The Caribbean coast of Costa Rica offers amazing views of nesting sea turtles. Tortuguero is the more popular area with tourist amenities, rain forest boat tours, beaches, and a large number of green sea turtles – especially from July to October. These massive creatures crawl up the beach at night to lay their eggs and you can arrange a guided night tour with a naturalist through any of the lodges in the area (the lodges also arrange cruises through the canals during the day). Further south is a little-visited section of the same coast where the even more amazing leatherback turtles nest along the beach at Barre de Pacuare. Leatherbacks nest especially March through June and are little changed in the past 100 million years – this is the closest you’ll ever get to seeing a dinosaur. October through March smaller numbers of leatherbacks nest at Playa Grande on the Pacific side.