Day 15...into the jungle

  To go into the national park here in Tortuguero, you now have to sign up and reserve online. The website is not the easiest to work around and tou have to know which part of Tortuguero N. P you want to go into that day.
I narrowly avoided signing up for the mountain walk and in the process discovered 2 things... that I could sign up for the mountain walk... and that I could use my entry for multiple times that day. It didn't sound as if the trail was too strenuous and aside from the possibility of encountering a jaguar, seemed pretty straightforward.
A plan formed I would go late morning, go out for lunch and aim to be back in before last admissions at 3pm. Then maybe I could take advantage of failing light and use my torch to perhaps spot any crepuscular animals as the sun sank lower.
The trail started out, as many trails around this country do, basically a sea of mud which I squelched through, having given up trying to go around such obstacles
I walked around and came to a lot of people staring up at the canopy. 
The howler monkeys were out in numbers, they are always such fun to watch. The antics of the little ones, whilst the parents keep a calm eye on things... although I wonder whether they don't have a word with the little ones for giving them grey hairs, when they just launch themselves off a branch without seeming though for where they will land.
I wandered on. It was sticky. The humidity must be in the 90 percentile for sure.
I saw lots of lizards, found to be later, central american whiptail lizards. They were very lively and concentrating so hard on chasing insects that they didn't seem to mind me following them.
I walked and walked to near the end of the trail... and then turned back, conscious of my plan to return later.

I stuffed down lunch amd then headed back to grab my torch in the hope it would get dark enough to use it and then headed back to the same trail. Off I went again. Once through the muddy part, the trail was flat and easy and I wandered slowly in the hope of seeing a snake... I remain the optimist!

I stopped where 2 people were staring up at the trees.. the tell tale squark had already told me most of what I needed to know... Mcaws! But over this side they were not the beautiful red colour... here they were mainly green, which made them insanely difficult to spot in the trees, even when you knew they were there... so you just have to trust me when I say that they are there in a photo!

The couple with looking at the Mcaws also told me that there was a dead turtle near the end of the path. A ranger had told them that it was probably a jaguar that got it.

I wasn't really certain I wanted to see a dead one, but I supposed at least then I would have seen one, if the night tour didn't turn up any turtles. So I followed down to the end of the path, bearing I had already done this 5 mile trip (there and back) once today and it was pretty hot now. It seemed a long way  to go just to see a dead turtle. 

I did find a frog in a curled up leaf on the way which was pretty cute. 

The turtle was pretty. much right at the end. of the trail, it's presence signalled by a hoarde of vultures (if anyone knows the collective term for a group of vultures, let me know, but hoarde seemed pretty appropriate!

I looked upon the face of this beautiful creature, it's eyes long since gouged out by one of the crowd hopping around.  O felt immense sadness that such an animal had met its end. It seemed that something this. magnificent should have less of an ignoble fate.

I touched its shell. 

And then I turned away and let nature's clean up crew do their thing. 

I wandered back lost in thought, hopeful that this wasn't the only turtle that I saw this week.

Despite the advancing hour, it was still too light to make use of the torch and it seemed like I was in between the day shift settling down for the night and the night shift rolling out of bed. It was very quiet. There was a stillness all around, a peace... so that it seemed I was the only one around... 

... squelching through the mud😁😂😜