Tales of a Traveling Maymar: Surf, Sun and Sea Turtles

Best weekend yet! Matt and I headed to San Juan del Sur- the tourist and surf hot spot of Nicaragua. San Juan is in the department of Rivas and is about 40 km from the Costa Rican border. We stayed at Casa Oro which is the most popular hostel in San Juan. I met lots of cool people from the UK, Australia and some Canadians too! Casa Oro offers a Sea Turtle expedition as well as surfing lessons so I took advantage of both of those this weekend.

Friday night was the Turtle expedition at La Flor Reserve. After a presentation on sea turtles, we took a shuttle to the beach where our guide showed us turtles nesting, broken eggs, and we even found a few babies that had been from the first eggs laid this season. The guide had to take all the babies back to the office as if they were left on the beach while the adults are nesting, they would have been crushed. I had to constantly look around me because there were just so many turtles it was easy to get in their way. This experience was definitely worth the $25. The sky was also perfectly clear and littered with stars. It was as if the sky was a black cloth and Neil Buchanan was having an Art Attack with some salt.

Fun Sea Turtle Facts:

La Flor is one of 7 nesting sites in the world for the Olive Ridley sea turtle
The Olive Ridley is the smallest of the sea turtles; the largest being the leatherback (about 5 of these come to La Flor per year)

Turtles go back to the beach they were born at to lay their own eggs
It takes the female 45-60 minutes to leave the water, dig a whole, lay her eggs, and return to the water
Females mate with many males and store their sperm to fertilize her eggs
Sea turtles have been around for 150 million years – since before the dinosaurs!
Per 1000 eggs laid, 1 sea turtle reaches adulthood (besides natural predators, egg poachers are the biggest threat)
All species of sea turtles are endangered
Sea Turtles reach adulthood at 15 years old and can live for 100 years
The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperature during incubation

On Saturday I spent a few hours working on my tan and swimming. The tan is coming along well and I'm quite the freckle face now. I even have freckles on my lips which I didn't even know was possible. In the afternoon I had a surfing lesson! I sucked. A lot. But not as much as I thought I was going to and I was able to stand up and everything. It was a lot of fun but my entire body is sore now. I plan on going to San Juan again in a month so go surfing again. After a relaxing day in the sun we joined in on the BBQ at the hostel and checked out some of the beach front bars.

After returning to Jinotepe this afternoon, David and I went to the Hipica in a nearby town. An Hipica is a town celebration that every Nicaraguan town has. It means horse parade, so people come from all over the country to parade their horse down the main street. Then everyone just parties. It was hilarious to watch.

Anddd.... tomorrow I start working in the hospital!! Eeeeee!

Olive Ridley on the beach

The best shot I was able to get. Special thanks to the guy that showed me how to use my camera on the fancy settings so that I could actually see the turtles in my photos!