Sea Turtles in Guanacaste, Costa Rica: Week 2

 ¡Hola tortuga aficionados! I’m back with week 2 updates. It has been raining most of the week which has actually been much needed. With all the metal roofs, it feels like the rain is amplified by hundreds. The sky is also so clear because there is no light pollution from nearby towns and cities. You can see stars and lightning without any thunder because it's still visible from so far away. 

This week the arribada happened and it was such an amazing experience to witness all the mother sea turtles crawl up onto the shore to lay their eggs. There must have been thousands. Sea turtles nest either individually, in a small group, or in a massive nesting event. The sea turtles that we’ve been watching, the Olive Ridleys nest as a massive group which this month was declared to be over 8,000 turtles on the first night. On Tuesday was our first day of night patrol and field data measuring live animals in the wild which was absolutely amazing and a great experience to have now under my belt. 

We went out to walk the beach for roughly 4 hours, either from 8pm to midnight or 2am to 6am. One of the many jobs I had was to count the eggs as the mother turtle was laying them, which was a bit harder than you might think because she can lay three at the same time. Tune in next time to read more about my adventures as a turtle midwife, haha. I’m just joking :) As a global seminar student in Costa Rica. 

Photo Credits to UCSD Students and Bioma Staff