Arrival in San Jose and torteguero

It's already been fun! Arrived in San Jose with minimal trouble, and met most of the people that we're traveling with. A few from last years group are with us again. Me, Karla, Susie...then there's Kathryn, Dorothy, and Sharon. Everyone else is new. There is Mike from North Carolina, Allie from Florida, Kirk, Michelle from Texas, Tammy, Sandy, Paulo our guide, Josephine, Al from NSTA, Jeanne from New Hampshire. The group is comprised of mostly older people. The first day of a new trip is always fun; meeting new people and catching up with the ones you know.

We had a lecture the first night from Paulo about Costa Rican biodiversity and the history of science. It was interesting but after being up since 430am, I just wasn't into it.

We left yesterday morning to head to Torteguero, which is where the sea turtles nest. It's a very long drive. We were on the west side of the continental divide and had to go to the east side of the country on the Caribbean. We had two choices: we could drive and hour and a half and then get on a boat for 5 hours OR we could drive for 4 hours (half of which was on a gravel road) and get on a boat for 2 hours. Somehow we elected to drive for 4 hours! It was a long bumpy drive. I took a nap and took in the scenery on the trip. We arrived at torteguero national park by about 3 o'clock. We had left at 9!! It was a long day. Then we had to get trained on sea turtle tagging.

There were two shifts; the first was from 8-12am and the 2nd was from 12-4am. Kathryn and I were on the first shift last night. We went out with mike and Dorothy in our group and Kasia was our liaison. It was sooo dark when we first when onto the beach. We couldn't see a thing. It was crazy. We can't use flashlights because it scares the turtles, the only light we had was from little red lights on head lamps. So off we walked up the beach trying to avoid driftwood and tourists hopin to get a glance of a sea turtle so we could do our tagging.

It was pitch-black with no moon because there was a storm coming. Much lightning and some thunder so we were nervous it would rain. We finally started to see some tracks and finally got to see a green turtle. I can't believe how big they are! They're about 3 feet long! So we went to measure it and there were a ton of tourists around and their guide was nice enough to let us do our work. It was our first one! Mike and I got down ready to measure and I turned on my headlamp, then the turtle started flapping and when that happens you want to get out of the way because sand flies everywhere! So I backed off and tried to turn off my headlamp, but I ended up turning the white light on! Yikes, this was bad, so I turned away from the turtle, but it had already started to leave! Then the tour guide yelled at our guide for scaring her off, but they said it happens all the time. I felt horrible.

Throughout the night we saw many more turtles and as we continued, it got much easier...until the rain came! I was recording this time, Kathryn was measuring, and it started raining hard. So we all got wet, thenvthe turtle started flapping and we got sand everywhere. It was in hair, face, eyes, etc. We got dirty! Mike got flipper burn while he was trying to measure and the rest of us were just soaked and sandy! What a great night!

We tagged and measured about 6 turtles and at midnight we headed back to the station for a much needed shower and passed the info we had learned onto the next group.

I really wish one of the pictures of me with all my sand everywhere would've turned out. I hope tonight is just as exciting.

This morning we went to visit the primary school in Torteguero. It's so basic but the kids were so cute. They were 1st graders and I actually understood a lot of their science lesson. I could understand that they were learning the 3 states of matter; solido, liquido...it was great. There are no computers; no technology at all!

When we exited the school, we walked about 10 steps to the beach; YES, it's that close! So cool. Now we could actually see what the beach looked like in the sun. The sand was black! Coastline is absolutely beautiful but no one was swimming! Paulo said that there are sharks in the water that could actually bite humans so we elected to just walk on the beach.

At lunch there was an encounter with some white faced monkeys. If they show their teeth, you'd better watch out; that means it's preparing to jump at you!

Prepping for departure

I think I'm all packed, and now I'm too wired to sleep! Flight leaves at 7:40am which doesn't sound bad, but I have to be at the airport at 6, so sleeping in is not an option! Thank goodness I have a wonderful sister who will wake up early to take me to the airport.
Can't wait to see the turtles, and be back in Costa Rica. Should be hot and humid in the rainforest, but it may be cooler in the mountains. I'll keep updating as much as possible...Pura Vida!