After our last post, we left our bikes and extra baggage with our friends in Heredia and headed to the village of Parismina on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. We had to take two buses and a boat to get there;the second bus drove us through two large Del Monte banana plantations (the bus actually stopped once to let a conveyor belt with bananas on it cross the road). Parismina is just south of the Tortuguero National Park and Tortuguero Village, which is a more famous place to encounter sea turtles. When you get to the end of the road in Caño Blanco, it’s like being in the bayou—there are canals and rivers that connect small communities that are only reachable by boat.

We had decided to volunteer with (Association to Save the Turtles of Parismina) for several reasons. One was that they offered homestay opportunities with local families in the village; the other was that it was one of the more reasonable in terms of costs (some organizations charge thousands of dollars per week to volunteer!). Soon after we arrived, we were acquainted with our host family, two sisters with four children between them. We were told by the volunteer coordinator that our family had asked for volunteers because one of the children had broken her arm when she was younger, and the doctor somehow managed to reverse the two bones of her forearm when he set the break (it didn’t seem to bother her, but it was somewhat disturbing to behold when she moved it). Anyway, they were trying to save money to take her to San Jose to consult with a doctor to try to fix her arm.

They began putting us to work right away—we spent a couple of hours that afternoon (and over the next several days) helping build a new turtle egg nursery on the beach because the old one was at capacity. This organization is a little different than some of the other ones we looked into because of the high level of community involvement. We found that this had advantages and disadvantages. About 50-60 people participate in the program, mostly as guides who walk the beaches at night with the volunteers. Having a sense of ownership of the program, as well as seeing how the turtles can be a tourist attraction, bringing money into the village, are some of the good things. However, the population is not particularly well educated, which means that it is difficult to collect consistent, meaningful scientific data on the animals that could be used to bring in research money.

Our first night ended with the event we had been waiting for—the beach patrol. Usually there were two 4-hour patrols each night, from 8-12 pm and from 12-4 am (patrols were more frequent when more volunteers were available). We started on the late shift, not knowing what to expect. We knew that July was a transition month, as the egg laying season for Leatherback turtles was ending and the season for Green turtles was just beginning. The Parismina group patrols a 6 km stretch of beach, and each night we just walked up to one end, and then turned around and came back. The first night we walked, it was so dark (the moon had gone down below the horizon and it was cloudy) that I thought we would never see anything. I shouldn’t have worried—when we saw our first tracks they were so big we nearly fell into them! A Green turtle had come up on the beach, but decided for some reason not to lay eggs, just turning around and heading back into the ocean. We were excited and ready for more, but we didn’t see anything else that night. After our day of manual labor and walking 12 km of beach, we were quite ready to go to bed at 4 am when we returned.

The rest of the week basically followed the same pattern; we would get up late, eat breakfast, watch some telenovelas, eat lunch, work on the nursery, eat dinner, watch some telenovelas, go walk the beach—all the while trying to stay cool and avoid getting bitten by mosquitos. We also had our hands full during the days trying to keep the kids entertained. Although three of the four were of school age, they never had more than 2-3 hours of school a day, so there was plenty of time to play soccer/tag/cards, wrestle, swim on the beach, etc. There was a “turtle hut” that served as the group’s headquarters; we would escape there for a little while during the afternoons when we were exhausted from playing with the kids. We would ask the other volunteers how their patrols went, and it seemed for a while that the turtles would always show up during the shift that we weren’t on. We saw tracks of various turtles, but no turtles and no nests over the next few days.

