While driving down the Pacific coast of Costa Rica from Jaco
down to Peninsula de Osa, I read that October is a prime time for seeing
turtles come to the beach and lay their eggs. Tired of driving and not sure
what to expect from Osa, we made a last minute decision to stop in Uvita and
check out the turtles. On the way to our hostel there were tons of roadside
stands selling ceviche. After our last experience of ceviche on Big Corn Island
being a cup of shrimp doused in a BBQ-like sauce, I was a little hesitant about
trying more. We decided to give it another shot and pulled over to discover a
delicious, Marlin filled limey, pico de gallo-style mixture. The guy selling
the ceviche gave us a couple of tips about finding turtles. As we cruised
around, we stopped at the entrance of the Bellena National Park where the
attendant gave us more turtle info. We thought we’d narrowed down the place and
time of where the turtles would be until we arrived at our hostel. The people
working at Hotel Tucan weren’t very sure about where and when we should go out
looking, so they put us in contact with someone from a turtle protection agency
that took people out on free turtle watching trips.
The plan was to meet someone from the agency at a
construction company called Ventana at 8:50pm. We were told that the trick to
seeing the turtles is catching high tide around midnight that bringing all the
turtles to shore. One of the girls working at the hostel gave us directions to
the meeting spot and we set out right after dinner. The first problem we
encountered was the passport checkpoint set up on the highway we were taking.
Usually it’s a quick process; you show your passport and move on. Because
neither of us had our passports to show, they had us pull to the side until the
chief could come over and tell us we needed our passports and send us on our
way. We had 5 minutes to get to the meeting spot and as we drove along, we
searched the signs for the word Ventana. We drove and drove and got to thinking
that maybe we had missed the store. Almost late for our meeting, we decided to
turn around and retrace our path. We searched again until we ended up back at
the checkpoint again! This time we were stopped by another cop and had to
attempt to explain the situation of the missing passports again. This time they
had us open the trunk so they could search the contents before sending us on
our way again. We asked the cops about the elusive Ventana and they assured us
it was in the direction that we headed before, just further down than we
thought it would be.
We were determined. We sped down the highway and 15km later
we found Ventana! With all the passport check, the potholes and the time spent
driving the same stretch of road 3 times over; we showed up pretty late and
didn’t find anyone waiting for us in the parking lot. There was one other car
and a security guard. After speaking with the security guard, he had us
convinced that the guide had left with the other turtle-watchers and if we
hurried we could catch up with the group. All we had to do was walk about a
kilometer down the highway, cross over the bridge and there would be a trail on
the left that we could take straight down to the ocean.
Once again determined, we set out down the highway, in the
pitch black, moonless night. Brett led the way with his wind up flashlight and
I followed behind. We were confident that if we walked fast enough then we
would catch them. We crossed the bridge and found a trail directly to the left.
The problem was that it was just one of the few paths off to the left. Being
the first that we came across, we decided to take it. It led us past the river,
over wet and muddy trails. Brett saw footprints in the mud and thought for sure
that they were the footprint of the other turtle hunters. Brett in his sandals
and me in the back searching the trees for leaf frogs, we wandered down the
trails towards the ocean with no sign of any other people anywhere.
Excited as we could hear the waves getting closer and
closer, 45 minutes later we finally made it to the ocean. I expected that even
if we took the wrong trail down to the ocean, that the others would be visible
once we were on the beach. This would make since if you were talking about a
sand beach, but about 50 meters to our right, the forest came down the beach
all the way to the water, making it impossible to cross past this point. We
knew that if the people had gone down any of the other trails, we weren’t going
to be running into them anytime that night. Our next realization was that Brett’s
wind up flashlight and my little LED flashlight were not putting out enough
light for us to see the rocks on the beach and definitely not any turtles. And
if there was a moon that night, it was completely covered by clouds.
We waited a minute, turned off our lights and tried to let
our eyes adjust to the dark, but still we could see nothing! We were both
toying with the idea of sitting around and waiting for the turtles to come right
up until the point when it started raining. I think it was clear to us that
this was not our night for turtles. If we’d had a guide there to ensure us that
the turtles would come and we just needed to wait it out, we would have. But
with just us, two crappy lights and rain, we decided to put on the rain jackets
and trek back as fast as we could. We made it quickly back down the trail, down
the highway and happily back into our dry car.
Even though the turtle luck wasn’t with us that night in
Costa Rica, we have not given up. We are in the prime season of turtle nesting
and I’m sure that we will find some in Panama! I think that after all the
trouble we went through to find them the first time, it will be even better
once we finally see them. Onto Panama… Wish us luck!
Sophia
