First internet access for three weeks!
Here's Granada and the return to Jalova base camp in Tortuguero. It's going too smoothly but I'm stll having fun!
GRANADA
DAY 84
3rd March 2010
We are off to Granada today via Managua. It's a pretty uneventful trip in the coach and we arrive at Granada just before nightfall and check into a pleasant looking but small hostel with murals of Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley on the walls (and of course Che Guevara). Then we have a quick guided tour of the town centre where we are located. The hub is a large plaza filled with trees and benches with the cathedral as the main focal point along one side. The architecture in general is described as 'colonial' which basically means it looks like Spain. It's very nice and gives the city a very different feel to anywhere else that we have been in Central America yet. We have lunch along a cobbled pedestrianised street lined with cafes and restaurants with outside tables, again another very European feature. Our food is delicious and though more expensive than Esterli, is still pretty cheap and excellent value.
DAY 85
4th March
We only have one full day in Granada so we have to make the most of it. I go for breakfast with Charissa and Charlotte quite early. We are recommended a place called Kathy's Waffle House which we duly search out. The streets are still quiet and in the daylight you can fully appreciate the style of architecture here and there is a great mix of colours along each street. Kathy's is a lovely corner restaurant with a covered porch that gives nice out onto the quiet streets. We are also treated to the sight of some nice Crimson-fronted Parakeets that land on a nearby antenna mast and seem quite at home in the city. Breakfast is superb – I can't resist the Gallo Pinto with bacon, scrambled eggs and a big thick slice of real toasted bread! Amazing!
Charissa and Charlotte are going to hire bikes and ride around today which sound like fun but I'm watching the pennies and decide to go for a walk down along the lake shore and explore (Granada is on the shore of Lake Nicaragua which I think is the largest in Central America?). We stop off at the cathedral passing the wretched beggars gathered in the entrances and sit for a while. It's quite a plain cathedral in all fairness and looks quite modern. There's no real interior decoration other than bright pastel paintwork. It's well maintained though and you can climb the belltower – although I never get around to that. The girls find it quite peaceful here and so do I up to a point, and then I get the same feeling that I get in every church – uncomfortable, kind of like I'm gatecrashing someone else's party? I don't know why. It's not anyone is actually judging me or requiring me to repent or anything, I just feel like I don't belong there. Anyway, I'm not going to debate religion here and moving swiftly on I head back to the hostel to change into shoes and get some gear together for my walk. I return to find out that whilst I was gone Jeremy found one of the staff rooting through my bag. Nothing is taken and we kick up a bit of fuss, but there is nothing we can really do. She comes up with some sort of story that there was another guy trying to take my bag and she caught him and was checking to see if anything was missing blah, blah.... Luckily we have locked all our valuables in a locker using a padlock that Charissa has bought. After all that fuss has died down I leave the others and head off down to the lake shore. It's a straight down a long road past a picturesque church and a hotel with a bunch of horse-drawn taxi-carriages which I would urge any ethical person to actively avoid using because of course, as there as are no animal welfare laws here, the poor beasts are pretty much skin and bones.
