トルトゥゲーロというカリブ海沿岸の北部にある国立公園へ二泊三日の旅。年間の降水量が5000mmを越えるという熱帯雨林のジャングル。（ちなみに東京の2007年の降水量は1854mm)
トルトゥゲーロはウミガメのいる場所、という意味らしく、もともとカメを保護するために国立公園に指定されたらしい。サンホセからバスでおよそ３時間、小さな船に乗り換えて川を下ること１時間半。
船に乗った瞬間からずっとこんな感じ。
↓
ちなみにこの写真はカヤックに乗った時に撮ったので、ボートはこれじゃないんだけど。自然に囲まれる、というかすっぽり包まれる感じ。
木のてっぺんにぶらさがる野生の猿の親子、水面に顔を出すケイマン、草むらに紛れ込む巨大なイグアナ、雨がやんで太陽が出ると枝に停まって羽を広げて羽を乾かす鳥、鮮やかな青い羽をちら見せしながら低く飛ぶモルフォチョウ、うんこする時だけ木からおりてくるナマケモノ、電子音みたいに澄み切った音で鳴く虫、突然降り出してはやむ雨。確かにみんなここで生きてる。
７月〜１０月のカメの産卵シーズンが一番観光客が多い時期なので、今の時期はオフシーズン。とは言え、産卵の時期は雨季なので、２週間ずっと雨が降り止まないこともあるらしい。
さっきも書いたけど、もともとカメの保護のために国立公園に指定されたこの地域。減り続けていくカメを保護するために外国からやってきた生物学者が最初にしたことが、カメについての情報を得るために地元の人たちに協力してもらってカメに関する書物を持ってきてもらうことだったらしいのだけど、彼らが持ってきた本にはカメの生態に関する情報は何もなく、
本に書かれていた主な内容とは：
カメのにんにく炒め
カメのステーキ
カメの煮物
などなど、
おいしそうなカメの調理レシピの本ばかりだったんだってさ。w
そりゃ、人間が食物連鎖に加わったら減るわー。
カメの保護計画はまず地元の人にカメを食べることを禁止することから始まったらしい。
んなわけで、カメの産卵シーズンは終わったわけだけど、シーズンの最後らへんに生まれた卵がまだ一部残っていて、ガイドさんが卵が孵ってしばらく経った巣を見つけて来て掘ってみると、カメの赤ちゃんがうじゃうじゃと出てくる出てくる。
生まれて初めて巣から出たカメは初めて見た海に向かって何の迷いもなく走っていく。
それが本能。
僕らは（ツアーに一緒に参加していた人が15人くらい）、カメの子をみんな両手いっぱいに抱えて砂浜の真ん中に並べた。
全部で95匹。
一列に並んだカメの赤ちゃんが一斉に海に向かってカメの子を散らすように走り出し、小さな小さな足跡が砂に刻まれていく。
波打ち際で波にさらわれ、一匹ずつ海の中へと取り込まれていく。
カメは長生きだと言われているけれど、正確にどのくらい生きるのかは解明されていない。分かっているのは彼らが２５年後に同じ砂浜に戻ってきて、２年ごとにおよそ１００個の卵を産むこと、１００個の卵に対して最後に産む２０個くらいの卵は決してカメにならないこと、卵が孵るまで期間の気温によって性別が決まること、などなど。
学術的なことがどうだっていい。２５年後に戻ってこいよ！
生きろ！
自然って本当に機能的で無駄なものが何もない。目に映る光景、ガイドさんの話の一つ一つがひどく刺激的だった。
今の季節は乾季とは言え、一日に５回は雨が降る。
ジャングルに降り注いだ雨は周りの葉っぱに音を立てて落ちながら流れていく。葉っぱの密度のせいで、一番高いところから川に流れ着くまでにかなりの時間がかかるので、雨がやんでからもしばらくは雨の音が続く。葉っぱを打つ水の音に包まれて青空の下を歩く一見矛盾した光景。木の下にだけ水がしたたり落ちる。
熱帯雨林って言葉を社会の授業で習ったのが中学校一年生くらいだった気がするけど、こんな言葉、自分にとって何の関係もない、って思ってた。20年の時間を経て、ようやくあの時の自分が間違っていたことを証明できたわけだ。ざまーみろ。
書いていくときりがないくらいいろんなものを見た週末。
乾期の訪れと同時に子供たちには夏休みとクリスマスが同時にやってくる。なんて気前が良い話なんだ。そんな中米の１２月。
そして、下の写真は泊まってた宿で仲良くなった地元の男の子二人。スペイン語、、、まだまだ会話にならん。
話にならん、とはつまりこういうことだったのか。。。
そして、旅は続くのだった。
おまけ：
Jesus Christ Lizard
Can you find him?
