Getting to The Pacuare Turtle Reserve

Arriving at the Pacuare Reserve was quite an adventure! We followed the directions we were given from the project coordinator hoping we would end up in the correct place. We took a bus from San Jose to the small town of Matina where we caught a cab that took us down a long dirt road past many banana tree farms with Dole trucks parked along the road. Bananas here are so good and plentiful. When we were in the mountains we bought a whole branch of them and they were delicious. I felt like a real monkey or a toucan eating bananas right off the branch. At the end of the dirt road we were dropped off at the canal and at first there was no dock or boat or people in sight, just Katie and I on the side of the dirt road with our bags. Upon further inspection we spotted the little dock just past a gate and two people waiting with the Pacuare motor boat to take us down the canal to the reserve. Katherine, the on-site head of the research assistants picked us up along with one of the guards and they were each polite enough to not comment on the enormity of my suitcase which gratefully did not capsize the boat. The canal was beautiful with lots of butterflies and birds overhead and we constantly kept our eyes peeled for the rare sighting of a crocodile. There is a crocodile that lives close to the reserve that they have affectionately names Rambo. Katie and I went on some night walks and always called to him but he proved to be ever elusive although we did see the glowing eyes of a couple of caymen. 

The reserve was in its last week with the turtles and we were the last volunteers to arrive. We were a little surprised at how few volunteers there actually were because upon signing up we felt lucky to have gotten spots when in reality the place was pretty dead. We were the only “Gringas” in sight and the other group of volunteers were from Spain as well as many of the research assistants. A few of the other research assistants were from England and the rest of the workers and guards were local Ticos. So we were excited to get back to speaking Spanish and practicing with native speakers! In the mountains before the reserve we were surrounded by only other Gringos and we weren’t provided much opportunity for practicing the language and we are really hoping to become more fluent by the end of our travels here in Costa Rica.

There is so much beauty here and so many animals and critters to admire. Lots of these critters being bugs, which at times can be fascinating but other times can look quite man eating. Katie is much better with the bugs than me. I shy away from them, admiring their creepiness from afar while she gets right in there and takes 30 pictures of each insect from every possible angle. The real kicker however is when I tell her there is a spider next to her or a big bug she will at times let out a girlish squeal and hop 50 ft into the air. I guess bug bravery can only go so far. To be fair I walk the trails waving a stick in front of me in order to knock any on coming spider webs out of my way and after witnessing a giant spider silently descend from the tree tops on our first night walk, I politely declined the invitation for the second night walk. Not the picture perfect jungle explorers but we try...
 

The first night we arrived there I saw a spider nearly the size of my face chilling out near my bed. Not the best placement if you ask me and surely going to give me nightmares. We try to escort it out but by the time we get back from dinner it is nowhere to be found. I have trouble sleeping that night of course, visions of spiders crawling all over my body haunting my waking dreams. I awake the next morning unharmed and begin telling Katie the woes of my dreary nights sleep when I turn and look to the corner of my bunk bed and notice a snake, nicely nestled into the corner of the bunk. I quickly flee from the bed and Katie begins rolling with laughter. Then she makes me get back in bed so she can take this picture! The timing of the whole thing was quite funny seeing as I was just describing how I would awake in the night and scan the top of the bunk for spiders with the flashlight, while the whole time there was a snake sleeping not even 2 ft  away from my head! It turned out to be a small Boa, which is not venomous (whew!), but the whole experience was eye opening and a great introduction to sleeping in and being one with the Costa Rican Jungle.  Later the next day, the spider also showed back up and this time Katie was my knight in shining armor and delicately escorted the spider out of our cabin with the use of our handy dandy tupperware. We named her Cecilia and gave her a new home in the forest where she belongs! 

Notice the snake in the upper right corner of my bunk! Yikes!!

I'm so glad he didn't try to snuggle with me!

This was all just within the our first 24 hours at the reserve so as you can see there are many exciting stories to tell about our time there and it may take us a little while to get all that we want to share about our time there out in the world on our blog. We have decided to separate our stories out and share things with you about our stay as we have time and are able to match writings to pictures. We plan on putting up another blog soon all about seeing the turtles, volunteering at the reserve, and the other exciting critters Katie saw along her night walks with our favorite guard at the reserve, Danillo. Thanks so much for reading and I hope that everyone is enjoying our stories! 

Welcome to The Pacuare Reserve!