Tortuguero National Park

One of the most impressive places we visited in Costa Rica, was our last stop in Tortuguero National Park.

The park stretches north along the Caribbean coast and is located on a narrow bit of land between the beach and a canal. There are no cars in Tortuguero and you can actually reach the park only by boat. One of the major world-renowned attractions of the park are turtles, as it is the most important hatchery in the western Caribbean for green sea turtles, hawksbill, loggerhead and giant leatherback turtles.

We went on a night tour to observe the turtles coming up to the beach to dig their nests and lay their eggs, a process that easily takes a couple of hours. There are no cameras allow on this tour in order not to disturb the giant female turtles, which weight a few hundred kilograms.

The next day we went for a walk along the beach and our guide was digging out some newly hatched, tiny turtles; they were so cute and it took them quite a while to get used to their new environment and to find their way dawn to the water......