The lake is huge and a long pier juts out into it. A small boat playing loud reggae music is docked at the end of it. Clouds of Swallows throng around the shore skimming the surface of the water. There aren't many people around and the reason for this becomes abundantly clear. To the south as I follow the road that runs along the lake shore is a park area. It is thronging with people – there are quite literally thousands. It's some kind of 'party in the park' type thing and every square inch of shade is packed full of Nico families having picnics. Moving between them must be every hawker in Granada selling everything from food to sunglasses to inflatables. I briefly consider buying an inflatable blue dinosaur but decide against it for practical reasons. Would have been funny to turn up back at the hostel with it though. There are lots of people swimming in the lake which I'm not sure is a good idea given the general foul smell of the water here. I walk through the crowds for what must be at least 40 minutes without seeing another white face. I get a few looks and comments but generally people aren't bothered by this gringo wandering through their party. After this bustle I follow the road as it turns inland slightly through some lovely dry woods towards a supposedly picturesque spot called Puerto Asese. The dry woods prove to be fantastic for birding and I get to finally see multiple guardabarrancos (Turquoise-browed Motmot), the Nico national bird, the ever-spectacular White-throated Magpie-Jays, my first White-necked Puffbirds (Kind of like kingfishers that live in woods and hunt on lizards and small mammals) and more. Puerto Asese is nice. There's a marina and a couple of expensive waterside restaurants (by Nico standards of course). I wander around birding for a while and taking in the relaxed vibes. There's an impressive view towards the volcanoes to the south and the various islets in the lake that you can get tours around. It's a nice spot and the only downside is that I have managed to get a bit sunburnt. Should have bought my sun-block so that I could reapply. Well worth the 5km walk. Although now I have to do it back again! The woods are still great (in fact it is the return trip where I see the Puffbirds!) and the park is still crowded although there many people that are looking worse for wear and staggering around. I also see a large group of policia frisking a drug-dealer (all dressed in black with shades – how obvious can you get?) non too gently.
It's been a really great day and we top it off by having some really nice local style food in the restaurant next to the hostel.
DAY 86
5th March 2010
Travelling back to San Jose.
It's another long-trip with some crappy film about a Chimp Secret Agent and lots of waiting about at the border crossing.
We meet up with Helen and Leonie at Gaudy's in San Jose. Helen is working in the Osa Peninsula now with another similar organisation called Frontier and is loving it. Leonie is travelling around a bit and waited around to see us before she heads over to the Pacific for some lounging on a beach. It's great to see them and catch up. Then unfortunately comes the inevitable parting of the ways with Jeremy and Lydia who are staying elsewhere and leaving early – Lydia for her placement also in the Osa (far south of Costa Rica) and Jeremy is off to climb the highest peak in Costa Rica, Chirripo. I've come to regard both of them very highly and I wish them both very well and hope to stay in touch with them. I think they both have bright futures ahead of them.
RETURN TO TORTUGUERO
DAY 87
6th March 2010
It's that by now familiar trip from San Jose to Tortuguero today. There are more sad goodbyes this morning, thus time with Helen, Leonie, Charlotte and last of all, my long-time roomie, Charissa. I will hopefully see her again soon as she is headed to San Francisco to the community school project there, which is not far from Tortuguero. We have planned to try and arrange to meet at some point for lunch in Tort or something.
The journey is straight forward enough even if I find myself standing for a while on one of the buses. At least I had enough leg-room.
The boat ride from Cano Blanco is pleasingly familiar although the water is pretty shallow at times, and familiar locations and birds are soon passing by. Eventually, we are dropped at Jalova beach and begin our trek through the forest up to base. Well, its like coming home to be honest. There's an Eyelash Viper coiled on a tree-trunk, the White-capped Manakins are out displaying with their distinctive wing-snapping, even getting pounced on by mosquitoes is strangely reassuring (?).
We get a warm welcome at base from Rich, Sarah and Molly and introduced to new staff members: Tucker, a volunteer staff who was here with Molly the phase before Christmas and has chosen to come back. He's a very enthusiastic American lad. Andres, is an irrepressible young Tico lad born and educated in San Jose. He is outgoing, funny and very friendly. Best of all, he is a licensed herptelogist (he even has one of those snake sticks that looks like either a litter picker or some kind of James Bond villain mechanical arm) which means that he can catch snakes and frogs and is expert at identifying them. We get on well from the start. Krystle is from the US and has worked in some far off places with endangered felines amongst other thing. Fernando is from Madrid and has worked with Krystle before and also looked after big cats (including Jaguars) in a Spanish zoo.
I can't possibly describe each volunteer as there are 15 or so of them, but I get speaking to as many as I can. They seem a good bunch, about half and half girls and boys (there were more girls in our phase) and mostly from the UK or USA, plus representatives from Ireland, Switzerland, a couple of Canadian brothers. They have been having an intensive week of training and tests just like we did when we first arrived.
