Week 3 - Costa Rica - 24th-31st March 2014

Project: Caribbean Sea Turtles Conservation Project, Playa Pacuare
http://www.latinamericanseaturtles.org/index_cr.php

"LAST (Latin American Sea Turtles) Association (former WIDECAST-Costa Rica), is member of WIDECAST, an international scientific network with country coordinators resident in more than 40 countries and territories of the Wider Caribbean Region. Our office in Costa Rica is centrally located in Tibás, just outside the bustling capital city of San José. This ideal location enables our staff to maintain contact with community partners and international sponsors alike, in addition to servicing our volunteer programs and pursuing innovative research, conservation, training, and livelihood initiatives in Costa Rica and beyond.

With LAST, our main focus in recent years has been community-based sea turtle conservation on the Caribbean coast – including nesting beach studies at Playa Pacuare (south of Tortuguero National Park), Playa Gandoca (Gandoca Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge) and Playa Cahuita (Cahuita National Park), as well as In-Water population monitoring in Cahuita National Park. On the Pacific coast we have started to conduct In-Water studies in the Dulce Gulf, on the Osa Peninsula. Currently, we operate beach monitoring projects in Pacuare and In-water studies and Sea turtle rescue at Playa Blanca on the Osa Peninsula."

This week at Playa Pacuare was so far one of my most challenging weeks, ever! It's totally going back to nature, the very basics, and doing great things with very little resources.
We didn't have Internet nor phones, and had very basic electricity via the use of a solar panel, and spring water pumped off by a small engine. Then, we also had all type of animals, bugs and insects. In fact, I met Ms and Mr Cockroach, who insisted to keep me company every day in my bedroom... yes, as you read it.
In case you didn't know, Costa Rica proudly holds 6% of the existing biodiversity in the world, is considered to possess the highest density of biodiversity of any country worldwide. Impressive huh? I will share some pics, but I swear they do not do justice to all I've seen.

Day 1 - Monday - spent most of the day travelling really. Got up at 5am to checkout from the hostal (www.costaricabackpackers.com/‎ - totally recommend it) and get a bus(20min) to Tibás, where Widecast's main office is located. There, they showed me a quick presentation about the Sea Turtles worldwide and the program's activities.

Took the bus back to San Jose, got off at the Terminal Caribeños, and waited for the 9am bus which would take me to Bataan.

I must say that on the way, I started to realise that I was finally getting into the "real" Costa Rica that you see in the movies and photos: there was a lot more vegetation, beautiful trees, amazing rivers and river banks, green everywhere, birds flying around...beautiful!
Two and a half hours later, we arrived at Bataan, where I met a fellow volunteer, friendly Jens from Sweden, and Johnny, our "do-it-all" at the Turtle Preservation site - a very friendly and knowledgeable local:

We went food shopping, and then took a taxi through the banano plantations until the dock. There we had a tiny blue boat, filled up with water from the morning's rain, waiting for us. We unloaded the taxi, and started to remove the water inside the boat with little cups of plastic. As we're getting ready to depart, however, we heard this huge roar...my heart stopped; we were gonna be some creature's lunch....

Look closer!

See it now?? :)

Look closer....left.

  


It happened that it was just a monkey chilling on a tree branch, who we had just woken up from is siesta… but boy do they roar like a lion, it was amazing!!

We took off, and the scenery in front of me, the Pacuare river, was simply breathtaking, words cannot describe how beautiful, natural and pure everything looked. I took a few pictures only, and even these are nowhere near to doing this place justice!

Where the river meets the ocean!

Coconut recycling area, aka "the cemetery" :)

It was like I had just landed in a completely different new world I had never been before. We saw all sorts of animals on the way as well. And then it hit me, I was in the middle of the jungle!! I had never been surrounded by so much vegetation and animal life ever. 


There are a few houses on the way to our site, and I wondered how people could live here, away from everything and everyone, so remote and lonely... I quickly learnt how and why.


Home:

We arrived at the site 30 min later, and I had the pleasure to meet Barbara, from Salamanca! She is the program's Biologist and the person responsible for the site and all the research and preservation program.

