Full day Tortuguero. There was an optional ($30) tour into the park at 6:00 AM that we skipped. We’d be going later in the day and thought that would be sufficient. I still got up early and had the pool all to myself as I swam laps. Breakfast was a ham and mushroom omelette, sausage, papaya, pineapple, homemade bread, and 2 cups caffe con leche.

After breakfast, we went on a short boat ride into the park and took a walk through the rainforest. At the beginning of the trail, Jorge pointed out a HUGE-ASS spider! It was like 6″ long. It was a golden web spider and Jorge told us we could hold it “if we wanted.” I was like, no way! But he said the best way to get over a fear of spiders is to hold one. I tried it, but was paranoid it would jump in my face. And I was kinda freaked on the rest of the walk that I would walk into a web on accident. Spider webs were EVERYWHERE! We saw frogs and tons of spiders. It was SO HOT, I was sweating buckets!

Back for lunch buffet. We had pork stew, potatoes, plantains, rice, veggies, it was not as good as the fish we’d had but still tasty. After lunch, we went on a boat ride through the canals in search of wildlife. We saw/heard some howler monkeys, lots of different birds, and some caymans. The people who went on the AM tour said they saw a lot more stuff like macaws. After the mini-tour, the boat dropped off those of us who wanted to go to the town of Tortuga. Rain clouds were forming and we knew it was gonna pour, but we went anyway. We looked at some shops and I bought a bracelet from a street vendor for 7000 colones. Sure enough, it poured on the walk back. We had a bit of trouble finding the path, but eventually found it and it took 20 min. to walk back.

Dinner was chicken in a buttery mushroom sauce and mashed sweet potatoes. Eva and I stuck to a “no seconds” rule all day. Dessert was tres leches and I had an imperial cerveza with dinner. We chatted with Guillermo and Catalina during dinner. Back to the room for packing, we leave for Arenal at 8:00 AM.