gailching

My husband and I are planning on hitting all the typical spots - Arenal, Monteverde, Manuel Antonio...it is our first time and we are planning a 14 day trip.

We will likely be going in January, 2007. Is it worthwhile to go to Tortugero since it is not during the turtle mating season?

Any suggestions about where to add 2 extra nights?

sandyc

January is not a good time to go to Tortuguero because it rains like heck there. It can be really torrential at that time of year -- the Caribbean rainy season doesn't match the West and Central Pacific part of the country.

Sandy

gailching

That's interesting...I will have to look into that.

Thanks.

TioGringo

Huh??!!

I hate to doubt the word of another fodorite, but I just can't take Sandy's comments seriously.

The rainy season is pretty much done & gone by mid December, not just in the rest of Costa Rica, but throughout the Caribbean region.

Are we to seriously believe that torrential downpours are likely in one very small geographic area when 100 miles away in *EVERY* direction is experiencing the "dry season", "summer season", or "high season" (depending on whose terminology you use)???

Methinks Sandy has confused January with September...

Have fun!
Mark
www.tiogringo.com

Louise

I was in Tortugero in November and we got dumped on big time. There was flooding everywhere. Our Costa Rican guide said that it was only the second time in his life he had been so cold. I asked him the best time to visit and he said February but he might have been referring to Costa Rica in general. So, I just looked on www.weatherbase.com and found that September has the least rainfall at 5.6" at the nearest town of Puerto Limon which is 30 miles away. Other months have the following rainfalls - November 14.7", December 16.1", January 12.5" and February 8.5". We did see turtles hatching though and really had a great time. The horrible weather bonded us all in suffering.

sandyc

Mark,

The Caribbean side of CR is indeed on a different rain schedule. While Tortuguero gets a lot of rain all year round, Sept. & Oct. are actually the lowest measures of rainfall while the rest of the country is in full rainy season, and Nov, Dec, and January are the highest, when everyone else is entering dry season. To give you an idea, the average monthly rainfall in inches in Tortuguero is:

Sept: 5.71
Oct: 8.19
Nov: 15.39
Dec: 17.56
Jan: 12.48
Feb. 8.31

In San Jose:
Sept: 13.07
Oct: 13.07
Nov: 5:59
Dec: 1.61
Jan: 0.39
Feb: 0.24

Sandy

gailching

But apart from the potential storms in January.....is there really no point to go Tortugero in January in any event because there are no turtles?

dfarmer

The turtles are not the only attraction at Tortuguero. This is very unique, completely different from other areas of CR. We were there late Jan or early Feb in 2004, it was a most memorable experience. The canals are quite interesting, as well as tons of other wildlife. We stayed at the Mawamba Lodge, which I can certainly highly recommend. The town itself is not much, but it is interesting to learn about all parts of CR.

As for rain, we only experienced a short downpour on one afternoon.

As to the Carib rainfall vs. the rest of the country. Sorry TioGringo but, Yes Sandy is correct.

Actually I believe it was Feb 2005 when flooding washed out bridges in the lower Carib, causing quite alot of damage. And made it impossible cross over into Panama. Speaking of Panama Jan/Feb are bad times to visit the Carib coast there as well.

Suzie2

We had to rearrange our whole trip in Feb.2005. We had planned on going into Panama via the Caribe side but the bridge had been flooded out. We had to go down through Paso Canoa near Golfito.

I agree that Tortuguero offers a lot of great wildlife viewing even without the turtles.