Took a trip to Parque Nacional Tortuguero, which is situated on Carribean site of Costa Rica. Stayed there for 2 nights. The area has annual rainfall of more than 5000mm. (FYI- Tokyo had 1854mm in 2007)
Tortuguero means place with turtles or something like that and it was designated as National Park in order to protect the turtles there. It takes about 3 hours on the bus from San Jose and get on the boat for another 1 and a half down the river.
Once you get on the boat, it looks like the second picture above.
That picture was taken when I was kayaking, so this is not the boat, btw. It is like being wrapped around in nature, rather than surrounded. It feels much closer.
Mother and baby monkeys hanging from the top of tree, Cayman with head sticking out of water surface, giant lizards blended into the leafy scenery, birds coming out after rain shower and spreading her wings to dry, morpho butterly flying low, showing off her magnificent blue, which she hides inside of her wings, sloth who come down from trees only to take a dump, but for nothing else, singing bugs sounding and beating clear beat like that of synthesizer, sudden rain, which they call "liquid sunshine."
They are all here and this is where they belong.
Turtle season is the high season for this area. It is between July and October. It is now off season. However, turtle season is during rain season and sometimes it would rain for 2 weeks straight.
As I mentioned earlier, this area was designated as a national park in order to protect turtles. A foreign biologist came to study about the turtles and he asked the local people to provide books or any knowledge that local people may have on turtles. The books they brought, however, had no information about how the turtles live.
The main contents of all the books read:
Turtle with garlic
Turtle steak
Turtle stew, etc.
Yea, so, they were all tasty recipes, telling people how to eat turtles.
Of course, the turtle population is going to decrease if people have taken a part in this food chain.
The first thing they did to protect turtles was to ban local people from eating them.
So, the turtle season was over, but there were some nests with little baby turtles whose eggs just hatched a few weeks ago or so. Our tour guide had found a nest with hatched babies, who are seemingly ready to go live in the ocean. He dug into the nest and oh, man, he found so many of them. They came out one after another.
The turtles who came out of the nest for the first time in their lives, they start running towards the ocean, which they also see for the first time without a room for doubt as soon as they are out of the nest.
That's mother nature, that's instinct.
All of us in the tour (there were maybe about 15 of us) held baby turles in our hand and we laid them in the middle of the beach.
There were 95 of them all together.
Lined up turtles started running towards the ocean simultaneously. Tiny tiny footsteps are engraved on the beach sand.
They get swiped and taken in by the ocean wave, one by one.
They say turtles have a long life, but we do not know exactly how long they live for. All we know is they come back to the same beach in 25 years and lay about 100 eggs every 2 years, they lay 20 more infertilized eggs in order to protect other fertilized ones. The gender of babies are determined by the temperature during their egg period, not by fate.
Whatever their truth may be, I will never forget the sight of them running to the water. Come back in 25 years with your eggs. In other words, survive.
Nature is truly functional and there is no room for extra unneccessary stuff. All that came into my sight and all stories told by our tour guide were truly inspiring in many ways.
This is the dry season, but it still rains about 5 times a day.
Rain fell on the trees fall on leaves on lower places, and then fall on leaves on lower places and it goes on like this. Because of the density of leaves, the sound of rain continues on even after rain stops. You can walk under the blue sky surrounded by the sound of rain falling on leaves.
It is only raining underneath the trees.
I think I learned the word "Rainforest" when I was in 7th grade or so. I was completely convinced that this term had absolutely nothing to do with my life. It took me 20 years to prove me wrong. Life goes on.
