Recollections from travels in Costa Rica – 1981-1986. Many images are scanned from duplicates (hence the poor quality) as the original Kodachromes remained in Costa Rica

In the far north-east corner of Costa Rica, lies Tortuguero National Park – a park bursting with biological diversity and an important nesting area of four species of sea turgles. The park is bordered by the Caribbean on the east and consists of a maze of interconnected canals. A naturalist’s paradise.

There are no roads leading into Tortuguero. You arrive either on boat by travelling up the canals from the south or you fly in.

In January 1982, I travelled to Tortuguero with David and Peggy Carr, who were managing the Caribbean Conservation Corporation (CCC). The CCC was established in 1959 shortly after David’s father, the late Dr Archie Carr, published his award-winning book, The Windward Road, which described the plight of the sea turtles. I was working on an audiovisual about sea turtles so David and Peggy invited me to join them on a trip to Tortuguero to see some of the work the CCC had been conducting.

There’s a maze of inland canals that crisscross through Tortuguero National Park – a bird lover’s paradise. Sometimes though you end up pushing the boat through the canals. On this trip, David and Peggy were showing the park and the CCC’s efforts to Geoff Barnard, who worked for the US-based Nature Conservancy and was looking for projects to fund.

Cerro Tortuguero lies on the northern edge of the park and gives you a chance to climb the hill and sample the lowland rainforests. The flower of the Araceae family (Arums) is one of 2200 species of plants growing in the park.

I was walking down the black sand beach of Tortuguero one early morning when I saw what appeared to be some driftwood. I squinted and my driftwood turned into a turtle, not one but two bouncing in the surf. I had my Nikonis underwater camera cocked and loaded so I ran into the surf and discovered the two turtles were in fact mating. I must have arrived just at the climax as I was only able to shoot a couple of frames before the male dismounted and swam away.

Perhaps mating turtles bring good luck. A Costa Rican friend, Ana, bought a lottery ticket which featured my photo about nine years after I shot the photo of the mating turtles. Ana hasn’t retired yet so I guess the turtles didn’t help her win the 7 million colones jackpot.

One day I was walking on the canal side of the village of Tortuguero and saw a man and his daughter dragging a green turtle. I got my camera out just as the man delivered a death blow to the turtle with a plank. I remained photographing as he slaughtered the turtle. I have those photos but they are not pleasant to look at so I won’t publish them here. I can no longer remember the situation but I seem to recall that the people of Tortuguero were able to harvest a certain number of green turtles each year so I believe this man had every right to slaughter the turtle and feed his family and other villagers. 

A young woman carries her share of the slaughtered turtle. A few months later I was in the port town of Limón taking photos of the trade in turtle meat there. After a day in the market and turtle slaughter house, I went to a bar and ordered a beer. The custom in Costa Rica is to provide a ‘boca’- a little snack – when you order a drink. I received my ‘boca’ and devoured it in a gulp. It was remarkably delicious so I ordered another beer just for the ‘boca’ and then another. I assumed it was some kind of slow cooked beef as it was sweet and tender and broke apart easily. I asked the bar maid what it was and she said, ‘Tortuga’. I’ve never felt like more of a hypocrite in my life than I did at that moment. There I was trying to save the sea turtles and ended up eating them. But, oh, it was sooo delicious. 

A green sea turtle races back to the sea after laying her eggs.

Scientists tagged the greens while they were on the beach as part of their studies to track the turtles.

Coconuts are collected and sold in market.

The majority of the people of the village of Tortuguero, and along the entire Caribbean coast of Costa Rica are of African descent. This man was just sitting by his window having a smoke when I popped by to say good morning.