Turtles!

Hey everyone,

We come home this Saturday! It is so hard to believe that our eight month journey is finally coming to an end, but we are so excited to see everyone at home and to be back in Toronto.

We have spent the last two weeks volunteering for a project located on the Carribean coast of Costa Rica that saves endangered turtles. The project is located in the middle of nowhere, on a small island where less than thirty other locals live. We had to take a bus three hours out of San Jose (and had to stand the entire time) and then a 20 minute car ride, followed by another 20 minutes by boat just to get there!

The project consists of a few cabins with bunk beds, a kitchen and several outdoor communal areas. There is no electricity and no hot water. Everyone in the project works patrolling the beaches to search for turtle eggs so we can bring them to the "hatchery" (a safe area where they are protected from poachers until they hatch). Also, we guard the "hatchery" all day and night to make sure that poachers don't steal the eggs and to help the baby turtles to the ocean when they hatch. There is a big problem on the island because many locals, especaially those who don't even live on the island, steal the eggs to eat or sell. We actually had a few incidents with poachers while we were at the project, some even turning vilent!

We also help around the project to build, repair, cook and clean. It really is a little community. There are no motorized vehicles on the island, so we often had to carry things like huge bags of sand or rocks from one area of the island to another by hand, which was exhausting. One day several of us volunteers decided to walk to the nearest town for burgers and ice cream (we were desperate!). It took three hours to walk there in the blazing sun and three hours back in the pitch back... but totally worth it! And we actually had to cross the river by foot because the town is on the next island!

We were pretty much given rice and beans three times a day to eat, with some vegetable and perhaps a bit of meat every few days. And we only drank water. Because we were working so hard and the portions were small, we were really hungry all the time. Fortunatley, there was an "bar" on the island. It was just a woman´s house down the road, but she had transformed it into a bar for the volunteers from the project and the locals to hang out at. She had coke, beer, chips and snacks, which were heaven. We went there a lot to hang out with her four children, who were so cute and a lot of fun to play with.

When we weren't working we chatted with the other volunteers, who were mostly young travellers like ourselves, read in the hammocks or hung out on the beach. Rainy days were awful because there was nothing to do and EVERYTHING got absolutely soaked, but we were lucky to have mostly sunny days.

Probably the most amazing part was actually watching the turlte lay her eggs. These turltes are as big as us and they lay about a 100 eggs at a time. They actually kind of look like dinosaurs... Also, they dig these elaborate holes in which to hide the eggs and then cover it up carefully after. And you can really get close and watch the turtle lay the eggs. It was so amazing. We also made a lot of really good friends who we were sad to leave.

Now we are hanging out in San Jose for one day. Tomorrow we fly to Miami where we will spend the night in the airport and then fly to Toronto the next afternoon. We are looking forward to seeing you all when we get back.

love

Alice and Tova