Beaches of Tortuguero

Tortuguero "Land of the Turtles" National Park was created to protect the MOST important nesting site of the green turtle in the Western Hamisphere. It's a 73 square mile tract of land that extends along 14 miles of shoreline and extends 19 miles out to sea. The park must be approached through intertwining rivers and lagoons and canals, or can be accessed by small plane. Christopher Columbus noted in the 1503 that "turtles cluttered the seaway like little rocks. Sadly, throughout the last century these turtles have become endangered by hunting of the turtles for meat and the eggs being dug out of the sand and eaten as a delicacy. The turtles are very protected by ways such as beach walking at night during nesting season is illegal. We saw no green sea turtles. It is just about time now for nesting season to begin. This pole marks a nesting site on the beach. The turtles typically come back to the same site where they hatch - within 60 feet - to lay their eggs. Out of 1000 hatches, only one green turtle makes it to adulthood.

One side of our camp was the river, the other side was the Caribbean Sea.  Although this part of the Caribbean looked totally different to me with no white sand or aqua water, I found the beaches on this Caribbean side of Costa Rica to be beautiful with their dark lava sand. The waves are always large and the riptide is so strong, that swimming is prohibited in this area.

We saw nobody sitting on the beach and this was the only lifeguard I found!

It is amazing how different waterfront property is in this region of Costa Rica compared to waterfront property at home.