Tortuguero
by Barbra Lanier
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| saddles for sale in Totuguero |
A place
I’d never heard of. Yet, I now have friends, memories, dreams of
Tortuguero.
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| rubber riding boots with spurs |
Tortuguero is like a town
out of a western movie. There are horses everywhere. The streets
are composed of packed dirt and country music can be heard blending with a kind
of salsa. Saddles, cowboy boots and riding gear are for sale at the
market on Main Street. It takes four and a half hours to reach Tortuguero
by boat, and eight by car (when the dirt road is passable in dry
weather). The weather in June is hot and humid, so most days are spent
dripping wet. There is running water, but it only runs cold, not
hot. There is electricity...most of the time.
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| Juliana with patient |
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| Team resting on the porch |
But one thing Tortuguero
does have is a hospital, run by a wonderful woman, Dr. Violetta Torres, and
staffed by four fine doctors and four caring nurses who learned much from the
PINCC team about examining for the HPV virus and treating women who had it so
they would not die of cervical cancer. That’s why I went to Tortuguero
and that’s why I took my 15-year old grand daughter, Juliana, on this
trip. And that’s why I now have friends, memories and dreams of
Tortuguero.
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