DAY 88
7th March 2010
Early start for me as I am heading down the beach with Molly checking turtle nests that have been flagged by our Tortuguero based friends in the CCC (Carribbean Conservation Corporation) in case of poaching, predation or wash-outs. It's great to be out on the beach again at first light when it's not too hot and the light is beautiful. It's good to catch up with Molly, learn a bit about the turtle nests (which number about 10 in this 2 ½ mile stretch) and also have a good 5 mile walk. We also get a cool view of a beautiful Green-breasted Mango hummingbird.
The rest of the day is spent on base, chatting with the volunteers and also doing the cooking for hopefully the last time in a while!
In the evening Andres takes Andrew, myself and Tucker on a night-walk. As to be expected, its really good. He explains that he will catch animals as long as they are not dangerous and if we need to identify it or see any key features. We see a few Eyelash Vipers and many different kinds of lizard and frog, one of which I have never seen before. It's a massive treefrog comfortably the size of my hand. It's great to see Andres' skills first-hand and to learn a bit more about these fascinating creatures.
DAY 89
8th March 2010
It's a long hot day and the some of the volunteers are getting a bit frazzled by all the training and exams that they have to do for the surveys. I have to give my first presentations today about snakes and about incidental species recording around the base area. The snake one goes down pretty well and I have a bit of help from Andres. The incidentals one seems to be met largely with indifference and a little walk around the base seems to die a bit of a death quite quickly with most people drifting off without saying much. Maybe when they have been here a bit longer and done all their tests they may have a bit more general interest in birds and things. In all fairness, some of them are pretty enthusiastic still, but overall not a resounding success. It is hot though.
In the afternoon I take some of the new volunteers that have signed up for the internship and are doing their BTECs as I did last phase, into the jungle to the south to ID some animals. The new interns are Elliot, Ruth and Ben (plus Siobhan from Ireland who opts out of this session as she is feeling the stress and heat). It goes pretty well and they all successfully ID a Slaty-tailed Trogon (a bit of a gift really!), Bay Wren (which are mobbing a snake that I unfortunately do not see), and the Slender Anole which Andres captures for them to take notes. We are passed by a group of six of the volunteers plus Rich. It seems that because the vols are going to Tortuguero anyway tomorrow some them have decided to hire a water taxi and go and spend the night there. It's a bit unexpected but I guess if they need to unwind a bit then why not.
I spend a fun evening socialising with the vols and Andres shows us some of the fascinating library of pictures that he has of various herpetology and bird ringing trips he has been on around Costa Rica. I think I impress him with the amount of knowledge I have already picked up about the birds as I am able to ID quite a few of them. He has some great pictures – maybe he'll let me post some.
DAY 90
9th March 2010
All of the volunteers go to Tort today which means that it is really quiet around base.
First thing in the morning, Tucker and I go and do the Turtle Nest Check. All is well with the nests and in addition we see many hummingbirds including three stunning White-necked Jacobins. We also end up having a good old chat. We find out that both of us are really into Magic the Gathering – a fantasy collectible card game, and end up nattering about that for ages. Plus, its always great to be able to walk out on the beach in the morning.
The quiet base and pleasant weather translates as awesome birding around base and I spend a few hours on and off with Andrew wandering around spotting things. Its a really nice way to spend the day. Additionally, we see a new species for both of us in the form of the migratory Eastern Kingbird, 3 of which stop by to eat some bugs before presumably moving on north towards the USA.
I have been given the incidentals project to oversee, which is basically collating all the records of everything that is seen and encouraging and helping everyone with general ID-ing of things. Needless, to say this is what I do best so I hope the volunteers start getting into things a little more. I think it will take a bit of time, so in the meantime I am working hard to make sure I keep recording as much as possible. I even make a new database to try and organise things a bit more!
