But how will people know I was here?!
Trip Start
Jan 09, 2007
1
7
11
Trip End
Jan 17, 2007
Playa Grande,
Costa Rica
Sunday, January 14, 2007
place was to see the turtles nesting, we both set our alarms for six
a.m. or so, so we'd be to the ranger station by seven to get in line so
when the stationed opened at eight so we'd be sure to get one of the
twenty open spots in the turtle viewing. That worked out about as
expected,with both of us sleeping until 6:45. (Sarah sleeps through the
alarms, which is further compounded by my ability to turn them both off
in my sleep.)
Around that time, I realized I really should move now, and went downto
the station in pajamas, plus my jacket and shoes, to maintain some
semblance of decency. I sat there (reading grumpily) for the full hour,
only to find that they would not let me sign Sarah up without her
actually being there. I hiked back to the apartment and woke her up,
but by the time she got back down, she ended up being number twenty-one
in line. After a brief discussion of alternative turtle viewing
options, we went back to bed. All that ignoring alarms for an hour and
sitting around in a rain jacket for no apparent reason was tiring.
The apartment was equipped with some lovely, functional, quiet
air-conditioning, which I took full advantage of to sleep comfortably
while we were in Playa Grande. Whether my bed was a board or not, that
was the most restful place we stayed. Around mid-afternoon, we had a
leisurely lunch at the hotel (billing things to the room was just way
too easy) and went to play on the beach for awhile.
For the first time in my life, I actually managed to not miss a spot
with the sunscreen, but here I have a tragic announcement. My
very favorite sunglasses, the huge black ones that lent me an uncanny
resemblance to a bug, got washed away when I was pulled under by an
unexpectedly strong wave. R.I.P., dear shades. You served me
well. May you grace the life of some other traveler who will
fully appreciate your insectile appearance.
Since it was such a difficult beach to get to, large stretches of Playa
Grande were utterly deserted. It was nice not having to be
extra-careful of our pile of stuff and have some space to walk and take
pictures without running into other people. We stayed out on the beach
till sunset, when we went back to the apartment to get ready for the
turtle viewing. Plan A was for Sarah just to go down at the appropriate
time with me and hope someone else didn't show up, so we were both at
the station at 7:20, ten minutes early.
Then we proceeded to ask for an extra ticket every ten minutes for the
next hour. Some of the other people who had signed up through their
resort whinged almost continuously for the entire hour about the price
(they had paid $105 as opposed to our $16), the waiting for the turtles
(till possibly 2 a.m.), and, worst of all, the prohibition on taking
pictures. As the loudest woman announced, "If I had known I couldn't
take pictures, I wouldn't have come! How are people going to know I was
here?!" Eventually, they just couldn't take the indignity any longer
and left, leaving Sarah a ticket. Plan A worked!
Next came the waiting. We were in group two, which meant that we would
be in the group to go out for the second turtle sighted by the
volunteers on the beach. There was a twenty minute speech and
instructional video, but that barely alleviated the boredom.
Eventually Sarah gave in and walked back to the apartment to get us
something to do. Around midnight, the first turtle was sighted, and it
seemed like more of a real possibility we'd be able to do something
other than hanging out on the porch avoiding the bugs all night. Sure
enough, about forty-five minutes later, we got the call that a second
turtle had been sighted, and our group was to organize to go
down. Since we had NO CAR (people still looked at us funny when
we said that), we were assigned to ride over with an American family
living in Costa Rica and visiting Playa Grande on vacation.
The ride was very brief, yet unnecessarily convoluted (we couldn't tell
if one of the lead cars was lost, or if they were trying to hide the
location of the turtles) and we ended up on the beach at one of the
exact same spots we'd burst out of the jungle at yesterday. (Maybe our
knowledge of the beach roads and trails was just a lot better than it
should've been. Like, say, those people with cars.)
Everyone was put in a single file line, hushed, and pointed toward the
direction of the single red light the guide had. Our tickets were
checked twice, and we tiptoed toward the beach, where we were cautioned
several times to stay in our single file line and continue on down the
beach. I had trouble and was weaving all over the place, since I was
astounded by the number of stars and couldn't keep my eyes off the sky.
Other than three cruise ships obnoxiously lit on the horizon and the
lights of Tamarindo in the distance, the world was devoid of artificial
light for miles. I have never seen stars like that in my life. That was
probably more spellbinding than the turtle.
Our turtle was a leatherback, 1.5 meters long and around 800 lbs. Some
of the facts were hard to discern because it was all being translated
in whispers for us, though I was really proud of myself for being able
to catch 75% of some of the sentences in the original Spanish. We
arrived when she was in the middle of digging her hole, maybe a meter
deep, then we got to watch her lay the eggs. It felt kind of intrusive,
even though she seemed to have little awareness that we were even
there. One of the key rules was to stay behind the turtle. After she
laid her clutch (it was evidently pretty small - around 40 eggs, I
think, meaning it was one of her last nests of the season), she started
covering it up, with dainty scoops of sand at first, followed by
tamping it down with a flipper, and ending with huge swipes of sand
that hit most of us. I think she was doing that on purpose.
Then we had to tiptoe quickly away, for the next step in the covering
process was to walk around in a circle camoflauging the area, through
which our whole group would obviously not be able to stay behind her.
Our tickets were checked again, twice. I found this extremely
odd, as I don't know where the extra person would have come from
without being noticed, nor how a simple head-count couldn't have
verified that.
We headed back up the beach to the tiny trail through the jungle and
back up to the apartments, where it turned out the American family was
staying right next door to us. Curbside service! The family -
mother, father, and two teenage girls - had decided to move to Costa
Rica for a year because the father had done his LDS mission in Ecuador,
where he'd learned Spanish, and they wanted to just "try it out." Or
rather, the parents did. The girls were definitely not thrilled about
being dragged off to live in Central America and do school online
where they didn't speak the language. The mother was very sweet and
chatty, but we never did manage to get her name.
Off to bed, where I insisted on sleeping with a light on, as we had to
be up and down to the hotel by 7:45-8, and it was already almost
3.
Besides the stars, I thought the neatest thing was that that beach was
riddled with clutches of turtle eggs, which we'd tromped back and forth
over without knowing a thing. In a couple of months, it will be
swarming with baby turtles.
