Tortuguero (Hugh)

Today we get an opportunity to travel in one of the coaches driven by crazy men who overtake speeding motorists on blind corners. In addition, this guy has some kind of disability in that he can only brake using short intermittent and sharp jerks of his right leg. The kids watch “Star Wars IV”, which I previously knew as “Star Wars”. Our Nintendo DSs remain in the back pockets of our hire car, now returned. Hopefully the car cleaners have kids.

Our guide on the bus is a Caribbean called Henry with a really dubious sense of humour, broadcast throughout the bus with a powerful microphone. I put earplugs in ostentatiously whenever he starts on a new topic but this does not throw him off balance at all. In our tour bus, we are accompanied by Chileans, a French/American family, a large group of humourless Belges, some Dutch, a gay couple from Florida (who simply lurve the children) and an English couple (the first Brits we have met on this trip). I think the Americans enjoyed us Brits introducing ourselves. It went like this – “Hello, where are you from?” [Sally]. “Surrey” [Sarah]. “I said where are you from?” [Sally]. “Surrey” [Sarah]. Repeat ad libid.

The second leg of the journey is more fun; we are in a boat this time journeying into the Tortuguero National Park. On the way in, we see red spider monkeys, howlers, spoonbills,
iguanas,
caimans and birds of all sorts of lizards.There are also manatees here but these favour the grazing at the bottom of the canal rather than swinging through the trees, so we do not see any. I cannot hear the word “manatees” without recalling a late night conversation with Mel Holland and Martin Large at a Salmons’ dinner party long ago, when both Martin and I misheard as “huge manatees”, Mel telling us that she was studying Humanities. A long and confusing exchange followed, not helped by high background noise.

I have good form on this kind of thing. A recent conversation witnessed by Sarah was my discussion with the posada manager in Los Roques (imagine a strong Spanish accent) during which he was explaining that he would come with me with a baggage trolley to do ‘the Chicane’ at Gran Roque airport. I then asked somewhat quizzically and using appropriate swerving hand gestures, why we would have to run a Chicane between the posada and the airport, a very straight forward five minute walk, Sarah collapsed in giggles and refused to engage any further. Maybe that bit of my brain is missing. It took me years to understand the “where’s the soap?” joke.

Cracking lodge this (Mawamba). Quite basic, positioned on a spit of land between the Tortuguero Canal and the Caribbean Sea. There is swell here on the beach, but not really surfable and no hire shops. There are large signs everywhere saying “no swimming”, and there are certainly strong rip currents, but I haven’t drowned yet. Perhaps there are sharks, I don’t know.


Here at the hotel we’ve seen a snake, lots of frogs (some of which have been persecuted by the kids), and the usual gamut of giant insects. Sitting outside our rooms in the dark, we have been used as climbing frames by various spiders and crickets.
This is a little unnerving, but the locals seem to survive so we have been taking the view that we will too.