Andres takes us out on another night walk tonight which is a little quiet until we find a couple of really cool little treefrogs with a beautiful lime-green colour and distinctive red and white stripes running down the sides of their bodies from the nose to tail. Andres is really excited about them as he has never seen them before. Regrettably, they turn out to be juvenile Scarlet-webbed Treefrogs which we see a little later on during our walk. Ah well, they are still beautiful little creatures.
DAY 91
10th March 2010
It's time to lead my first survey this morning. It's an incidentals walk, which basically means going out and finding stuff. It's pretty productive too. First of all we flush a Great Tinamou, a kind of turkey or partridge type bird which you often hear but rarely see. Then we are alerted to a beautiful Coral Snake, all bright red, yellow and jet black banding. It's very venomous, but as all the volunteers now know after my snake presentation, it is really docile and there are very few bites recorded each year. This is also due to its small mouth and short fangs, which makes it very difficult for it to bite you. On the downside, the venom is so strong that it has a 50% mortality rate even with treatment. Needless, to say, we don't touch it and just watch it half hiding under a fallen palm frond. Other delights of the walk are some decent views of small skulking forest birds plus another snake, the large but non-poisonous Salmon-bellied Racer. The volunteers seem to enjoy themselves and I have a good time – even if we do get caught in a bit of rain and we don't see any monkeys for some reason, which I virtually guaranteed at the start of the walk.
In the afternoon, I get to lead a beach clean, which is a little harder to be enthusiastic about. We have a lot of volunteers plus my long-time compatriot, Andrew, so we get a lot done and even get to see some Spider Monkeys giving us a bit of attitude from the trees at the beach edge, which is pretty amusing actually and also cool to see them pelting through the trees using all four elongated limbs plus their amazing tails. It really is an amazing sight to see them 'brachiating' (to use a fancy word).
I'm finding myself a little tired at the moment after all my soft living in Nicaragua. I'll adjust but being a 'staff' member is a little more difficult than I thought!
DAY 92
11th March 2010
I hate to write about this sort of thing but I kind of need to vent a little frustration as well. It has become apparent that some of the volunteers have a pretty negative attitude about this project. One of them is even leaving early – in a few days in fact. It's only a few people, but you know that bad feelings kind of come to the fore and infect everybody else – I think most of the staff are feeling it a little. I am baffled and frustrated that people can feel this way after only two weeks. There are problems here, yes, but nothing that can't be overcome with a positive attitude, and the surveys are all fun and the environment is fantastic. They all had plenty of information about what we were going to do and yet some of them seem like they'd rather not be here. I miss everyone from last phase a great deal at the moment. On the plus side, I very much like our new staff members, especially Andes with whom I am becoming fast friends and several of the volunteers are really great, which helps keep me upbeat.
The fact that it has begun to rain constantly doesn't help moods very much either. We still head out to try and do things as best we can. I put up some Jag-cams with some of the more positive volunteers and we get to see some monkeys. Fairly successful. The in the afternoon we go exploring the forest to the north of mile 15, which I don't get to do very often. It's still raining but we manage to see monkeys, another Great Tinamou this time out in the open on the path ahead of us and a couple of small forest turtles (one species of which I have never seen before – the White-lipped Mud-turtle). On returning back ti base it turns out that Andres' incidentals walk has turned up a fantastic sighting at the estuary of 4 Black Skimmers, large rare tern-like birds which should only be seen on the Pacific Coast according to all our books.
The rain eases up enough for Andres to take myself and an eager bunch of volunteers on another nightwalk. The conditions are obviously very favourable for amphibians as we are inundated with frogs of all shapes and sizes plus a couple of Eyelash Vipers and a really young parrotsnake. Its the best walk so far.
DAY 93
12th March 2010
I take a group out in the rain today to look for stuff. Really, I just want to see the skimmers who of course are not there. I'm thinking my walk may a bit of a wash-out except that the birds come up trumps in the form of stunning views of a quartet of Keel-billed Toucans and a pair of Trogons sat just above the trail.
