Turtles and Tarantulas

After one year of attempting Spanish at university as I nervously walk towards the small coastal village of Ostional, in Costa Rica, I desperately try to put together a sentence in my head, but only one word comes to my mind. “Hola.”
“Hables engles?” (Do you speak English) someone asks my inquisitive host family, “No” they reply. I feel my heart plummet inside me; please tell me they are joking.

This is the start of my two weeks of volunteer work with sea turtles on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, living, breathing and speaking Spanish whilst witnessing one of the most incredible journeys in the animal kingdom.

Each year tens of thousands of sea turtles continue to make their way back to Ostional Beach, the same site where the turtles hatched prior to starting their journey into the ocean several decades before. 1 in 1000 hatchlings will make it back to the beach to nest as adults, however without the volunteer and conservation work done around the world today only 1 in 10,000 would return.

As I walk along the sandy streets of Ostional, giant iguanas scutter across my path on their way up the towering coconut palms lining the beach. The bougainvilleas follow the twisted trails passing the simple but sturdy beach huts. Two young boys stop me in the street, take me by the hand and lead me towards their soccer game on the side of the road. The three of us kick back and forth the deflated, tattered ball communicating only through laughter and squeals.

Each night, volunteers patrol the beaches walking an average of fifteen kilometres, in search of nesting turtles. My countless steps into black nothingness are comforted by the sounds of breaking waves and what seems like the worlds biggest starry sky shining down onto the black sand. Whilst each foot print I leave behind is lit up by bioluminescent plankton, glowing in the sand like tiny diamonds.

For every meal I sit out on the back porch of my Costarican home with the free roaming chickens, turkeys and pigs, eating the repetitive but delicious meal of rice and beans for breakfast lunch and dinner. Early one morning, I hear one of my chicken friends suffering what sounds like a painful death, later that day it’s freshly cooked chicken for lunch.

Late one night I lie in bed in the sweltering heat, a tarantula the size of my hand peers down at me from his home on the wall directly above my head, even still, Ostional feels like a second home, it is like nowhere else in the world. A place where all that matters is family, tortugas (turtles), fresh water, a roof over your head, and rice and beans in your belly. A place where every afternoon you have the time to watch the sunset. To me this is paradise.