Day 20.. A natural wonder

 I'm nearing the end of my time here in Tortuguero and costa rica. To be honest I think I have seen most of what Tortuguero has to offee and these last days are about taking a breath and some time to soak up the fresh air and freedom and space to fortify me for the months ahead.

It's going to be a adjustment getting back  into the swing of things, being surrounded by people on a daily basis, being inside for long hours. But as I have discovered... although I love travelling... I also love going. home. I miss friends and family and my pets (who have been very well looked after by Christine, aided possibly by my brother in helping to keep the temps down during the recent heat wave in the uk.)

So today, I went for a walk down the trail leading to the airport I wasn't expecting to see lots out as it was warm and animals tend to have more sense than humans and hide away at the hottest point of the day.

My walk took me past the sea turtle conservancy place and I darted in there to see if the pit viper was still there. Unless I had the wrong palm tree, it had disappeared from its spot. I wandered into the museum shop (always dangerous) and spent far too much money, but in a good place and for a good cause. One of my purchases was a book in english and spanish (so I can practice my vocab) about the amphibians and reptiles of costa rica. I wanted to check on a couple of the things we had found over the last 3 weeks and it will be useful for when I come back here!

I kept going down the path, even the lizards had pretty much given up basking it was sooo hot.  A bit further down, there was an almighty racket in the trees. Without even looking, I could now work out what birds were making the noise.... Toucans... and green parrots. Both as noisy as each other there was a massive group of both, shouting at each other and generally winding each other up! I counted at least 10 toucans and possibly more with probably equal number of parrots. I stood and watched their antics for a while, squarking and swooping between trees. Good fun to watch.!

I made my way back slowly... dying from dehydration at that point (slight exaggeration to be fair) I found myself in a soda and ordered a fruit smoothie. Perfect!

I then went and chilled out in preparation for another turtle tour. The last one, I had seen 2 turtles,  one of which hadn't laid eggs and the other we saw after eggs were laid. So I was hoping that I would be able to see eggs this time.

Dressed in dark clothes, in the early slot from 8 until 10pm, we made our way to our allotted sector... which just happened to be at post 48... As we walked swiftly past, I jerked my torch up and searched the bushes.... the eyelash viper was not in the spot he was before... another flick of torchlight around the area revealed that the stunning animal had not moved far... I did get a hurry up from our guide, whose focus was on the turtles but promised to show the others in the tour if the guide allowed afterwards.

Hurry up... hurry up... and... wait!

So the turtle egg laying process goes through several stages and visitors are only. allowed to stand and watch once she has gone into the egg laying phase. At this point she won't be disturbed and will continue laying her eggs even when watched.  If we disturbed her before she started laying eggs, whilst she was in the nest digging stage, then she may decide to go back to the ocean without laying any eggs.

So we waited... 1st for them to find a turtle, then to wait for her to dig the nest which can take up to an hour. The turtle our group had, decided to walk away from one site after discerning that it wasn't satisfactory and went to another one to start again. This meant that we were standing for a long time waiting for her to begin laying and hoping that it would start within our time frame, otherwise we would have to go without seeing anything.

In my group were 2 austrians, 2 spaniards and a family of french people with 3 kids, one of whom was quite young. They all did very well throughout the evening... the young kids complaining very little about the wait or the jet lag (they had flown in that morning).

I stood patiently, having gone through this the other day... I knew the guides would do their best to get us to see something even if it wasnt the egg laying part I looked up at the mostly clear sky and could see throusands of stars twinkling and lightening lighting up the sky, even though there was no rain or thunder.

After a long wait, we were ushered forward... we were the second group for that turtle out of about 5 so we would rotate round to watch the egg laying part and then the covering up of the eggs part. If there was time, we would then watch her make her way back to the sea.

We shuffled forwards, the kids kneeling at the front behind the back end of the turtle. A volunteer moved the turtle's back flipper aside so that we could see her laying the eggs. With every effort 2 or 3 eggs popped out into the hole she had painstakingly dug. She would lay 100 or so in total, this time on the beach and over the next few weeks, come back to the beach 6 to 10 times to lay another 100 each time.

The eggs lie in the sand for 2 months and the temperature of the incubator will determine ehat sex the baby turtles are, lower temps. mean boys, higher temps girls. The mother has chosen the site to try and get a roughly 50:50 split. The last few eggs on top of the pile are infertile as a protection to the rest of the clutch.

The facts do not tell the whole story and. perhaps my words are insufficient to describe the awe I felt at witnessing this wonder of nature.  Lit by the red light of our guides torch we watched as she dropped 20 eggs into the hole... each one with a 1 in 1000 chance of reaching adulthood.

Over 90% of the little baby turtles will make it to the ocean. It is there that there struggle to survive really begins.

We rotated round to allow the other groups to watch... and then got a second view of the eggs being dropped down. It seemed she was slowing down now and as we left for a second time, she had started to use her back flippers to push sand over the hole.

When we got back for the third time, the hole was well covered and she was starting to use her front flippers to drag more sand to the back... catching a log in the process, which a volunteer pulled away out of the nest area.

She looked tired.

Such an effort for her each time she came up on the beach to lay eggs.

We ran out of time to see her return to the sea but to be fair we had had a long time watching her lay her eggs and it perfectly rounded off the holiday for me. There were no photos allowed which actually meant we were all focused on the moment without distractions and enabled me to imprint the sight into my memories. 

We went back and I asked the guide if we had time to go back and see the viper. He was happy so we set off back to post 48, where I found him again.  The kids were especially excited to see and I lifted the smallest kid up so he could have a better look. The viper seemed more aware and awake this time than the last time I saw him, flicking out his tongue as we gathered around (not too close). He still seemed pretty chilled though and I was confident that he wouldn't try and strike.

We took photos and our guide got a bit closer and took photos for the rest of the group and then we meandered along the trail. back to the village.  The smallest kid was knackered so I offered to give him a piggy back and hoisted him up for the remaining few kilometers.

It had been a great evening, a good way to round off my time here. One more day to go before I leave tortuguero.