Puerto Viejo!!

The weekend I went to the carnival in Limón I met a couple from Canada, they were living in the same hostel as me. They asked if I wanted to join them to a rescue center for needing animals. I joined them, and I loved it. Volunteers from around the world come here to help injured and young orphant animals get back into nature! I was lucky to meet Marloes, who was my guide in the center, on the bus back to San Jóse. We talked the whole bus ride, and I said I would be back in Puerto Viejo soon! So when Troels and I arrived Puerto Viejo we invited Marloes and her friends out for dinner and some drinks. It was so nice, and the next morning we got a tour with Margherita ;)

As you can see from the pictures we got really close with the animals in the rescue center :)

The owner of the center is the mother of all the animals in the center, and they just love hanging around her!

After our group tour with Margherita we got a private tour with Marloes :D

We have never been so close to these kind of animals, and we even got to shake hands with the monkeys.

Also playing around and doing gymnastics with them :D

And hand feeding a tucan!

I have never seen a kinkajou, but the first time I got to tickle him ;)

Taking care of a sloth wouldn't be so bad.

I got a new friend to play with ;)

As this sloth, just enjoy life!

¡Pura vida!

Tortuguero!!

I've bought a motorcycle for my stay in Costa Rica so that I could have the possibility to go for road trips outside of San Jóse. There's just so much to see in Costa Rica if you get out of the city! Last week Troels and I decided to go for a roadtrip down the caribbean coast of Costa Rica. Our trip started in Tortuguero in the north. October is the last month of the great Green Sea turtles nesting season in Tortuguero.

When we arrived La Pavona we had to park the motorcycle and catch a water taxi to get to the island. Tortuguero is an island between water canals on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the east.

Riding through the canals we saw a lot of beautiful nature and wildlife. Crocodiles, birds, monkeys and different lizards were among the animals we could spot.

Tortuguero has a really nice and small city center with restaurants, supermarkets and a lot of tourist spots ;) When we arrived in La Pavona there was already a guide waiting for us there. He had a cheap hostel for us and he would take us for all the tours we wanted, so we didn't have to spend time walking around trying to find tours for our stay.

So instead of walking around looking for tours we found the beach and started to look for hatching baby turtles. This was not an easy quest and we walked the whole beach without finding one single baby turtle. Unfortunately the baby turtles are threatened by other wildlife on the beach, like birds, dogs and sharks in the ocean. We could see several empty turtle shells on the beach :(

At night the big turtles come to the beach to nest their eggs. We were prepared to see this, but it's not allowed to bring a camera. Again we were lucky and got to see 2 big turtles. One couldn't find a good spot for nesting, and we saw it going back to the sea. The second one was in the process of laying eggs, and we also got to see the next part of camuflaging the eggs.

Early the next morning we got up for a cano tour down the canals.

The wildlife is great early in the morning, and we saw so many nice animals close up!

After a few hours padling the canals we got back to the island and went for a hike in the national park. We saw more monkeys, but also a lot of different insects and colorful creatures!

In the afternoon it was time to hike up the highest hill for some great views of Tortuguero and Costa Rica!

Down to the left you can see Isla Tortuguero!

Hiking the hill we saw even more wildlife (surprise)! There were loads of the famous Blue Jeans frog.

And a tucan posing for us ;)

When we got back to the island we had a friend waiting to show is a baby turtle nest ready to make their run for the sea. It was an incredible sight, and it just completed our trip to Tortuguero!!