Barbara came in 2011 for a short time period for an investigation program, but ended up staying for good after Johnny and her met and fell in love. They've been together since, and are a lovely caring couple.

Also met the rest of the crew, Sophia and Chen, two Biologist assistants from Germany and Israel respectively, and Paula, aka Baula “Enanita” :), she was my roomie from Switzerland/Argentina!

The house tour:

Kitchen

The bedrooms, ours was the last one

The hammock outside our bedroom

 

El Rancho

My siesta spot after lunch :)

 

Bathroom - we were lucky, we had our own inside the bedroom, phew!

 And meet our dog, Mery!

She's also entitled to siesta! ahah

In the afternoon, Sophia gave us a briefing on how to prepare for the night patrols. So what are night patrols? I must give you some more context first: Costa Rica goes way back in the tradition of eating sea turtle eggs, as they believed the eggs were aphrodisiac, and they can cost as much as 1$ each (a Leatherback turtle can lay over 150 eggs). This is of course a myth, but the tradition unfortunately carries on today and is leading the sea turtles to extinction. In order to prevent this, worldwide conservation programs, such as LAST/Widecast work very hard to catch the eggs before the “hueveros” (poachers) do. The Sea Turtles come out at night only to lay their eggs, this means we need to patrol the beaches every night to make sure we spot the turtle on time. The beach is 7km long, so we divide the volunteers into groups and each group goes on night patrol for 4 hours. In each group we have a local Tico leader, who leads the group through the beach. It is very dark, and we’re not allowed to use lights (only red light by the leader if extremely necessary) – the only light we have are these little diamonds shining in the black sky, commonly known as stars, which reflect their light into the sea and the waves, helping us find our path. The starts over here are like nothing I’ve seen before. If there are no clouds or fog, the starts shine so bright it’s unbelievable. By the way, the moon doesn’t show up until after 2am…. Yes very interesting fact when you never saw that happen before, you’d think the moon fell off or something! ;p

We all need to wear black clothes, long sleeves and trousers(it was like being inside a sauna for 4 hr!), and long socks (here, they even have sand flees, and they love fresh sweet blood from overseas!). We are not allowed to use any repellent or anything with odour to avoid scaring the turtles away. We walk in line, everyone behind each other.

The first time I went on night patrol… my blood was racing like never before. It’s like being blind, walking on sand, with poachers wondering around in the dark and invisible, all kind of animals making sounds in the vegetation, and a potential huge turtle coming out – and you can’t see a thing. You rely 100% on the leader and the person in front of you.

It was very difficult to control a panic attack every 2 seconds, but you manage. And then, you just let it go and let I flow! It’s an amazing feeling. All your other senses become hyper. I could follow my colleague in front of me on a rainy day by the sound of her boots, or I could smell the odour of the gum of my other colleague the next day. Truly one of a kind experience!

Day 2 – Tuesday – An American high-school group of teenagers arrived from Ohio. We had 3 groups for night patrol tonight so we could cover the whole 7km of the beach’s length. Our shift was from 12am till 4am. My group didn't find any turtles sadly, only the prints on the sand, but one of the other groups finally found a turtle and we relocated the 118 eggs.

 

Hatchery

Day 3 -  in the morning we went to clean up the beach, picking up all sort of objects, like shoes, toothbrushes, bottles, syringes and all sorts of plastic bags, under the gazing sun.
In the afternoon, we had a practical class with Sophia on what to do when we spot a turtle nesting.
We went out again on night watch from 8pm to 12am, pitch black not a star in the sky, full of clouds, and eventually it started pouring down with rain! Never felt such heavy rain drops – I was loving it though, as it was cool and fresh :). As I couldn't see anything, all my other senses intensified all of a sudden - I could only guide myself by the minimal noise the boots of the volunteer in front of me were doing. The tide was high, the winds were strong, it was pitch black, it was raining, the entire perfect conditions for the turtles to want to come out, but still they didn't. :(

Day 4 - Thursday - Johnny, Barbara and Sophia had all gone into town for the morning to pick up 2 new volunteers, so they left me in charge of the site.

