And not just turtles, but turtle eggs – literally millions of turtle eggs
“Over the course of a five-day arribada nesting turtles will leave up to 10 million eggs on the beach of Ostional.”
One of the best parts about Costa Rica is the eco adventure. If you’re into that kind of thing, you will want to try and time your visit with a new moon as that’s when the arribada occurs and literally hundred of turtles come to shore in Playa Ostional to lay their eggs. While there are a variety of sea turtles that might come to shore, the most common are olive ridley but you’ll occasionally find leatherback sea turtles there I hear. Other species you might run into include:
Here’s an interesting fact too: even after traveling thousands of miles, the baby females come back to their birth beach to lay their own eggs when they become adults.
The rainy or green season is known to bring the most turtles as once. Time your stay with the new moon and you’ll likely have a few days’ window to witness the miracle of turtle egg laying.
If You go to Ostional
Unless you’re already close by, it’s worth checking with the refuge to see if the turtles are coming first. The website doesn’t really offer much info, nor does social media but if you message them on Facebook, they’ll usually get back to you pretty quickly. If they don’t, you can also ask one of the many hotels, lodges and inns in the area – also vie Facebook or you can try them by email – as they know it brings in tourists.
Speaking of hotels nearby, we have experience with two and would recommend them both but for different types of stay.
Places to Stay in Playa Ostional
Hotel Luna Azul
The first is the Hotel Luna Azul – this place is more of a quaint, smaller place and probably the closest to the turtle refuge. This matters because you have to be up before the sun to get there at sunrise to see the turtles in the best light. You can’t use flash photography and the turtles leave in the morning so at sunrise you get to see them finish nesting and laying and waddling back out to the ocean. It’s pretty magical. But I digress… back to Hotel Azul for a moment. The dining area overlooks the pool and is set in a beautiful treed area. The tables are made of beautifully finished local wood and it’s a serene and quiet setting. Rudy at Hotel Azul is so warm and kind. We showed up and he was ready to welcome us. Shortly after arriving, we realized we didn’t have a reservation there, but rather 20 minutes drive before we arrived here. We called Ocean Azul and they wouldn’t let us out of a reservation we made literally an hour before. Kind of BS frankly, and almost enough to make me not ever recommend them to anyone. But the property is nice for multi-day stays – more on that in the next paragraph. Anyway, now it’s after sunset, I’m in LOVE with this place and we have to drive 20 minutes back in pouring rain to go to a hotel I’m not interested in but is holding me hostage. I’m not happy but Pura ida right? Rudy was really nice and the other place turned out to be fie but don’t make this same mistake if you go.
Azul Ocean Club
The other “I’m-so-not-interested-in” hotel is Azul Ocean Club – this wasn’t the place we intended to say but it’s really nice. It’s a larger resort style place on the beach with individual building spread across the property. If you have a family and plan to stay more than overnight, it’s probably more convenient. We rented a villa that had two floors, a small kitchen and dining area. There was a bed and bedroom upstairs with a nook for an office and a couple of chaise type loungers that someone could sleep on. Be warned that you’d all be in the same room technically. There’s a nice balcony off the bedroom with a hammock. I’m sure the sunsets there would be amazing but we got there too late. The main floor has the kitchen, dining and living area. The sofa pulls out into a futon style double bed. So basically, this is great for a family staying a couple of days or more. It’s right on the beach and they have a pool area and a couple of restaurants. All this said, if you go in the rainy season – when the arribada is best – you might be the only people there like we were. We ate at the restaurant and the food was good but the service was so slow and random – a couple of kids meals came, then an appetizer, then the bootle of wine, then another couple of kids meals and then some adult meals and finally the last adult meal. They did give the adults a shot at the end that was a coconut cream kind of dessert shot that included the local liquor, guaro. Can’t say it will be faster in the high season either – it seems to be the Tico way.
There are several other hotels in the area of Ostional and many are really nice so check Trip Advisor if neither of these seemed interesting to you. Keep in mind that some don’t offer AC because they are uber eco-friendly. But they are also quite a bit cheaper.
Back to the Turtles…
We departed Reserva Conchal, where we live, at about 4:00 and got to Hotel Azul by 6:00. The road is not too bad. It’s gravel and rutted for a ling stretch but we never had to drive through a river. Given this was the rainiest season in 20 some years, that’s a good sign that you won’t either. We did however, cross many a sketchy bridge. They’re all fine to cross but some lack railings and some have big ruts at the entrance and exit and then some are so narrow you would lose an arm if you put it out the window. My advice: enjoy the bridges – they’re part of the adventure! And please keep your arms in the vehicle at all times.
So we drove to Ostional on a Thursday night and wanted to get home so our daughter in 4th grade could take part in the Halloween festivities at school the next day. Friday morning we got up at 4:15. Got dressed and ready and made the 20-minute drive back to Ostional (reminder: it would have been a 3 minute drive had we stayed at Hotel Azul – did I mention that’s where I wanted to stay?). We were of the first to arrive and others quickly line up behind us. You know you’re there because you get to a river that you probably don’t want to cross. It’s not shallow and it’s moving pretty quickly – at least it was when we were there. That said, I think the Honkey Tanque could have made it. We didn’t chance it though because there’s a walking – slash ride your motorcycle across – bridge you can take to get to the other side. As soon as you’re over, someone seemingly pretty unofficial will tell you you have to pay them to see the turtles. You probably do but it’s ok to walk to the beach and not enter waiting for someone at least dressed in an official shirt to show up. It’s $10 a person so take some US dollars – exact change if you want to save yourself a headache.
You’ll walk down a road, not very far, and then the back is on the right. You can see the turtles from the road but if you want to walk out on the beach, and you do, you’ll have to go with the guide. That’s what the $10/person is for. They’re pretty cool. If you know Spanish you can ask questions but I don’t think many of them know English. They’ll take pics for you with your phone if you want them to.
You’ll see pretty quickly how many eggs don’t make it. The Beach is hovered by turkey vultures and dogs just having a hay day snatching up the exposed eggs and turtle babies. And if you aren’t careful, you might step on an egg that didn’t quite get buried. Although chances are that one wasn’t going to make it anyway.
After the mamas come to shore, walk out of the water a ways they dig a pretty big hole about the size of themselves. Then they lay their nest of 80ish eggs – which is apparently a fairly painful and arduous process. Once they’re egged out and exhausted, they then have to completely bury the nest and get back to the ocean at which point they often get tossed and rolled onto their backs just to wait for another wave to hopefully turn them back over. It’s amazingly intense watching all of this as the cards are really stacked against them from day one.
So far we have seen the mating (stumbled upon tis unexpectedly while kayaking at Playa Conchal one day) <add picture/vid of mating turtles> and the laying of the eggs. We look forward to going back and seeing the hatchlings attempt to make their way to the shoreline to flee the dangers of land (dogs, heat, vultures, people) only to get into a sea of all new dangers. It’s a risky life for turtles but they sure are amazing and beautiful creatures that are impossible not to love.
