Sea Turtles in Guanacaste, Costa Rica: Week 5

 ¡Hola tortuga aficionados! Week 5 was the final week of my sea turtle and tropical ecology exploration of Guanacaste, CR and while I am very much happy to return home, I will definitely miss the experiences and the people who I have had the pleasure of working with on this trip. The final week we said goodbye to our host families for the last time and spent the remainder of the trip at Santa Rosa National Park which is home to jaguars and sea turtles amongst lots of other species. The first full day there we got to walk around with professional biologists observing the behavior between sea turtles and jaguars who feed on them. We got to look at where they hide trail cams to record videos of this interaction as well as look at tracks of jaguars who have walked along the beaches. 

To get to these trail cams we had to ride in 4x4 off roading vehicles which was a really cool experience. If you get motion sickness easily, I would definitely recommend eating a light breakfast because after the drive, a few of us students definitely needed to stay still for a few minutes. 

To wrap up the program, we spent the final two days resting and having fun in a resort closer to the airport which was definitely well earned after all the work we all put into the class. We got to swim and there were hot springs which made relaxing an easy task before going our separate ways on the final day. I’m definitely sad to go but happy to be back home with my family and pup. My first stop was to grab an In n Out burger on the way home. As a californian, it seems only right :)