El Pueblo de las Tortugas (6/22-6/24)


6/22 to 6/24

For my final weekend excursion, I traveled to the town and national park of Tortuguero with the tropical ecology class and others. It is a small island off the northern coast of the country. The small town is located along the beach of the island, in the middle of the protected land. The park is so well preserved that it is impossible to drive there because there are no roads. So, Friday (6/22), we took a bus to a small port on the river south of the park and traveled by boat to our lodge. We arrived fairly early, so we went to the town after having a quick lunch. It was a very quiet, small, and isolated area. The town itself was basically a single path crowded with shops, food vendors, souvenir vendors, and local Costa Ricans. We bought some things to bring back with us and enjoyed rich ice cream on our walk along the beach. Our tour-guide brought a bag for us to fill with plastic scraps we found as we walked. This meant a lot to me because I had a lot of previous knowledge regarding animal digestion of various plastics due to litter, pollution, and landfills. Without getting into the details, I will say that it is extremely cruel, so I gladly take any opportunity to help reverse this process. 

On Saturday, we woke up early for breakfast and boarded a tourist boat immediately afterward. Our guide took us upstream of several different small inputs to the river on the west side of the island. We saw many animals and beautiful trees, but above all, we saw a toucan! Two actually, which was great because that was one of a few things I really wanted to do while in Costa Rica. 


When we returned from our boat tour, we ate lunch and relaxed for a little. Then, two of my friends and I decided to walk back to the town and take pictures. We returned for the tour of the garden and frog habitat at the lodge. We tried many types of fruits and vegetables and got to see some poison dart frogs, which are currently endangered. Then we ate dinner and spent time with our professor to discuss what we had learned so far in terms of ecological relationships. Today, early in the morning, we got back on our boat and returned to the small port and boarded our bus home. I walked to my house, unpacked, and called my family in the U.S. After speaking with them for some time, I found it very easy to switch back into Spanish for conversation with my host family. Earlier this evening, I sat down with my host brother, Daniel, to discuss his thoughts on the United States for an essay I have to write. We had a long conversation in which I was able to learn and ask Spanish-related questions, while he was also able to learn some about the English language. As we switched back and forth between the two languages, our conversation surpassed the interest of my assignment and became a nice discussion about sustainability, the United State's economy, and food. There was never a point that we needed to speak in English for my sake, but he enjoyed explaining concepts to me in English for the same reason I preferred Spanish--we are both trying to learn.

I will write my final blog post on Saturday (6/30), the day I say goodbye to this great country. Thank you for reading!

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