Over night trip- Warning overload of pictures!

First of all I am writing a lot so I will not be offended if you just skip and go right to the pictures, I know I would. Sorry I know I get carried away sometimes and write way to much, but when we have been doing so many amazing things I just have so much to tell. So I am warning you ahead of time feel free to just skip to the pictures because I'm sure some of you do it already :) That's the most important part anyways!! So we decided to go on an overnight trip to Tortuguero. They take you buy boat looking for different animals then you walk through the town of Tortuguero and you stay at a hotel there. Then that night you can go observe the turtles nesting. They next day they continue on the river and then they take you through the rain forest. Mark really wanted to see the turtles and we thought it would be a fun expierence, and indeed it was. It was just amazing. We didn't get much sleep but it was well worth it. They picked us up at 6:00 and they showed up in one of thouse huge traveling buses that have the nice soft reclining seats with a bathroom in the back. We were completely shocked, we were not expecting anthing like this. It was raining and because of the weather the road we were supposed to take was closed, so we had to take a different route so it was going to take a little longer. I'm amazed that these huge buses can get around at all sometimes. It's crazy because it was only 60 km away, but it took over 3 1/2 hours. We stopped to eat breakfast at this place that had an amazing view. We continued on and we hit a dirt road that we were on for about an hour and a half. We were pretty glad we had such comfortable seats at this point. Our guide Thomas was awesome and he was pointing out everything explaining anything and everything he could. We finally made it to the boats so we left our nice plush bus and got ready for our boat ride. We had an amazing time and got to see a lot of cool things. It wasn't very long before we switched boats and headed off to the place we were staying. We had no idea what to expect or how far it was going to be. It took us about an another hour to get to our place by boat. When we pulled up to let some guys off we were a little worried but it wasn't our stop. We went a little bit more and we pulled up to some nice docks and the rest of us got out. The place was amazing and absolutley beautiful. As soon as we walked up there was a guy pouring fresh fruit drinks and handing them to everyone. It was so good. We got our room and had some time to eat lunch and relax. We walked around the place and it was incredible. They have little bungalos and rooms everywhere with 2 pools, 2 different eating areas, and so much more. We were in room 48 so we know that it can hold a lot of people. Our room was really nice and we noticed they don't have windows they just have screens up so you can hear everything. Then we went Tortugeuro to walk around and see some things. We watched a video on Turtles and our guide continued to take us around showing us different things. They have no cars here eveything is done by boat so it was a nice change. We got back and ate dinner and waited to go on the turtle tour which was at 10 pm. When we got there they take you to their runway and you just wait. They have people walking up and down the coast watching for the turtles. We were nervous because they said sometimes when the weather is really bad they won't come out and it had been raining ALL day. Luckily it had calmed down and had stopped raining but it was still cloudy. When we started we could see like 2 stars in the sky. After awhile they had seen something so we walked out to the area and we not allowed to use lights or have cameras because the lights will scare the turtles off. The only time is when they are actually laying the eggs they will shine a red light because it does not affect them and they are in a trance when laying the eggs. We waited more when we got there because they can't do anything while they are digging their hole because they do not want to scare them off. After awhile though they realized the turtle did not like the place she was in because there were to many branches and roots and if they aren't comfortable they will just go back to the water. So we got to watch as the turtle went back into the water and it was incredible. Our guide kept pulling Mark right behind her to where he could have bent down and touched her. She could only go a little ways before she would have to stop to take a break. She was so big and it was so amazing to watch! It was a perfect night because the clouds had cleared and we could see tons of stars. It was just beautiful. We got back late and we had an early morning so we were looking forward to sleeping. This unfortunatley did not happen. All we can say is we had an amazing experience so we did not need the sleep. Since you do not have windows in your rooms you can hear everything outside which means the toads, birds, crickets, and every other animal out there. At first it's really cool but then it just keeps going. It's not like a nature CD where you can turn it off, it just keeps going and going. Oh and we had fruits falling off landing on our roof that at times sounding like a gun. We also got to enjoy the sounds of a howler monkey at about 3:00 in the morning. It was amazing though because the expereince was priceless. We got up ate breakfast and continued on our day. We continued on the river and went on to where it merges with the ocean. We got out and did a walk through the rainforest. We saw tons of animals on the river and on our walk. We saw tons of birds, lizards, iguanas, monkeys, crocodiles, caymans, a snake, crabs, all sorts of things. We headed back stopped for lunch and then continued on to meet our bus. By this time we were really looking forward to our nice bus with the comfy reclining seats so we could sleep on the way back. Unfortunaltey we were a little spoiled on the way there. When we showed up there was a little van that they slammed everyone and their luggage into. No comfy, reclining seats but just packed to the limit with people and stuff. We knew it was to good to be true but we survived and we had the most amazing time and what an expereince it was!!

This was where we stopped to eat breakfast

Our view when we were eating

They have huge beatles here. There were all over in a tree and a guy just walked out and grabbed one so Mark could see

This is where we stopped the first day to switch boats and where we ate lunch the second day

Now that's a lot of luggage!

This is a turtle's nest

Turtle tracks

Our guide Alex as we were walking through Tortuguero

Our Hotel

When we got off the boat they were handing everyone fresh fruit drinks. We felt really spoiled and they were really good!!

When we were walking to our room there were some girls around a little turtle

Of course we had to take our picture with him or her Mark says

One of the little girls, just so cute!!

Our room

The other pool here, it's shaped like a turtle

The little bungaloo off to the right is where we ate our meals

It was absolutely beautiful where we were staying

Where's Waldo? There are 2 parrots in there somewhere can you find them?

There were toads everywhere where we were staying and we heard them all night long!

This is a snake bird and they sit like this with their wings spread out because they don't have feathers they have hair and they had to let them dry.

We saw iguanas and lizards everywhere and I still have no idea how they spotted them.

We saw all 4 of the species of monkeys that they have here.

A Toucan

We say a couple of cayman as well which are a lot smaller than crocodiles

They call these lizards Jesus Christ lizards because they run on top of the water. We got to see one run away and it was really cool to see.

This crocodile has a little hump back that they say is a mutation from when they are in the egg

Mark saw this crocodile from all the way across the river and he pointed it out to me. Of course I was like no your crazy all I see is wood. Once we got closer I could see it, but we were a lot farther away when he saw it. Once again a reminder at how bad I am at seeing things. I have no idea why he was asking me anyways!

A blue crab

A viper snake and yes it is poisonous

Our transportation for the two days

I'm not sure if you can see them but we were driving by tons of banana fields and they cover them with blue plastic. They were everwhere and it had Mark really craving banana's

Yes this is the road we are driving on. I took this from inside the van. A lot of the parts were completely covered with water.

The sunset on our way home, was amazing, and the colors were unreal. We tried to take pictures the best as we could from the moving van.

Their was a complete rainbow in the sunset and it was absolutely beautiful