Hot Water

Today we had to say goodbye to Costa de Oro and begin our adventure. At 5:15 AM Alvaro came and picked up Kayla and took her to Hotel Laguna Mar. I was still trying to put the last things in order when Alvaro returned to get me.  When we arrived to the hotel,  Drew was waiting for us with some much needed coffee.

Bill and Audrey, pulled up to the hotel fifteen past six and we loaded the car up. We went for a quick drive to Liberia, with just one stop at the Do-It Center. After Bill and Audrey got all sorts of things for the house, we were dropped off at the car rental place. We thanked Bill and Audrey  for the ride and went to get our car.

As in everything in Costa Rica, the car rental took a little longer than expected and we even had to switch car companies because the first tried to rent us a Sedan by saying "there are no bad roads in Costa Rica." We finally ended up in a mini SUV which we know will better fit our needs.

One of our beautiful views along the drive.

Our first glimpse at the Blue River.

Thanks to Drew, we had our first hotel planned in Blue River, which was a place I had never seen. So after only one wrong turn and an hour and a half later of beautiful driving we crossed the Blue River. Of course, we stopped at it to take some photos. While taking the pictures, I stepped back into river and was surprised to find it was hot! We admired the beauty of the river and its unique color then once again, we climbed into the car. 

Only 100 meters past the river, we found the turn in for the resort. When we got there they gave us a map of the place which included a butterfly farm, hummingbird garden, sauna, hot springs, and a mud bath. Kayla and I decided there was no time to waste because we had so much to do, but first we needed to unpack the car.

Our room's private porch.

Huge bathroom!

And our really comfy beds...

When we arrived in the room, we couldn't believe how big it was. There was a great hammock on the front porch and two queen beds. When we turned the corner for the bathroom, the shower was almost the same size of my room I had been living in in Costa de Oro. Once we had thoroughly investigated our room, we quickly changed into our suits in search of the mud bath.

Our search begin at the spa, where we saw the special $1/ minute for massage. With this we were torn… Massage or mud bath first. We went with the mud bath since it was so warm outside, we felt the mud would feel best. The way one takes a mud bath is to first soak in the sauna for 20 minutes and then lather up in mud. Once the mud is dry then rinse in cold water. Only Kayla and I learned we are far too impatient for the full treatment and after only 5 minutes we were over the sauna and moved on to putting mud on. The mud was cool, but we quickly covered ourselves with the volcanic mud. We rinsed just as quickly, finding the water not to be cold, but the same temperature that we had grown accustomed to in Costa de Oro.

We made a run for the hot tub only to find we took a wrong turn in the garden and ended up in the butterfly enclosure. As we entered the tent we were memorized by the number of blue morpho butterflies. Forgetting how cold, we wandered the gardens watching the butterflies. After we couldn't stand the cold any longer, we made our way to the hotsprings. While sitting there, Kayla and I decided we needed at least a ten minute massage since our life on the beach for the last 5 months was so stressful.

Hotel Restaurant.

After a nice massage, hot shower and quick nap, we made our way to restaurant for a quick dinner before calling it an early night. Tomorrow we have an early day a head of us because we are going on a tour of Blue River, Blue River Estates and the waterfall.

Mele Kalikimaka

After almost 6 months in Costa Rica, 4 of which were spent living with the amazing community of Costa de Oro, it is time to wrap up the project.  We began by waking up early and exhuming all the nests that had hatched. During our 7 exhumations, we removed just over 300 live baby turtles that we released this evening.

The 300 plus turtles from the exhumations this morning.

Every turtle represents a nest that was in the hatchery this year.

Once all the exhumations were complete, we said good bye to Michelina and began packing up the house. Surprisingly enough we met our goal and the house was ready by 4PM.Of course the children showed up on time for our last activity of the year. Celebrating Christmas by making a snowman, our in our case a tropical sandman! We then released the 300 turtles with the help of the town and said our goodbyes. It was really hard to say good bye to such an amazing community even though I will be back in just over a month.

Last sunset in Costa de Oro

After the sun had set, we headed up to Laguna Mar for an amazing meal of homemade shrimp ravioli and a drink. I was surprised to see a couple of my friends had come by the bar just to wish us safe travels. Well I better get back to my last night in paradise and my pina colada! Keep posted for  Kayla and my travels around Costa Rica this coming week.