We have a science meeting in the afternoon in which Krystle and Fernando give a cool presentation about the Iberian Lynx, the world's most endangered feline and native to Spain, which is of course why Fernando was involved because he himself is Spanish (did I mention this?)
Tonight is the inaugural night of the turtle walks. It involves walking up and down a set 3 mile stretch of beach looking for turtles that have come ashore to nest. The CCC (Caribbean Conservation Corporation) are overseeing us and have sent two representatives to lead the patrols, Arturo and Ernesto. We will then count the eggs laid, triangulate the nest location and take biometric data, as well as tagging the turtles if they have not already been tagged previously. It's a long night but should be a unique and rewarding experience, especially if you find a Leatherback, I would imagine. I can't wait for my first live turtle!!!!
DAY 94
13th March 2010
My first day, well morning actually, as duty staff, which means I have to oversee the camp duty volunteers for the day. It's weird being on the other side of my least favourite day. I try and help out as much as possible as I remember how much I hated it. A lot of people are sleeping in today after getting in at 3-4am from their turtle walk. Apparently, both groups got to 'work a turtle' as it is known and one of them even saw a Loggerhead turtle, which is the first recorded here in the last five years that GVI has been doing this. Apparently, Ernesto has never seen one in all his 6 years of working with turtles and was grinning from ear to ear.
The skimmers are back and Tucker and I head down to the estuary to see them and are also treated to the sight of a large croc up on the beach. The skimmers are impressive creatures – their oversized and misshapen beaks really are quite unique. The fly about and do a bit of 'skimming' before landing on the beach for a while and let me take some photos of them.
In the afternoon, I have a walk up into the forest to check the current jag-cams. I have to say I'm not sure how this is going to pan out as people are tired from last night and there are some long faces, but the weather has cleared up and the volunteers I'm with end up thouroughly enjoying themselves. It does become more of an incidentals walk though with Spider Monkeys almost falling out of the trees everywhere, the endangered Great Currassow (a boldly coloured turkey-like bird) makes an appearance on the trail ahead of us, there's some cool Eyelash Vipers and the Leafcutter Ants are out again after the heavy rains. Everyone seems to be happy and having fun and it really raises my spirits. Oh yeah, the cameras I put up the other day weren't working so I brought them back.
DAY 95
14th March 2010
I have my first night walk scheduled today and also pretty much the day off. Perhaps slightly foolishly I decide to get up early with Andrew and go walking in the jungle. One of the privileges of now being a staff member is that I can take people out into the jungle on a casual basis. It's a good walk and we see some jungle birds (including 3 new species), although nothing to excite the non-birder, plus some trogons, monkeys and lizards. I am hoping to get some sleep in the afternoon to prepare myself for my nightshift, but things keep cropping up and I don't get around to it until about 5:00 when I manage about an hour and a half. It's not really enough and despite quaffing a couple of cups of coffee I'm still feeling a little drowsy as we prepare to leave at around 9:00.
I'm with Ernesto and Ben and Shelbi are the volunteers. Ernesto only speaks Spanish but fortunately both Ben and Shelbi also speak it very well. This bodes well as although I can nearly keep up with the conversation it does mean that there are no communication issues. We wait on the beach to let our eyes adjust as we are not allowed to use lights as they may scare the turtles. We have red-light filters on our torches for reading tape measures and notebooks and suchlike. Despite it being quite a starry night there is no moon and the beach is black as pitch. Looking north you can just about make out the glow of Tortuguero and to the south the village of Parismina. We set off and Ernesto sets quite a brisk pace, which despite hardly being able to see my own feet I am forced to match. We are walking the tide line which means there is not too much debris underfoot and you pretty much just have to throw yourself into it gradually you start picking the odd log or stick out in front. The first hour or so is pretty intense. We are walking some 4 miles along before stopping to turn around. Any turtles we encounter we will attempt to 'work' depending on the stage of nesting they are at. We are all excited and concentrating hard – teams on the previous two night have both seen Green and Leatherback (the holy grail of turtles). There are a few tracks which Ernesto must have the eyes of an owl to actually see, leading up from the surf, but they are half-moons. This is when the turtle emerges and begins moving up the beach but changes it's mind and returns to the sea without nesting. There are a lot of theories about why they do this, but the main one seems to be that they can sense the temperature of the sand which influences the sexual development of their eggs, and so is quite important when picking a spot. I can barely see these tracks when I'm standing over them!
