Travel Tips

We had gone to Nosara in hopes of seeing the olive ridley turtles. We planned to be there during the full moon and going to the Ostional Wildlife Refuge. We chose to go in September because it was our anniversary. That meant that we was going during the rainy season.
It was also a good month ttry your luck at catching an arribada, which means a large number of turtles arriving at one time to come ashore to lay their eggs.
We had a full moon, some turtles had been sighted, but first we had to get there.
The picture shows what the road looked like.

After a lot of slipping and sliding we finally made it to the beach.
It was dusk by the time we arrived. we looked out toward the water and we could see several turtles at the aters edge, coming ashore. Whoopy....we were in luck. I almost cried I was so happy to see this great feat of nature.

The turtles pulled themselves up the small incline of the beach. They were heavy with eggs and it was quite a labor to get to the top.
There were vulturs flying around everywhere trying to get at the turtle eggs.
The turtle nearest to us was about halfway up. Come on, come on, you can make it.

As soon as she got to the top, in the soft sand, she started patiently digging a hole with her flippers.
She dug as far as her flippers would reach flinging the black sand out behind her.

As soon as the flying sand had settled, soft eggs began to drop into the hole, plopping on top of each other until there were about a hundred.Within 20 minutes or so the digging and laying were done. The turtle began pushing the sand back in the hole to cover the eggs. She then pounded her body against the surface to pack it down to hide her buried treasure.

Within an hours time of emerging from the sea she was headed back to the water.
The eggs will hatch out in fifty days. Many of the hatchlings will never survive their trip to the sea. They will be picked off by vultures, crabs, or frigate birds. Survival rates are low, making the protection of eggs all that more important.