"Rain Forest Visits" a Tortuguero Travel Page by grandmaR

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Great Egret

The park name comes from the Spanish word for turtle: tortuga, as does the name for the Dry Tortugas in the US. Six of the eight known marine turtle species come here every year to nest, making this the most important park for marine turtle research in the world. About the only thing we did NOT see in the park was the sea turtles that the park is named for. because we were there during any of the nesting seasons.

We stayed outside the park at Parismina and took two trips into the park. The most exciting one was the night tour. But the daytime tour was nice too. We saw several kinds of monkeys, river turtles, poison-arrow frogs, caimen, and many birds including a toucan.

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Railroad trestle

Then we revisited the park in 2008 from a cruise ship. It was just as I remembered and I got some better pictures.

Travel in Tortuguero National Park is by water or by air and you get around in the park mostly by water, although there is a narrow gauge train. You can't get there by land. It is full of canals.