Where to start is difficult as the last 24 hours i have gone through a whirl wind of thoughts and emotions expecting the unexpected or not really thinking about the unexpected? If that makes any sense.
I discovered a tired Katie is not someone you want to mess with or try and ask for more money off. As expected a tour company tried to get me to pay more money for something i clarified on 3 seperate occasions with 3 seperate people of the same company. Just one of the joys of travellig solo!
I arrived in Parismina just before lunch and was welcomed by my local guide Miller, a 12 year old boy, very polite well mannered and spoke slow spanish for me which was lovely! He took me to my host family and a tour around the small town which i still mamanged to get lost once let loose by myself!
My host family is a single mum with a 6 year old boy and unfortunately another older son that has gone off never to return so people seem to think. The poor lady has just had surgery and well needs the money i can provide by boarding with her for the week.
The word basic springs to mind. The house i live in doesn't have walls that reach the roof and hardboard walls with the framing still visible. I have a giant cockroach and its babies living in my room and i have many views of the ground outside through the holes in the floor of my bedroom. I have eaten a few ants, i am sure they wont kill me as i dine at a table decorated with ants. However, my host mum has been feeeding me very well. One week out of my life was certainly not going to do me any harm as they live everyday of their life like this, it was a wonderful experience and a great way to see a place from a different perspective.
The first meal was a lovely juicey peice of meat and all i could do was stare at it (as i later found out that the organisation forgot to tell my mum i was a vegetarian). I had a moment of thought 'maybe i should just try and eat it' but that quickly faded as there would be no going back. I politey explained that i was vegetarian and that i dont eat any food that is cooked with meat. She was fine with it and i had fruit and vegetables with rice and beans, eggs etc.. for most meals and it was all great. I am sure i have put on weight. Then for something different i had a vegetable soup that was flavoured with a lovely chunk of meat. She just gave me the vegetables out of the soup only and while that made perfect sense to her i didnt know what to do. So each bite i washed down with the extremely sweet cordial she gave me (which in this case I welcomed). The next meal i thought i would have to eat it again as i often had the same food for lunch and dinner but luckily for me that was not the case. So only 2 tricky meals in 21 is not so bad.
Parismina is a lovely small town with plenty of gossip but safe and welcoming in most instances.
They primary school children go to school for 3 hours 5 days each week only (one week they attend class in the morning and the following week in the afternoon) When they reach secondary school that is when they attend classes all day. So i had sdome time each day to play with my little brother which i think helped my spanish a little bit more.
The Giant Leatherbacks -
The most amazing of all sea creatures in my book. Once again where to start.
I work one 4 hour shift each night 8-12 or 12-4. During the day I have a shift guarding the hatchery or digging trenches around the nests to put netting around them as a way of monitoring how many tortugitas hatch from each nests etc.. Every Saturday afternoon the volunteers organise activities with the children so obviously that was right up my alley and i enjoyed making finger puppets and jewellery with the children as they dont have any craft time at school.
The work was slightly different to that in Ostional mainly because the leatherback are a protected species so we take the eggs and relocate them to the hatchery or a safer area to prevent poachers stealing them.
Watching a giant leatherback come out of the water on a clear night was something very special and something i could have watched over and over again. Despite how many turtles i saw in Ostional this was yet again a different experience. The size is the first thing to get over and the tracks and markings on the sand highlight just that. Once the turtle starts laying the eggs, i get down on the sand and start taking the eggs as the turtle lays them. I found it a little stressful because you dont want to leave one behind but but you are directly behind a very large creature and your arm and shoulder is right in the nest searching for the eggs! The leatherback is also the only species to lay 2 different size eggs. One fertile (nearly the size of a tennis ball) and the other (smaller than a ping pong ball). The small ones are important not to miss as they provide space around the eggs so that when the tortugitas are ready to hatch they have some area to move. The small eggs also contain an important liquid and provide space for oxygen, as the leatherback really compacts their nests patting down constantly while covering with sand.
Once we have the eggs in the nests we then search for a suitable place as the hatchery was full. Every now and then we stoppped and hid in the bushes to make sure we were not followed and that their were no poachers around before deciding on a place. Very quickly the guide digs at least a metre deep hole and wonce the eggs are in we obviously cover it up and move on as quickly as possible.
In total i saw 5 leatherbacks which was nearly one every night i worked except for the first night so i was a happy camper. It was an exhausting week as sleep was somewaht hard to come by in my house as I had a very social mum! Many visitors day and night but it was only 1 week.
