The Road to Tortuguero

by Ian Edwards (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Costa Rica

There isn't one. A road that is. At least at the moment. Tortuguero is a tiny village situated on Costa Rica's Atlantic coast, a thin sand bar next to the Caribbean sea. Apart from the sublimely verdant surroundings of the national park that bears its name, the thing that instantly singles out this place is that it is only accessible by air and water. A canal boat trip from La Pavona brought me here, off the map. The boatmen are skilled, there are plenty of submerged rocks and foliage to navigate but they pick their course with practised ease. It doesn't take long for the buildings and farmland to fall away and a sense of tranquil nowhereness to fall. The jungle starts to impose its rule here, its tree limbs reaching out and beckoning in the boat, this small speck of civilisation. It's seen you too, crocodiles lazily bask the banks, motionless but alert watchmen, and for every bird you see there's two hidden that have seen you. Eventually, the canal passageways open up into Tortuguero. A mile or so upriver of the town itself are a scattered collection of jungle lodges. It may be the Caribbean, but there are no multi-storey beachfront hotel monstrosities here. Yet. First impression on the boat engine dying down is the very loud silence. The dark water laps the shore, birds plays a concerto with instrumentation ranging from a gentle squeak to a pneumatic drill, enthusiastically supported by the insects on backing vocals. But there's no mechanical whirr, no electronic hum, no human buzz. Yet. This is one of the remotest areas of Costa Rica, but the debate on whether to build a road here is a long one. Roads bring investment, people, jobs. Although this is by no means the vast expanse of white sand found elsewhere in the Caribbean, you can easily imagine the big hotel chains waiting with their planning applications in the lobby as the ministers argue the matter. Later that cloudless night, I sat on a pitch-black beach, deserted but for myself and another animated camera amateur attempting to photograph a night sky that was as unlike the featureless smudge of home as any I had ever seen. Our commitment led to his camera battery running flat and return to the nearby lodges to find a replacement. I stopped taking pictures and turned off my camera. Realisation struck. I was alone. In the dead of night. On an empty beach in the Caribbean. Anywhere else and this might invoke a sense of panic, of fear. But not here. An intoxicating, breathless sense of calm swept over me. I held up my hand and couldn't see it. The trees around me were only a slightly denser black than the air. The only thing visible with any clarity was that miraculous, that breathtaking expanse of sky, illuminated by millions of sparkling stars. Even as a fortunate observer of the Northern Lights on an Icelandic night canvas, this higher level astral display wasn't something I expected to find in the Caribbean. It's not how it sells itself. On this same beach, thousands of turtles return year on year to birth the next generation. On emerging from their nests, they see these same stars and they know which way to go. Towards the light. Towards the sea. No one is quite sure how they know to come just here. But that night on the beach it was easy to explain. There's an aura in this small place. A rare and disappearing magic. Build a road and the area will gain a bigger town, more jobs (not for locals, most Tortuguerans are already immigrants drawn here by the existing niche slice of eco-tourism), perhaps increased prosperity. But there are no gains to be made against the potential loss of these beautiful stars, obscured by the lights that will also come. Perhaps by day, the influx of new residents can absorb the sun like anywhere else but by night the aura will be gone. It's natural, primal, untainted. Irreplaceable. I stared at those stars that night and tried to etch them onto my mind forever. They're still there. Development hasn't taken them. Yet.