Since the moment Matt had arrived the plan was to go to the beach to spend a few days chilling out, forgetting about research, snow, and cancelled flights. San Juan del Sur is about 100km south west of Masaya, located on the Pacific coast and is a gringo surfer hideout, with a gorgeous bay... It is stunning! (even if slightly overun with surf shops and Spanish schools for long-haired Americans). Interesting events during the stay: waking up at 4am thinking our hotel room was being broken into, instead to find a disoriented bat who had wiggled its way in through the window!
On our second night: heading out to turtle watch! We tagged along on a tour visiting el Refugio de Vida Silvestre La Flor, which is about 20km south of San Juan right on the Costa Rican border. This is one of the main places where endangered olive ridley and leatherback turtles come to lay their eggs - between July and January every year flotillas of hundreds of thousands arrive here! We weren't disappointed....we saw 5 olive ridleys digging holes to deposit their 120 eggs each, then carefully burying and compacting the sand before heading back off to the sea.... The best bit however was finding baby turtles on the sand making their first dangerous journey to the ocean.
Did you know?
Olive ridleys return to the exact beach where they were born to lay their eggs.
The live up to 80-100 years!
Out of every 1000 eggs laid, only one turtle makes it to full maturity, due to the gazillion predators (crabs, birds and egg poachers).
Around 15 soldiers guard this reserve at night, to deter the egg poachers. It was a little eerie when our guide kept flashing his torch into the forest bordering the beach. He was checking for poachers and apparently there had been some at one of the turtle holes we were watching just a few minutes before we had arrived... A little bit spooky in the dark!
It was an absolutely incredible evening made even more magical by the clearest night sky we had ever seen! It proved difficult for anyone to make out the constellations due to all of the other stars in the sky around them. All in all an unforgettable night.
PS - the beach was brilliant! Check out Matt about to get destroyed by enormous waves!
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