce accompanied by excellent french fries and salad and other dishes.  Miss Miriam was very pleasant and we liked the food so much we went there the next day.  Local youths in teens and 20's gathered together every evening for a rousing game of soccer.  Many played barefoot and played very well.  One thing that impressed us a lot was that they included the participation of a young man who obviously had once had polio who served as an active referee.

Soccer Practice Opposite Miss Miriam's

Early the next morning Bob searched out Dorling Bakery for chocolate cake, milk and excellent coffee, a perfectly balanced breakfast.  Romaine, who never has breakfast, joined him at the boat landing and Bob presented her with a take out coffee from the bakery. We met our guide-boatman at 6 am for a wildlife tour.

We motored down large canals and then the boatman took us into side canals where he paddled without motor.  It started to rain lightly but it was warm and simple rain parkas kept us reasonably dry.

Anhinga Drying Feathers

(You can view a portion of the rain forest trip  here ).

A common bird in the area is the Anhinga Anhinga, often called simply Anhinga (also snake bird).  Found in Gulf States, down through tropical Central and Latin America, the Anhinga is a curious bird.  It is a water bird but cannot oil its feathers like most other water birds.  Thus, its feathers become saturated with water and they can no longer float.  They have to periodically climb up on a log or stump and dry their outspread wings in the sun.  Their wing span is just over one meter.  They catch fish by spearing them with their needle-like beaks. Like the Cormorant they swallow fish whole.

Caiman Waiting for Lunch

Along the narrow canal one often sees Caiman a type of Crocodile that is found in fresh and salt water environments. The local Caiman is known as the Spectacled Caiman because of protrusions above the eye.  They obtain lengths up to 2 meters and 40 kg weight.  Not too large compared to Alligators and other Crocodile species.  When I took biology in high school we kept a baby Caiman in an aquarium.  It would grab hold of your open hand with its needle-like teeth and not let go.  For this reason, even though small, I do not think I would like to swim in an area where they are present.

Bird on Lilly pads

There were many colorful birds along the way.  Many were difficult to see because of heavy vegetation.  Lizards hiding in the greenery were often nearly perfectly camouflaged.

Returning from the tours we re-visited Miss Miriam's for a second dinner.  The next morning we bought boat tickets at a small shop for a trip to La Polana and eventually on to La Virgen.   We went over to a nearby restaurant for breakfast and coffee.  Bob had a more proper breakfast there and Romaine her usual coffee.

Caiman Basking in Sun

We paid and went down to the boat landing and boarded a boat in waiting.    The boatman pulled away from the landing and we headed down a series of canals some quite wide. The boat was powered by two large outboard motors and made good time.  Toward the end of the high speed run we got close to several other boats.  We were really moving, see here .  Suddenly, the jungle started to thin and soon we were approaching a clearing.  The boat pulled over to a mud landing and we had arrived at La Pavona also called Rancho El Rio Suerte.  La Pavona has a nice bar restaurant and lots of tables and benches you can use for eating or to wait for outgoing buses.  The contrast between wildlife reserve and La Pavona is startling.  From this point on you are in Ranch (Finca) country. Civilization encroaches right up to the very border of the reserve.

Lizard Camouflaged in Greenery

There is rarely a long wait for an outbound bus and in a short time we were on the way to Cariari and eventually La Virgen.

Here is a good place to point out one of the problems of travel in Costa Rica.  Many people rent 4 wheel drive cars for traveling throughout the country.  However this is very expensive with loads of extra charges and one is faced with the problem of where to rent the vehicle and where to drop the car off.  We arrived in Tortuguero by boat as there are no roads in the park.  We did not wish to retrace the trip by boat from Tortuguero to Moin.  This posed no problem for us as we were traveling on by bus.  A person who had been traveling by automobile would have to take a bus all the way from La Pavona to Moin if they wanted to continue on with their rental car or drop off their car in or near Moin, take the boat like we did to Tortuguero and re-rent a vehicle in Cariari.  

On the other hand, a negative of bus travel in Costa Rica is that buses often do not go all the way to certain destinations such as parks and wildlife reserves.

Bird on Palm Leaf

The first part of the trip is on a graveled road of fair quality. This road mostly serves access from Cariari to fincas and eventually La Pavona.  From Cariari the bus continues to Siquirres a somwhat larger town of about 18,000 people. At one time Siquirres was a point where black people from the Caribbean areas were not allowed any  travel further westward.  At that time, Costa Rica had a form of apartheid limiting access of black people to the interior.  In 1949 this law was repealed.


From Siquirres the bus continued on to Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui .  A boat can be taken from Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui on the Sarapique River all the way to Rio San Juan which divides Costa Rica and Nicaragua in this region.  One can then go down the Rio San Juan west to the Caribbean and the small town of San Juan de Norte.  However, Nicaraguan authorities will no longer allow passengers to travel west from the intersection of these two rivers.  (It had been our plan to visit San Juan de Norte (aka Greytown) and then go west to Lago Nicaragua (Lake Nicaragua) and San Carlos Nicaragua and continue to travel in Nicaragua from there.  However, we were unlucky as the rules had been changed sometime before.  For reasons unknown to us Nicaragua is paranoid about Costa Rica.  Since Costa Rica has no army, navy or other military establishment, it is clear that Costa Rica poses no military threat to Nicaragua.)

Boat Landing at Tortuguero

We had to change buses in Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui and looked for a place to buy a lunch.  The LP guidebook listed a Chinese restaurant but, ominously, mentioned that the restaurant was "a greasy Chinese, Costa Rican restaurant"  We were hungry for something other than Costa Rican food and had lunch there.  We nominate the Bar y Restauante Sarapiqui for the worst Chinese food in the world award.  We are sure it would win the award, hands down.

We had less than an hours wait to catch a bus headed to La Virgen.  We told the driver the name of the guest house we wanted to be let off at and he indicated he knew the place.  Just after passing through La Virgen the bus stopped and the driver indicated that this was where the guest house was located.

We got off the bus and looked around for the guest house but did not see a sign.  Bob walked a bit in both directions but saw no sign of a guest house.  We were faced with a 1 km walk back to La Virgen where surely there would be accommodation.  A light pissy rain started and it was not long before it would start getting dark.  Then two boys of 12 or 14 on bicycles came pedaling down the road.  We asked them where the guest house was.  They pointed to a house across the road but which had no sign.  They explained that the woman who owned it had died very recently and the sign had been removed.  They indicated that there was another guest house in the direction we were traveling.  They offered to call a friend who might give us a ride there. A quick call by the boys indicated their friend would come and pick us up but would probably charge 2 dollars.  He he, soon we were in the cab of a real beater of a truck with a back bed loaded with scrap metal.  The young man drove us right up to the cabins and we thanked him and payed the 2 dollars.  A very nice woman said she had rooms and soon we were in a unit by ourselves.  The room was clean with bathroom and cold water shower, which is normal in tropical countries unless you go to quite pricey places. The room cost 5,000 Colon, the cheapest of the whole trip. We asked about food and she made a call to a pizza place in La Virgen where we placed an order.  Soon a man arrived with a large pizza and bottles of beer.  We had a great meal and there was enough for next mornings breakfast.

The area around the guest house had loads of standing water indicating recent heavy rain. During the night it rained again.  The next morning we planned on heading to Los Chilies near the Nicaraguan border.