Tortuguero National Park Canoe Tour

Tortuguero National Park

Tortuguero National Park was created in 1975 to protect the most important nesting beach of the green sea turtle in the western Caribbean, and today it covers a vast mosaic of lowland rainforest, swamp forest, lagoons and freshwater canals. Rainfall here is among the highest in Costa Rica, which feeds a dense, steaming jungle crossed by a maze of rivers and creeks.

This is why Tortuguero is called the little Amazon of Costa Rica. The park shelters jaguars, tapirs, three types of monkey, two species of sloth, more than 300 bird species and rare West Indian manatees in its quiet waters. A Tortuguero National Park tour by canoe is the best way to enjoy it: the narrow inner creeks are where the wildlife hides, and moving without an engine lets you hear the forest and get much closer to the animals.

The canals by traditional canoe

For generations the people of Tortuguero moved between their village, their fishing spots and their small farms by dugout canoe, because there were no roads at all. This canoe tour follows the same tradition. After a short briefing you take your place in the canoe, receive a paddle and a life jacket, and set off into the canals with your guide steering from the back.

Paddling is relaxed and suitable for most travellers, with plenty of pauses to watch and photograph. The canals become narrower as you move deeper into the park, with palms, giant ferns and hanging vines closing in overhead and the water turning mirror-still. Many visitors say this is the moment they feel truly inside the rainforest. The whole outing lasts about 2.5 hours, and the early morning departure enjoys the softest light and the most active animals.

Wildlife of the Tortuguero waterways

The guide's sharp eye finds animals you would never notice alone. Spectacled caimans float among the water hyacinths, green basilisk lizards rest on the branches and sometimes sprint across the water, and river turtles sun themselves on fallen logs. In the trees above you may see three-toed sloths, howler monkeys calling at dawn, spider monkeys swinging between branches and white-faced capuchins.

Birdlife is just as rich: great blue and tiger herons, northern jacanas walking on floating leaves, five species of kingfisher, anhingas drying their wings and noisy keel-billed toucans and parrots. The West Indian manatee lives in the deeper lagoons, but it is shy and only seen occasionally. Animals are wild and sightings change every day, so your guide adapts the route to wherever the wildlife is active. Flash photography and feeding animals are not allowed.

Tortuguero village and how to get there

The canoe tour starts in Tortuguero village, a small, car-free community built on a narrow strip of land between the main canal and the Caribbean Sea. Brightly painted wooden houses, small family restaurants and sandy paths give it a relaxed Caribbean feel, and everything is within walking distance, including the entrance to the national park.

How to get to Tortuguero is part of the adventure: there is no road, so visitors arrive by boat from the La Pavona dock near Cariari, a scenic ride of about an hour through the canals, or by small plane. Most travellers stay two or three nights. The best time to visit Tortuguero for green turtle nesting is July to October, while February to April and September to October are usually the drier months. The canoe tour runs all year and is one of the top things to do in Tortuguero.