There were so much that I saw over this weekend and I can't even try to write down everything I saw here.
Dry season comes with summer vacation and christmas for the kids in Costa Rica. What a combination. That's December in Central America.
I was hanging out with 2 amigos who worked at the place I was staying at. They were really nice, but it was difficult to carry a conversation in Spanish. I'm not just making sense, I am also not making sentences....
And the journey goes on.
Bonus Stage：
Jesus Christ Lizard
Can you find him?
Tortuguero means place with turtles or something like that and it was designated as National Park in order to protect the turtles there. It takes about 3 hours on the bus from San Jose and get on the boat for another 1 and a half down the river.
Once you get on the boat, it looks like the second picture above.
That picture was taken when I was kayaking, so this is not the boat, btw. It is like being wrapped around in nature, rather than surrounded. It feels much closer.
Mother and baby monkeys hanging from the top of tree, Cayman with head sticking out of water surface, giant lizards blended into the leafy scenery, birds coming out after rain shower and spreading her wings to dry, morpho butterly flying low, showing off her magnificent blue, which she hides inside of her wings, sloth who come down from trees only to take a dump, but for nothing else, singing bugs sounding and beating clear beat like that of synthesizer, sudden rain, which they call "liquid sunshine."
They are all here and this is where they belong.
Turtle season is the high season for this area. It is between July and October. It is now off season. However, turtle season is during rain season and sometimes it would rain for 2 weeks straight.
As I mentioned earlier, this area was designated as a national park in order to protect turtles. A foreign biologist came to study about the turtles and he asked the local people to provide books or any knowledge that local people may have on turtles. The books they brought, however, had no information about how the turtles live.
The main contents of all the books read:
Turtle with garlic
Turtle steak
Turtle stew, etc.
Yea, so, they were all tasty recipes, telling people how to eat turtles.
Of course, the turtle population is going to decrease if people have taken a part in this food chain.
The first thing they did to protect turtles was to ban local people from eating them.
So, the turtle season was over, but there were some nests with little baby turtles whose eggs just hatched a few weeks ago or so. Our tour guide had found a nest with hatched babies, who are seemingly ready to go live in the ocean. He dug into the nest and oh, man, he found so many of them. They came out one after another.
The turtles who came out of the nest for the first time in their lives, they start running towards the ocean, which they also see for the first time without a room for doubt as soon as they are out of the nest.
That's mother nature, that's instinct.
All of us in the tour (there were maybe about 15 of us) held baby turles in our hand and we laid them in the middle of the beach.
There were 95 of them all together.
Lined up turtles started running towards the ocean simultaneously. Tiny tiny footsteps are engraved on the beach sand.
They get swiped and taken in by the ocean wave, one by one.
They say turtles have a long life, but we do not know exactly how long they live for. All we know is they come back to the same beach in 25 years and lay about 100 eggs every 2 years, they lay 20 more infertilized eggs in order to protect other fertilized ones. The gender of babies are determined by the temperature during their egg period, not by fate.
Whatever their truth may be, I will never forget the sight of them running to the water. Come back in 25 years with your eggs. In other words, survive.
Nature is truly functional and there is no room for extra unneccessary stuff. All that came into my sight and all stories told by our tour guide were truly inspiring in many ways.
This is the dry season, but it still rains about 5 times a day.
Rain fell on the trees fall on leaves on lower places, and then fall on leaves on lower places and it goes on like this. Because of the density of leaves, the sound of rain continues on even after rain stops. You can walk under the blue sky surrounded by the sound of rain falling on leaves.
It is only raining underneath the trees.
I think I learned the word "Rainforest" when I was in 7th grade or so. I was completely convinced that this term had absolutely nothing to do with my life. It took me 20 years to prove me wrong. Life goes on.
There were so much that I saw over this weekend and I can't even try to write down everything I saw here.
Dry season comes with summer vacation and christmas for the kids in Costa Rica. What a combination. That's December in Central America.
I was hanging out with 2 amigos who worked at the place I was staying at. They were really nice, but it was difficult to carry a conversation in Spanish. I'm not just making sense, I am also not making sentences....
And the journey goes on.
Bonus Stage：
Jesus Christ Lizard
Can you find him?