By the end of the week, we were starting to get disheartened (and really tired). We could have taken a night off from patrolling, but we were convinced that if we did, we would somehow miss out on something. But then finally on our penultimate night, we came upon a Green turtle that had already dug out a nest and was laying eggs. They say that the turtles can be really jumpy about deciding to nest when they come up on the beach, but once they actually start laying eggs, they go into a sort of trance, where you can touch them without disturbing them. And this one was absolutely deathly still as it was laying eggs. We let the turtle finish laying, cover the eggs with sand, and head back out to sea before we took action. Our guide started digging into the sand to recover the eggs—ordinarily, they would go to the nursery if there was room, but tonight they would have to be moved to a hidden nest so that poachers wouldn’t discover the nest. When the guide got to the eggs, he asked me if I wanted to pull them out of the nest, so I got down and reached into the hole he had dug (which was just about the length of my arm). I started pulling out the eggs gently one at a time, but after digging around a bit, I realized that there were a LOT of eggs down there, and started pulling them up 2-3 at a time…they felt a little bit like squishy, deflated ping pong balls. There were 105 eggs in all! Our guide had dug another deep hole nearby, and into the hole the eggs went. This all took a long time, and the next patrol had caught up to us by that point, so we got to go home a little early, very elated that we didn’t take the day off.

On our last night of patrolling, we hit the jackpot again, this time seeing a Leatherback turtle on the beach. This was very unexpected, as they seemed to think that the season was pretty much over. The beast was immense; its shell alone was 1.5 meters long! This delivery would be a little trickier though…when we found the turtle she had come ashore where the beach was partially eroded, and there was a meter-high sand wall keeping her from getting up to the drier sand away from the water. So she started trying to dig a nest at the water’s edge, and every time she would start to make progress, a big wave would come in and fill the hole with seawater. Leatherbacks are one of the more endangered species of sea turtles, so we decided to take some extra measures to help her out. Our guide had the idea of trying to build a sand wall around her to try to block the waves, so we all (me, Cindy, the guide, and a couple from Australia) got down in the sand next to the turtle and made a wall. It helped a little, but wasn’t enough against the crashing waves. The turtle started to turn around toward the beach, and we thought she was giving up, but she managed to position herself in a way to help our dyke efforts, and then continued on her nest. The guide pulled the eggs out of the nest as she laid them, 3-4 at a time, and put them into a plastic grocery bag. As we were relocating the eggs, our guide told us that the eggs would have never survived being buried in sand so close to the water (essentially, they would have drowned).

Although we never did see any turtle hatchlings, we felt pretty good about our time in Parismina at the end of the week. Unfortunately, we heard from our Australian friends that on a bus along the coast after leaving Parismina somebody came on board offering them turtle eggs, so we’re definitely fighting an uphill battle   But we were definitely ready to head back to the cool altitude and the unbugginess of Heredia. We’ve spent this week getting ready to hit the road again. We are going to be a bit lighter from now on, shipping some of our rarely used camping equipment back to the states. Hopefully, it will make us that more able to outrun the banditos From here it’s back to the Caribbean coast and the Panama border, and the archipelago Bocas del Toro. And then on to Panama City, and our next continent!

In our quest to get back on our feet and return to our travels, we needed some local help, so we contacted some people through CouchSurfing and asked to stay with them. We got a response from a friendly couple, Trevor (from Nebraska) and Mariana (from Argentina). They live in Heredia (just outside San Jose), which has a youthful populace due to the pair of universities in town. We’ve been able to leave our bikes and some bags with them as we’ve explored the central valley. After hanging out in Heredia a couple of days and enjoying the atmosphere, we took a bus to the nearby town of Alajuela, where we were planning on meeting our friends Becky and Sara. We stayed for a few days at the , home of a bar devoted to Marilyn Monroe and “the best breakfast in Costa Rica” (according to their website). The breakfast was actually pretty good, as far as typical Costa Rica food goes—gallo pinto (rice and beans), potatoes, plantains, and an omelet bar. Becky brought us a care package of things we needed from the states, including a new digital camera (a cheap one…you know what they say about fool me twice…). So we were very excited to start exploring and take pictures again!

Our first day in Alajuela was spent on a trip to the nearby town of Sarchi, which is supposed to be the best place to buy local handicrafts. Most of the items are made from the beautiful hardwoods found in the area. I feel somewhat ambivalent about the wood crafts—although the items are stunningly beautiful, you have to wonder whether or not you are supporting the destruction of rain forest by purchasing such items. Anyway, Becky and Sara were introduced to the wonders of Costa Rican bus travel; that is to say, wondering when the bus is going to roll over because it drives so fast on small, windy roads. And they were also introduced to the rainy season here, as it absolutely poured all afternoon, causing us to walk from awning to awning through the town in a futile attempt to stay dry. We eventually made it back to the hotel, where we warmed ourselves with some rum that Cindy and I brought from Nicaragua that was thankfully forgotten by our attackers there.