Eventually we find our first turtle. It's a Green and it has made it all the way up the beach and half-buried itself under the border vegetation. I can barely see it. Ernesto checks it out and thinks that it hasn't started laying its eggs yet. This is the perfect time to find it and we take a break and wait for it to start digging the egg chamber. Ernesto makes regular checks as we wait and all of a sudden he comes running back to grab the tagging equipment. The turtle has changed its mind and is making it's way back to the sea. It's already made it halfway down the beach and is moving at a speed that is completely unexpected. Luckily this is not Ernesto's first rodeo and he leaps around the turtle popping ID tags on the flippers whilst I hurriedly scribble the data into our notebook and Ben helps to measure it's carapce length. It's quite a big animal and the shell is much higher and rounded than I would have expected. It's my first live turtle and it's over pretty quickly leaving me wanting more.
The night goes a little more slowly after that. Midnight comes and goes and we are all feeling pretty 'zoned out'. My eyes are getting very heavy and despite stopping a few times for breaks we are all noticeably quiet and subdued. At our rest stop after we have turned around to make our way back to base, we are preparing to start up again when Ernesto points out something. The rest of strain to see it and we move over towards the surf towards it. Sure enough Ernesto's owl-eyes have picked out the giant form of a Leatherback, unfortunately disappearing into the surf. Again it's simply too quick, almost a tease. There is no time to appreciate the moment. Ernesto thinks that this turtle has already made several attempts to come ashore as we have passed several Leatherback half-moons, so we wait for about 15 minutes before continuing in case it decides to head downshore and come out ahead of us. Regrettably, it doesn't. We continue onwards and actually meet up with the other team who have seen nothing. Neither do we see anything on our way back to base. I guess I'll have more chances to see them but I don't think I'll have had the full turtle walk experience until I get to 'work a turtle'.
DAY 96
15th March 2010
It's a rest day today and virtually everyone has gone to Tortuguero. Nice and quiet. I'm reading Frankenstein and getting a few things done on the computer. It'll be an early night tonight.
The day's highlight is possibly the arrival of a group of 4 Collared Aracari, a type of small toucan in a fruiting tree, directly opposite the porch of the staff building. They are eating the fruits and pose beautifully for some photos.
DAY 97
16th March 2010
Nice long early walk to check the turtle nests this morning. All the way up to mile 13.5 and back.
Today's mileage: 8 miles.
Last night was very eventful with many sightings of turtles both green and leatherback. Andrew who is leaving today for his placement down in the wilds of the Osa Peninsula was out again and managed to see both turtles, which was great for him. They also came across a freshly killed Green turtle that was probably killed no more a couple of hours beforehand if that! No sign of the Jaguar though! Fernando apparently wanted to climb a tree and stake it out! Can't say I blame him.
We lose another volunteer today, again dissatisfied with how things are progressing. I think he got send some wrong information or something, but he was never that interested in getting involved in the surveys anyway. He was a nice guy and had a wealth of good practical knowledge of plumbing and DIY, which would have been extremely useful, but if he didn't want to be here, what can you do?
