Good Morning everyone!
This is my second blog post about my adventures in Costa Rica, and I am very excited about the trip we took the weekend before last to Ostional Turtle Reserve! Ostional is an extremely small town/village type area where the people volunteer to help sea turtles that come from all over the world to survive. Ostional is one of 4 beaches in the world where turtles come to lay their eggs and during the nesting season about 175+ sea turtles of 4 different breeds come each day to lay eggs. Each mama turtle can lay about 180 eggs in one sitting, and some of the mama turtles make more than one trip to the beach during the nesting season! This seems like a lot of turtles being born, so one might think, why do people need to get involved? Well, during hatching season, all the baby turtles come out and try to make it to the water, but there are many obsticles and predators waiting for their trip. So people help to keep the beaches clean and scare off predators each year so the babies can make it to the ocean! It is unfortunate though, even if a baby turtle makes it to the ocean, they find more hazards their too and must fight to survive. Most of the baby turtles won’t return to land again for 17 years! That means these babies grow up in the water, swimming constantly for 17 years, how cool is that??
Along with a large education on turtle habits and babies, we also participated in some volunteering for some of the lonely mama turtles who come to give birth in the off seasons. In Ostional it is said that one mama turtle comes to the beach everyday during the off seasons all by herself.
Other than the search for turtles and our days on the beach, we also experienced the more rustic life-style of the more rural side of Costa Rica! In one of the attached pictures you can see a whole cooked fish that we were served for dinner one night – definitely an interesting and tasty experience! This was a hugely rewarding experience. The black sand beaches, turtle nests, and a new life-style was a lot for one weekend but we learned so much and had a great time. The sunset was so pretty, we had to take an uncanny number of pictures, with jumping, mermaids, and strange poses to spell USA! I would recommend this trip to anyone!
We saw a total of 3 rainbows on this trip, one of which was full, but heres the one on the beach!
THIS is a whole fish, cooked just for us. You’ll also notice the standard beans and rice, when mixed they are known as “Gallo Pinto”
The remains of a successful adventure for a baby turtle
This is not a postcard, its real life. Thank you pacific sun!
Charrel got them hops…but really, sunset pics are the best pics
USA USA USA…sort of, I need to work on my U skills
Is that a mermaid? …Oh wait, that’s just me.
Where the sky meets the edge of the earth and all your dreams come true
Our favorite sunset jump shot