The next day we visited the nearby Volcano Poas. We again tried to get there by bus, but despite the help of several locals, we couldn’t figure out how to make it happen. So we returned to our hotel, and booked ourselves a guide to take us directly to the volcano. Our guide was a Tico named Luis, who was very friendly, spoke excellent English, and had lots to tell us about the area. Poas is one of the most visited national parks in Costa Rica; apparently the fees collected there are enough to subsidize the costs of the less traveled parks in the country. We went up on a Sunday, and sure enough, there were plenty of people there. Unfortunately, Poas is a bit of a crapshoot in terms of visibility. We got a glimpse of the just as we arrived, but within 10 minutes, it was enveloped again in clouds. Luis told us that some people don’t even get to see that, so we should consider ourselves lucky We took the short hike in the rain to the other crater, which is a lake (Botos Lagoon), and had to be satisfied with seeing the picture of the lake posted at the lookout, since that side was covered in clouds as well.

The day after our trip to Poas, we transferred to a hotel called , which is in the hills between Heredia and Alajuela. This hotel is amazingly beautiful, and we picked it because we had a little surprise planned for Becky and Sara…more on that later. That morning we took the coffee tour at . The tour was, shall we say, unique. We walked through a small area of coffee plants as three people (claiming to be coffee pickers) explained to us where the coffee beans come from, and how they are processed from cherries on the tree to the roasted beans that you put in the grinder. When we finished seeing the processing plant where the final product is bagged, we went into a small auditorium, where the three “coffee pickers” (who were at this point clearly actors) went into a full-blown stage production (complete with costume changes) explaining the history of coffee. It was like seeing a show at Disneyland…with an appropriate amount of caffeine added. Anyway, the tour ended in their gift shop (of course), where you could sample all their various blends of coffee. Since I don’t drink coffee, I wasn’t too interested in that, BUT they also had out samples of their various chocolates, which I was very interested in. You could also buy all the coffee your heart desired and have it shipped to the states for somewhat cheaper than their online prices, so we decided to send ourselves some coffee for our return.

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That night we let Becky and Sara in on our surprise…they were going to be the witnesses for our wedding the next morning. We got married on July 17 by a lawyer overlooking the beautiful hotel pool, and we finished it before the rains came that day. This is something we’ve had planned since Mexico City, when we booked the hotel. We bought rings at a jade store in Antigua, Guatemala, and thankfully the robbers overlooked them when they were going through our stuff. The hotel did a really great job, preparing tropical flowers for us and a very yummy mango cake. But we had no time to sit around and congratulate ourselves—we had more stuff to see! After we killed the bottle of champagne and finished taking wedding photos, we jumped in a cab to visit . The gardens are set in the hills near an amazing chain of 5 waterfalls, and there is an aviary, butterfly house, hummingbird garden, snake house, and frog house. There is an abundance of beautiful flora and fauna to see (and photograph) as you walk through the park….I can’t wait to post some of our pictures. After wearing ourselves out in the park, we returned to the hotel for a celebratory wedding dinner. They serve all the guests at the same time with a 4-course meal in the main room of the hotel. Although our friends Trevor and Mariana weren’t able to get off work to come to the ceremony, they were able to join us for dinner. The next day we saw Becky and Sara off the the airport to return to Atlanta, while Cindy and I soaked up as much luxury as we could before returning to Heredia to stay with Trevor and Mariana.

We still haven’t made any binding decisions about our future travel directions yet, but in the meanwhile we are planning on leaving tomorrow by bus and boat to the Caribbean coast near Tortuguero National Park and spending a week volunteering to patrol the beach at night acting as midwives for the sea turtles. Then we’ll return to Heredia/San Jose and figure out what we’re going to do with the bikes.