Tortuguero National Park

Tortuguero National Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Tortuguero is the park of canals and sea turtles on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast, reachable only by boat or light aircraft, and the way it is sold reflects that: two- and three-day packages from San José that include the coach to the river port, the boat through the canals, a lodge, meals and the guided tours, or the same trip arranged on arrival in the village for people who come independently by public bus and boat. Once there, the activities are booked with local guides in the village or through the lodge.

The canoe or kayak tour through the park's canals at dawn is the essential one, because paddles do not scare the animals and the park rangers only allow motorboats on the main channels; the entrance fee is paid at the park station and is separate from the guide. Guided walks on the trails behind the beach and night walks in the buffer forest show frogs, snakes and sleeping birds. From July to October the turtle-nesting walks on the beach at night, run only with licensed guides in small groups, are the reason most people come, and from March to May the leatherbacks nest. The one-day trips from San José exist but spend most of the day travelling; give it two nights.

Visiting Tortuguero National Park: what you will see

The park was created in 1975 to protect the nesting beach of the green sea turtle, the most important in the western hemisphere, and it covers about 310 square kilometres of lowland rainforest, swamp forest, lagoons and canals between the sea and the hills, in one of the wettest places in the country with up to six metres of rain a year. The canals, natural and dug in the 1970s, are the roads; boats and canoes glide between walls of forest where three kinds of monkey, howler, spider and capuchin, move in the canopy, sloths hang in the cecropias, caimans and river turtles bask on logs and the birdlife is overwhelming, with great green macaws, toucans, kingfishers and the rare agami heron.

Jaguars live in the park and are increasingly caught on camera preying on turtles on the beach, but are almost never seen by visitors. The beach itself is thirty-five kilometres of dark sand pounded by surf, unsafe for swimming, where green turtles haul out to nest by the thousand on summer nights and the hatchlings run to the sea a few months later. The village of Tortuguero, at the river mouth, grew from a turtle-hunting settlement into a community of guides and lodges, and the Sea Turtle Conservancy's research station explains the tagging programme that has run here since 1955. Cerro Tortuguero, an old volcanic hill, has a short trail with a view over the canals to the sea.

Tortuguero National Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

The park is open daily from about 6 am to 4 pm for the canals and trails, and the turtle walks run in the evening in season. It rains in every month, with the driest spells in February and March and again in September and October, which is also the peak of the green turtle nesting from July to October; leatherbacks nest from March to May.

Rain is part of the experience, and a waterproof jacket is more useful than an umbrella in a canoe. Dawn is the time for the canals, when the mist lifts and the animals are active. Allow two nights and three canal or trail outings. Cahuita National Park and Puerto Viejo down the coast are the usual next stops, and the Pacuare river rafting fits between Tortuguero and San José.