This awesome video made by one of the volunteers,

Michelina, which sums up the last month on the project!

Butterfly Tour

Me removing tree frog from the shower

Last night, Victor had the night off. So Kayla and I slept in the hatchery to ward off the dogs, while Hernaldo took 3 of the volunteers on a patrol. Being in the hatchery isn't too bad since the internet reaches most days and Netflix is full of new movies and shows, but having 2 people sharing a hammock makes it very hard to sleep.  Every time one of us would just about fall asleep, the other would re-position causing the hammock to swing. The lack of sleep is made up by the beautiful view of crashing waves and brilliant stars.

Tree frog that make its
 home in the shower

He looks so happy in his new home.

Sunset in Costa de Oro

At 5 in the morning, we moved inside and got another hour and a half  of sleep before needing to get up and get ready to go on Mike's butterfly tour.

Mike telling us about the tour.

At 8:30 the Pretoma truck pulled into the drive and we all loaded in to take the 20 minute drive to Pueblo Nuevo where Butterfly Jungle is located. When we got there Mike greeted us with cold water and promise of fresh honey.

We all gathered in the newly refurbished rancho, where Mike gave us a little synopsis of how he came to Costa Rica to become the owner of his own butterfly farm. After his brief history, we walked out to the sunny gardens to see some fast flying butterflies and bees. He taught us about mimicry that is present in some butterfly species, which makes species only distinguishable by counting veins in their wings.

Mike's butterfly collection.

Once we had seen all sorts of sun loving insects , we moved down to the river walk to find shade loving species. It was interesting because the insects moved much differently and actually floated instead of flying quickly. We were lucky enough to see and owl eye butterfly and 2 butterflies mating.

Mating butterflies

Rancho

20 minutes later, we returned to the rancho to try honey and bee pollen. I always knew I liked honey, but this honey was something else. Don't worry mom and dad, I bought enough to bring home and if anyone else wants pure Costa Rican honey email me!

Fungi, I think.

More cool plants

Michelina, one of our volunteers,
enjoying a tree swing in the shade

A butterfly posed on Mikes shoulder.

Long nosed bats

Once we had all had samples of honey, we went to see some bats who had made home a beautiful tree with very exposed roots. The long- nosed bats didn't even seem phased by out paparazzi like photo taking.

We returned once again to the rancho for some more honey and with lots of questions about bees and honey. Mike knows a ton about bees and wasps and it was great to have all our questions answered. Since we all loved the honey so much, we each bought a jar or two before thanking Mike and loading back into the Pretoma truck.

Gift shop!

Kayla and I opted to pass the house and go straight to the town of Coyote for an amazing lunch of shrimp and steak at Loma Clara. Right as we were getting ready walk the 6 k back in the heat, Henner, the owner of Cristal Azul, pulls up and offered us a ride. So we hoped in his car and we were returned to our doorstep hot and ready to hop in the ocean for an afternoon swim.

That Wild Migration- Beautiful Swimmers

Tons of turtle tracks

Yesterday I got to witness a phenomena that anyone who works with turtles dreams of see, an Arribada. Arribada means 'the arrival' in Spanish and is a mass nesting event that occurs in only Olive Ridleys and Kemp Ridleys.

Here is how it all began. I woke up early, at 5:30, to do a morning check of the beach followed by an exhumation for a couple visiting from Pennsylvania. When I got back into the house our German volunteers had made us German pancakes, which are pretty much crepes and nothing like The Original Pancake House's German pancakes, but delicious nonetheless.

Around 10AM Erik came to the house to tell us that they just found out that Corozalito had an Arribada and that we could all go. So 8 of us, plus the 6 other people they are already picked up, all pilled into the car and headed the 15 Km north to go see some sea turtles.

Me posing with a turtle.

When we got there, the beach was not full of turtles like I had expected, but there were still turtles nesting. The sand was so hot I was amazed the turtles could even walk on it, but they seemed to be still trying to nest. Then I looked out on the horizon , just past the breaking waves, and saw a ton more turtles waiting to come in. It seemed as though they were waiting until the sand cooled down before they nested.