I try and rest up as much as possible this afternoon as I am out tonight doing the longer of the two turtle patrols. It's pretty much impossible to get any sleep in the heat however and I end up lying in my bed with rivulets of sweat pouring off me! Still, I'm up and optimistic about tonight and ready to leave at 8:00. It's a dark night again tonight and this time we are led by Tim, a soft-spoken Brit from Oxford. The CCC rota themselves around every three days or so. It's a long, hard walk in the dark up to mile 13. Torturous, in fact. A fact further compounded by the fact that we do not see a single turtle. Nor do we see one on the way back. There has been some activity as evidenced by fresh tracks that we come across, but we missed them. But that's nature for you – the turtles aren't here for our viewing pleasure, they are here to carry out an archaic ritual that has been happening for millions of years. If the conditions aren't right they aren't going to do it. But knowing this doesn't make the walk any easier and by 2:30am when we return, we are all about ready to drop except Tim who remains pretty with it the whole night. I guess they must get used to it.
Total Mileage for today: 17 miles
DAY 98
17th March 2010
Very tired this morning. I try and sleep in, but the noise of the day and the oppressive heat make it pretty much impossible. For reasons I can't discuss, new staff members Krystle and Fernando making the decision to leave tomorrow. I'm not going into details, but I'm disappointed on a personal level because I liked them and also on a practical level because it means that the rest of us will have to do more duties to make up for their loss. I'm already bone-tired from my normal assigned surveys let alone if I have to do more. I'm going to say no more, but I'm not very happy with how this situation is panning out. To unwind I take a chair and go out and sit in the field behind the staff quarters and watch the birds going about their daily business. Interestingly, a large black bird called the Giant Cowbird is attempting to parastise the nests of the Montezuma Oropendola, presumably like the cuckoo in the UK, by laying its eggs in the other bird's nest. The Montys are very much aware of it though, and chase it away at every opportunity. Doesn't seem like a very successful strategy to me?
I have another night walk tonight so I need sleep, but again the heat is pretty hard to bear. This time I luckily have the slightly shorter walk of mile 18 to mile 15.5. It's a beautiful starry night and there are some very large shooting stars around. The silhouette of the treeline against the night sky as we walk is extremely atmospheric. We are in luck tonight as well. We haven't walked more than a mile before we come across a fresh track and a Green Turtle hauling it's way up the bank. We retreat back a few metres to give it some space and eagerly await developments. Tim makes regular checks on it's progress and sure enough it digs itself an egg chamber and makes ready to lay. Shelbi, a nice young girl from Wyoming, is the first of us to be assigned 'egg counter'. This means she has to lay behind the turtle with a hand just underneath where the eggs will drop and count them using a 'maria' clicker-counter. Whilst she is doing this, the rest of us triangulate the nest so that we can locate it again if needs be, and also to mark where it is for our nest check patrols. The turtle proceeds to lay 133 eggs, much to Shelbi's delight. It then covers the nest whilst we take measurements and tag it's flippers (Tim does this!). Once the eggs have been laid we are able to use our torches to see a bit more clearly (with red light filters of course). It's an odd sensation watching the turtle kicking sand backwards over the nest. It actually looks more like an animatronic rather than a real animal! Eventually, it deems that it has done a suitable job and turns to make its way back down the beach at a surprising speed and we watch, satisfied, as it disappears into the surf. That was the good bit of doing the turtle walks. We are soon back into the torturous slog through the sand in the dark and I'm pretty bushed to be honest.
Things pick up when we are returning from our furthest point of the walk at mile 15.5 and we come across the fresh track of a nesting Leatherback. This is it! Finally, I'll get to see a live Leatherback properly. It has already nearly finished digging it's nest chamber and Elliot, a new intern from the UK, gets to count the eggs this time (51 I think in total). The Leatherback is a much different looking creature than the Green. You can see more of the flippers and tail protruding out from under the shell, which itself looks more part of the animal as it is under the skin rather than a traditional external shell of the Green. This makes it seem more of a real animal as you can see the muscles rippling under the skin as the flippers scoop the sand back over it's nest. It's got a different technique to the Green, forming a 'scoop' with it's back flippers rather than just flailing backwards. It's not that big for a Leatherback, measuring at just over 1m 35cm. The Green was just over a metre so not too much difference. But the Leatherback has huge front flippers, which it now starts to employ to fling sand back over the top of the nest, they pack a punch as well if you happen to be in the way for whatever reason. We don't have any problems with this one either and collect all the relevant data and again we feel satisifed with our work. The good thing about 'working' a turtle, as its known, is that is does take some time, roughly an hour apiece this time. Unfortunately, that's our lot and the rest of the night is a long, slow slog until 04:00am. We are all falling asleep as we walk. This is very hard, but I guess the turtles aren't here to make things easy for us!
