Tortuguero + Pacuare pendant 4 jours

We did the 4 day tour. For driving and the boats into Tortuguero, I’m grateful my wife is a native Spanish speaker. I felt for those who didn’t have that. But she ended up saving us and those along for the ride (more later). Our driver, Alfonzo, was awesome. My wife and I sat up front since she speaks Spanish and loves talking with folks. He stopped and showed up sloths, monkeys, and macaws. He was kind, and helpful. He drove us from La Fortuna to the port at Tortuguero. Then we got to the port. And this is where Silvio comes in. This guy is a jerk. I don’t know who he works for, but he doesn’t deserve a job working with customers. First, he comes up to a van load of us, knowing we are tired, yelling broken English and Spanish about how we need to pay. My wife, being fluent in both languages, and a country girl, flat out told him he was lying and that we were ready to go. He shut his mouth after that. We later found out that is his MO to extort money from tourists. Then, it gets better. We are loading onto the boat, and the port is just mud because it is under construction at this time. Another tourist slipped in the mud, while trying to board. Silvio does nothing. I walk over and help the poor guy with his two bags and get him back on his feet. He's clearly embarrassed, and Silvio (I understand Spanish myself) starts yelling at him to get off his boat because he is getting it dirty. No compassion, no are you OK, nothing. Just a jerk being a jerk. That was our introduction to the island. I have had experiences with jerks on small Latin islands (Bocas del Toro and Tabitha in Panama - what dumps). Once we were on the island, I was pretty frustrated, but luckily our introductory guide, David, was quite helpful and funny actually. We enjoyed his afternoon tour of the town and the tour in the morning of the park. The next day, our guide, Hector, walked us through the forest portion of the park where a jaguar is currently wandering. We thoroughly enjoyed talking with him and learning about the island. These folks truly love where they live. The island has many nice folks. There are some young people there who want to pretend their big shots in LA, California, but sorry guys - thats not where where you live). We left the island and were transported to the drop in for Pacuare. This company contracts out to many outfitters, and the rafting company was awesome. A special thanks to Johanna, Abel, Roberto (Mr. Chatty! Señor Cantante!), Alfonso, David, Hector, Turrón. I would had given it 5 stars - but one star down for the transportation is a little unorganized from a tourist perspective. It would be nice to know what is happening. The other star was for letting Silvio around tourists. That’s not good for anyone.

We had a great time on the one-day Pacuare white water rafting trip! Despite feeling anxious at first, our guide, Fernando, instilled confidence along the way especially when I fell overboard. He scooped me up and into the raft within seconds! He made us practice synchronizing our paddle strokes and knew when to tell us to paddle, when to stop, when to sit low. He was very attuned to the river and its flow the entire time and he was lots of fun and a great sense of humour! He shared so much interesting information about the waterfalls, birds, volcanic rocks and history of the area along the way. I would highly recommend this company. I would suggest they have a small supply of ice for any injuries once on shore.

I would recommend Exploradores for their rafting trip but NOT the Tortuguero trip. Rafting was well organized, safe and fun. Food (breakfast and lunch) provided by Exploradores was excellent. However, the 2-day Tortuguero part of the four day trip was 100% outsourced and not a good experience. We were handed off from one outsourced tour company to another with no explanation or understanding of what was going on. The hotel Exploradores booked in Tortuguero was changed the night before and was absolutely terrible. No hot water, tons of ants, stained sheets, inedible food (tasted moldy), and a key to the front gate that didn’t work. Picture of dead plant is from Hotel Liah’s in Tortuego (booked by Exploradores) and perfectly represents our depressingly bad experience there.

This company are amazingly well organised. They picked us up exactly on schedule, took us to headquarters for breakfast and had everyone organised into buses for their ongoing destinations in no time at all. The rafting was great fun, and the river lodge is amazing. A great place to sit and enjoy all the bird life. Our river guides were very experienced and we also had a kayak along for added safety, which was reassuring. The boat trip in Tortuguero was a highlight, we saw a lot of wildlife.