I had to wake up earlier to open the gate to Patricia, our cook, and get everything ready for the day, as the girls would come for breakfast at 8am.

I divided the volunteers and the assistant into 2 groups: Chen and I stayed at the camp, and Paula, Jens, Caya and Sara all went out to the beach to collect more rubbish.
Chen and I cleaned up the whole floor picking up dead leave, brunches, etc from the whole site, and I tied up the kitchen. Everything was nice and tidy by the time "the bosses" came back.

In the afternoon we had to go to the hatchery to start cleaning and treating the sand for the coming eggs. The hatchery is a separate location at the beach, protected and treated for us to relocate the turtle eggs and dig them back into the sand. The hatchery is also patrolled 24/7 to protect the eggs and make sure the poachers don’t steal them, the crabs or dogs don’t eat them either.
I learnt how to dig a hole for the eggs and dig one myself too:
 

You can't see much, but this whole is about 80cm deep and in the inside it has the shape of a boot.

Now, how incredible is it that a turtle this big, with such huge fins, can dig such a perfect round whole, so deep and straight! I just can’t explain it, it’s amazing what they can do with their back fins.

Paula and I were released from our duties in the evening because we had to stay on call in case we needed to go patrol the hatchery.

So we went to bed at 8pm.... I don't think I ever went to bed this early in my whole adult life....que desastree! :)

Day 5 – Friday, as no turtles showed up, and therefore I didn’t work that evening, I woke up bright and early to prep breakfast for everyone with Johnny’s help. Cleaned up the kitchen and surroundings afterwards, and also cooked lunch, helped with the storage room with shop items for fund raising, helped moving very long bamboo logs, etc. Then I went with Johnny to see the plantation area, first time I saw an actual Papaya tree and Yuca root:

Had to come all this way to see it!

Then Johnny got me a coconut and a pipa fresh up from the tree, first time ever, it was amaaaziiiing, I was so thrilled!

I cleaned up the kitchen again after dinner and was in bed by 8pm, as I was on call again in case there were eggs. No eggs, so I didn’t go.

Day 6 – Saturday, I was in bed again by 7.45pm, as I was again on call in case there were eggs. No eggs, so I cooked breakfast again for everyone – banano mash with scrambled eggs and gallo pinto… I know, I couldn’t believe either that I was cooking all this, but it’s true :)

Then we continued with more hatchery work, digging the sand out, boiling hot, sweating like there’s no tomorrow.

Day 7 – Saturday/Sunday, finally we had eggs!!!! Both Andrea and I went to patrol the hatchery from 2am till 7am. While dark it was pretty scaring as it was just 2 of us, but I was ready to take on anyone or anything who would even try to get near those eggs! I brought a shovel and a big kitchen knife ahah! We were good, it’s actually safe, but better safe than sorry! Then we watched the sunrise…beautiful! Just beautiful how to see the light would start coming up…just another amazing experience and feeling.

 Sunrise pics from the hatchery:

 

 

This is what we've been digging!

 

Andrea stretching after 5 hr patrolling

We did some more digging in the afternoon and this is a result of a few days digging in the hatchery:

Enanita

Melanie from Germany

My dear hands...

I was greeted with a lovely bonus though when I came back home… I went kayaking by myself in the river outside our door… loved it! So amazing to slide so close to the water, not knowing what’s underneath, seeing all kinds of birds when you looked up, just so quiet and peaceful…! Mental note, sign up to rowing classes when I’m back to Barcelona, for sure!

Some more random photos, and some animal life:

That's the foot, yes, of the little dude below, living in our bedroom.

The CREW!

NEXT STEP: I'll be catching the 11pm bus to Panama, arriving at 3pm local time the next day. I'll be visiting our dearest Hazel's Mum, who is going above and beyond to make me feel welcome. Truly thankful for her kindness, and really looking forward to meet the mother of a great great ex-colleague.
Will be in Panama for 3 days, and then off to Cartagena on the 3rd! See you then.

B-bye Costa Rica, thank you so much for having me!

Pura Vida forever! :)