I Smell a Turtle

Our Germans have left. Luisa and Katharina took the bus Sunday morning, and were sounding pretty stressed about it. They were taking the 2:30 AM bus to Jicaral then getting off in Las Juntas and waiting for a bus there to Monte Verde. There were several different routes they could have taken, but decided that they would rather get into Monte Verde for lunch rather than dinner.

Luisa and Katharina getting some last minute snacks at the Pulperia in Javilla

Steph and I made the walk the second night in a row to go and sit with them at the bus stop. I'm sorry but my next volunteers have got to be AWESOME or I am not doing that again. We didn't seem to get eaten alive this time and the there was no rain, but still doing a patrol then walking to the bus stop has got to be one of the longest nights of my life. Going to miss those girls though, our house was pretty quiet yesterday without random fights in German breaking out.

With the departure of all our guests yesterday, Steph and I wondered down the road with a box full of dirty sheets. Isa, Don Victors daughter, was supposed to be our local patrolling with us this year, however, she got sick and the Doctor said she could not do the walks yet, so she has been helping by doing the sheets. When we got down to Don Victors house I was surprised to see Elias. Elias is working up at the office, he is working with Turtle Trax, keeping the website and facebook page up to date and getting volunteers and organizations interested in coming to volunteer. He had decided to come down and make dinner for us and patrol. I also informed him he could only speak to me in Spanish so that I could practice and he could correct me when needed. Needless to say, I sat around with a Spanish Dictionary at arms length.

Meet Elias, while he is making dinner and giving me a Spanish lesson!

With yet another nest to add to the hatchery, last nights patrol was was joined by Isa and her husband Adolfo. Isa, Adolfo, Santos, and Santo's son came by while dinner was being prepped and we were talking about patrols and patrol times, turtles, and and how I understand and speak a little Spanish (but I'm getting better).

At 1:45 my alarm went off and I was out of bed and ready to walk the beach, kind of, I was really sleepy. Elias ended up not patrolling with us, something had happened to his foot a couple days before and it was still hurting him. I thought patrol was going to end up being a dud. We had gotten to the north end of the beach and had not seen anything, however, walking back to the house I smelled the turtle! I started to slow down and I was looking behind me to make sure that there wasn't a track that I had missed because I knew she was near. I think that smelling the turtle must be some weird spidey sense and I was just getting hopeful for yet another turtle. So we kept walking and next thing I knew everyone had stopped, after walking about 10 more meters there was the up track! Steph was excited because she was able to see the track, I was excited because I was able to smell the turtle (oh the little things that excite us at 3 AM). She had just started to dig her nest and so we prepped to get her eggs and take her measurements (have plans to walk to the office today to get some more tags!!).

We ended up getting him about 5 AM and were just beginning to see the sunrise. I went to go lay down in bed, Elias said he was leaving early to ride his bike back to the office and I wanted to make breakfast as a thank you for making us dinner. But here I am currently writing a blog post at 8 am while everyone is still sleeping. We had plans today people wake up!!! I've learned that I feel guilty waking people up.

 

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