Sea turtle nesting.

Another nesting turtle

After about an hour, the Pretoma truck was loaded and ready to return us all to our appropriate projects. But lucky for me, Alvaro showed up, which meant I had the opportunity to stay back and watch the turtles a little longer. The interesting thing was, right after the truck left the majority of the turtles stopped nesting and  were just coming up and  leaving. When they would reach the hot sand the would turn around and rest, holding their flippers out of the sand, like they were being burned. We even had to help a few because they not moving and just sitting on hot sand.

Another hour passed and it was time for me to head back and have a much needed lunch with some good girl friends  before heading back to Costa de Oro. As for the arribada, I still have high hopes to make another trip to Corozalito today!

Trying to Reason With Hurricane Season

After our little run in with Hurricane Sandy, my dad sent this article to me from Fox News that I thought people may be interested in. It talks all about heavy rains' effect on sea turtle nests.

Sandy's surge disturbed baby sea turtle boom

By: Becky Oskin

Published November 08, 2012

| OurAmazingPlanet

As Hurricane Sandy roared up the East Coast, it threatened to disturb the best loggerhead turtle nesting season on record. Florida, South Carolina and Georgia all reported baby booms, with more nests than ever since the states began tracking turtles in the 1980s. North Carolina had its third highest year, and loggerhead turtles crawled ashore as far north as Maryland to lay eggs. The loggerhead turtle is a federally listed threatened species and is listed as an endangered species by some states.

Sandy's late-season arrival meant most of the tiny hatchlings emerged well before the storm hit. All of South Carolina's nests had hatched, said DuBose Griffin, sea turtle program coordinator for the state's Department of Natural Resources. A record number of sea turtle nests, 4,604, were laid (from all local species) this season on South Carolina beaches.However, other states had slowly developing or late-laid nests with eggs in the ground when Sandy's storm surge battered the coast.At Florida's Juno Beach, a nesting hotspot, about 50 endangered green turtle nests were destroyed.  In North Carolina, about 12 nests were destroyed, but nearly 50 hatchlings were rescued on the Outer Banks. In Berlin, Md., at the Assateague Island National Seashore, a planned excavation saved two hatchlings and eggs Oct. 26, just before the hurricane's approach. 

Storms part of natural cycle

Georgia state wildlife biologist Mark Dodd said the losses from Hurricane Sandy were part of the turtle's natural life cycle."Loggerheads and other sea turtle species have evolved nesting on dynamic beaches with periodic tropical events, so their reproductive strategy takes that into account," Dodd told OurAmazingPlanet. "They produce lots of eggs and hatchlings, which in the grand scheme of things aren't expected to survive very well. Ultimately, all they have to do is replace themselves." Dodd coordinates the state's sea turtle program for the Department of Natural Resources.

Loggerheads laid a record number of nests on Georgia beaches, 2,218, for a third summer in a row. The world's most endangered sea turtle, a Kemp's Ridley, also laid a nest in Georgia. The last hatchlings came out of the ground Oct. 22, Dodd said, well before Sandy's waves crashed into the state's beaches and barrier islands. Baby turtles can reach their crèche in the Gulf Stream seaweed beds after about four days of swimming.

Turtles don't nest every year, but when they do "crawl," females produce four to six nests in different spots, each with 100 to 125 eggs the size of ping-pong balls. The eggs hatch after 50 to 120 days, depending on temperatures at the nesting site. In the United States, hatchlings begin emerging in mid-July and can continue through November. During that time, storms can wash nests from beaches, drown them with seawater, bury them with sand, or expose their eggs to predators by washing sand away.

Surprise inside Maryland nest

As Hurricane Sandy approached the Assateague Island National Seashore, biologists from the National Aquarium in Baltimore evacuated an entire nest. The excavation had been planned before Hurricane Sandy emerged on the radar, to protect the loggerhead eggs from cold temperatures, said Kelly Taylor, a science communicator for the park.

To their surprise, two live hatchlings were in the nest. "When we excavated the nest, we didn't expect any viable turtles," Taylor told OurAmazingPlanet. One turtle died from a pre-existing infection and one survives, Taylor said. The remaining eggs are being incubated at the aquarium, and any surviving hatchlings will be released in spring.

