aventuras de awesome: Tortuguero

First of all, thank you for all your prayers and concern for my safety here in Costa Rica! I just wanted to reassure you that no, I'm not crazy, I would've indeed acted differently had I known there was a gun involved, whether or not it was real and loaded. I've asked my host family to get rid of the jacket I robbed from the robber (hah!), so they're planning to donate it (though I have nightmares that the robber will see some poor homeless guy wearing it and attack him. ahh!). In any case, I'm pretty amused by my new status as "badass" amongst the EWH kids ("So how many people have you kill today, Rita?") haha. I praise God that He's guided and protected me thus far, and have been drawing energy from Him to keep pushing, keep from burning out during this intense month. Anyways, on to what happened after that lovely morning!

Our huge group trip to Tortuguero the first weekend was a good way to start our explorations of what lay beyond San Jose. Everything was planned out, down to when we took bathroom breaks and where we ate lunch. It was convenient, but sometimes I'd feel forced to participate and pay when I really didn't want to - that was frustrating. Our main tour guide Tom also had a bad habit of making up facts, and even felt compelled to make a disclaimer that everything he said was questionable ("What is truth? It's relative, it's what you believe in your heart.") Regardless, I had fun. Our hotel cabins were literally in the middle of the rainforest, a place accessible only by a 1 hour boat ride or by air, and featured a huge turtle-shaped pool that we ended up spending a majority of our time frolicking in.

Our itenerary included a brief stop at the Del Monte plantation/factory on the way to Tortuguero. Tom reassured us that the workers didn't mind pictures and even wanted the publicity, but I don't know, I still felt like there was something a bit zoo-like, something degrading about tourists continually passing through, watching and documenting a worker's every move on camera. Anyways, here they are thoroughly washing the latex-like substance off of the bananas so people don't get allergic reactions to them and everyone can enjoy their deliciousness!! mmmm.

Later that night, we payed for an attempt to see nesting green turtles and leatherbacks, which involved walking on the beach for two and a half hours. It was completely dark minus the occasional flash of lightning or stars peaking out from a brief parting of clouds - the perfect atmosphere for getting lost in one's thoughts. We were deathly quiet and intent the first half, but when we realized that the nesting season was too off, we blathered on on the way back and scared away anymore potential encounters haha. This is part of the stretch of 20 miles of black beach that we walked along. The black sand formed as a result of the interaction between the lava from the volcanoes of Costa Rica and the Carribean Sea - que chiva!

Some pics of the diverse wildlife we saw that weekend-

Our other tour guide Alex was brave/cool/crazy enough to grab a wild snake out of the bushes and show it to us. I much preferred the hike along the rainforest and beach boundary to the boat tours, which were more boring imho (bird! bird! bird. bird.. monkey!! bird. lizard. camen!! bird.)