Getting to Tortuguero was a bus-bus-boat trip, partly on the “Caribbean Highway”, a wide water canal in the Eastern part of the Tortuguero National Park.
Equipped with flash lights and rubber boots, we did a night hike through the rain forest. Our guide Victor was fantastic in spotting animals which would otherwise have escaped our notice: tiny frogs, an enormous bull frog (who can swallow chicken and snakes as a whole!), obelisks, grasshoppers, lizards, termites and their nest, a woolly opossum, dangerous spiders and jumping tarantulas.
We almost didn’t manage to get our shot of the world’s most photographed frog, the red-eyed tree frog. It wasn’t until our way back to the village, when Victor spotted a tiny exemplary of one of the red-eyed tree frog’s varieties.
Fortunately, we didn’t dream of spiders that night. We were probably just too tired.
The next day started early: By 6:15 am, we were already sitting in a lancha with four other people and a guide and were exploring the wildlife of Tortuguero’s waterways. We saw huge iguanas, lizards, caimans and all kinds of birds including tucans and parrots.
