tortuga

it´s been two days and three nights since i arrived at my turtle project, which was an adventure story of its own. a little breakdown...

thursday: caught another bus in downtown san jose at 5:30 in the morning, and slept nearly the whole way to nicoya. our bus driver collided with a semi-truck, which stranded us in the dusty cowboy town for nearly an hour. finally making my way to playa samara, where i was scheduled to take a taxi to the river. i´d wade across, and staff would be waiting for me to walk me the 2 km to the project.
that´s when things started going downhill. my taxi dropped me off at the wrong place at the river. three long hours i waited, walking up the road and coming back, uneasy to leave the spot in case they showed up. finally a woman from philadelphia drove by in her 4-wheeler. she`d been living in samara for 3 years, and she took me to a small hotel nearby, where i called the project director, who promised to meet me there.
2 more hours.
nothing. no one.
taking the situation into my own hands, i decided to walk the rest of the way. it was far, but i knew the way. about a 20 minute walk, i reached the beach and began to trek. unfortunately, i was on the wrong side of the estuary, which i had to wade across.
i set my bags down in the mangrove trees, away from the quickly rising tide. wading slowly into the delta, i decided it was only about waist deep. so i went back for my big backpack. holding it over my head, i plunged back into the water, only to discover it was deep enough to cover my shoulders. finally getting to the other side, i raced back to beat the tide and grab my other bag and wade it over.
completely soaked, i walked the rest of the way through the dark...scary! i was alone, i was wet, and i had a little flashlight and a lot of prayers. three guys saw my flashlight and came running, helping me the rest of the way to the camp. i fell, exhausted, into bed.

friday, saturday: work here is great. the conditions are very primitive and it`s tough to get used to everything being wet and sandy. we haul about 50-60 bags of sand (each) every morning for about 3 hours...each bag weighs about 30 lbs. it`s hard, especially when it´s so hot, but i like the work and i´m glad to be busy. in the afternoon, we lay around, play cards, swim or surf. our real work begins at night, where we patrol the beaches for turtles. measuring the turtles, we gather their eggs and plant them in a watched environment. when the little ones hatch, we measure them and release them at the initial site the mother laid them. so far, i´ve personally found 3 huge turtles, and released a little over 100 baby turtles. they are probably the cutest thing´s i´ve ever seen! and it´s so funny to watch them run toward the water. some are confused, and we have to wait for an hour while they run around in circles. we have to watch for crabs and dogs, who eat the turtles, and "hueveros", the local nickname for people who steal the eggs.

it´s tough and the days are long, but i love being active and all the people i`m meeting. sundays are our only days off... gotta go buy batteries!