Mileage today: 5 miles
Total Mileage for this week: 22 miles (3 days)
DAY 99
18th March 2010
Today is thankfully pretty much a rest day for me – and I need it. I spend most of today in a bit of a daze.
The coolest thing to happen is that before the night walks head out, there is a bustle of excitement from the porch of the staff quarters. An unusual visitor has flown in out of the darkness and collided with Sarah's head before landing on the porch and looking a little dazed. It's a White-throated Crake – one of the 30 study species for the Canal Bird surveys. Like all crakes they are hugely secretive and surprisingly small, spending most of their time in dense reed beds, where their presence is mostly announced by their harsh rattle of a call. It's the first time anyone on the GVI project has actually seen one in the flesh (feather?). It's a curious looking fellow with over large feet for walking on floating vegetation and a nice rufous and white colour scheme with a bizarrely patterned 'zebra' belly. It has a slightly surprised expression and sits in our torch light whilst some of us manage to snap some pictures before it gets itself together and scuttles of the porch through a gap in the rail. Amazing!
DAY 100
19th March 2010
My 100th day with GVI Costa Rica is a rather uneventful one. I'm still tired but I manage to get out on an Incidentals walk with some volunteers. I'm a little apprehensive at the moment as some of them are still looking miserable at every opportunity but thankfully they tend to cheer up as we get out into the forest. Its really hot so we don't go too far – down to the estuary and back. The Boa Constrictor that made it's home along this trail for most of March has returned much to our delight.
DAY 101
20th March 2010
It's my first bird survey of the phase today – and I'm leading it. This means as well as having to brief everyone beforehand, I also have to steer the canoe! Fun, fun, fun! It's always good to be up and on the river again at the crack of dawn. We are treated to the sight of the rare Sunbittern on the way, giving it's mournful call from a log in the middle of the river, and also excitingly, an otter (a Neotropical River Otter to be precise). Its rolling about and having a scratch on a fallen log that descends into the river. Like most otter sightings though, it doesn't stick around for too long unfortunately. After that start the survey was never going to live up to that and it doesn't. In fact, we really don't see a great deal at all. Plus, it gets really hot really quickly. It is fun though and despite a few minor steering mishaps, I manage to get us all through it.
I also get an Incidentals walk in the forest in the afternoon. There are plenty of Spider Monkeys about and they entertain us with some big leaps and amusing antics. We also see a couple of nice Eyelash Vipers and a larger snake that slithers away too quickly for an identification. A pleasant afternoon in all.
Returning to base we find that Stephan, our newly appointing Country Co-ordinator has arrived and already been ambushed by one of the disgruntled new volunteers. More of them are also presenting their concerns and issues and we have a big meeting in the kitchen to try and discuss and/or resolve them. I don't think it goes hugely well. It seems to me that a lot of them are simply stuck in the negative spiral that they have created and nothing is going to mollify them. The main concerns seem to be lack of easy access to Tortuguero and lack of community work. It seems to me that whilst they have some legitimate arguments they are letting relatively minor things overshadow the fact that they are all out here to do conservation work and already they have been able to do things that very few people would ever get to do. It annoys and baffles me to be honest. It is long weekend tomorrow and the volunteers are all heading off to go Rafting, so hopefully that will take their minds off things and give us some space too.
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