In Florida, no loggerhead turtle nests were left at Juno Beach, said Kelly Martin, a biologist with the Loggerhead Marinelife Center there. The turtles laid 13,000 nests in the sand this season, and the majority of hatchlings were out to sea by the time the storm hit, she told OurAmazingPlanet. But Hurricane Sandy did destroy about 50 green turtle nests, Martin said. The green turtle is a federally endangered species.

This year, surveyors counted 58,172 loggerhead nests along nearly 250 miles of Florida's coastline, one of the highest nest counts since monitoring began in 1989, the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said. Surveyors also counted 6,054 green turtle nests this year.Matt Godfrey, a biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, said North Carolina lost about a dozen nests from erosion or overwash from Sandy. "It was not a major loss," he told OurAmazingPlanet.

Rescue on the Outer Banks

On Topsail Island along North Carolina's Outer Banks, volunteers kept a close eye on two of those nests. One began hatching during daytime just before Hurricane Sandy moved into the area, said Jean Beasley, executive director of the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center. "The surf was getting pretty angry; there were pretty high waves," Beasley said.

Hospital volunteers try not to interfere with turtle hatchings if possible. (Studies show turtles return within several miles of where they nested, so it's better to let them reach the sea on their own.) In the end, though, the hatchlings were washed back and exhausted, so about 30 were gathered up, to ride out the storm in plastic tubs. The turtle hospital also took in "Scott," a hatchling named in honor of the island resident who braved the height of Sandy's rage to rescue it at the island's northern end, Beasley said. "We don't know where it came from, because it was a larger hatchling than the ones from our nest," she said. [On the Ground: Hurricane Sandy in Images]

The Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center also took in 20 hatchlings from neighbors to the south, at Figure Eight Island. A rescue group grabbed eggs from a nest washed out by waves, and the eggs started hatching as they were hauled inside in a bucket, Beasley said. Once the weather calms, the rehabilitation group will catch a ride to a protected area in the Gulf and release the turtles. "Every turtle counts," she said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/11/08/sandy-surge-disturbed-baby-sea-turtle-boom/print#ixzz2JREHS5Cw

The Skeletons are Dancing- Desperation Samba

Over the past couple days a lot has happened. We have put just under 20 nests in the hatchery. The children returned and painted sea turtles on their tie-dyed shirts and they have showed Kayla and I all about a local fruit called a limon dulce, sweet lemon. However, this fruit is not sweet, but rather un-flavorful and can't be used for lemonade and overall not that great. Nonetheless, it was fun to learn from them and see them excited to share their fruit tree with us.

Limon Dulce Tree

Colita with this carved coconut

Maria Fernada preparing a limon dulce

Just tasting the limon dulce.

Kayla and I also caught our turtle-loving dog breaking into the hatchery. Its was around 8 PM and out redneck alarm system started to clank. We looked at each other, then I ran out the door and Kayla grabbed a flashlight. When I reached the hatchery the dog was just slipping through a new hole in the hatchery and headed straight for a nest. By the time I got the door open the dog had already broke ground. Kayla and I must have spooked him because he looked up at us and realized we were blocking his exit. So like a scene out of a cartoon, the dog ran straight through the hatchery wall. With our culprit visually caught, we were on edge all night waiting for a possible return. Then the next morning I headed over to the owners house and asked for the dog to be tied up at night. They were very receptive, however we are still a little nervous that the dog may still break in again.

Yesterday we were able to celebrate Halloween with people from all the projects. Around noon, we were picked up by Pretoma and were taken up to Laguna Mar. We had a great day at the pool enjoying the sun, cocktails and fish tacos. We all had a fun swapping project and turtle stories.

Ingrid, our skeleton.

Team Costa de Oro

Fish Tacos

Ingrid, Me and Kayla enjoying margaritas in the pool

Sharing Halloween with the kids.

We headed back to the project just after 5 pm and Kayla and I went to the children's  house to share candy and treats with them. They loved the glow sticks my parents had sent me.

Luna dressed up for Halloween.