We have left the city of Heredia behind and traveled by bus to the city of Ostional. The journey took six days hours, and took some paths that seemed to be very far off the beaten track, but finally we arrived!!
The city of Ostional is a beach side town, very quaint, very hot but very beautiful, and most importantly has wifi!! The town is also overrun with iguanas, lizards and geckos! And despite the fact that this terrifies me, my mum will be glad to hear that I am going to try and get over my legitimate phobia of these man-eating harmless creatures!
The beach of Ostional is a prime location for critically endangered leatherbacks, and rare black and Olive Ridley sea turtles to lay there eggs!
After we arrived, we took a walk down the beach, where we were very lucky to see an Olive Ridley nesting. It is apparently rare to see them nest during daylight hours, but we were able to see the turtle make it’s way up the beach, dig it’s nest, lay it’s eggs and then make it’s way back to the ocean.
Those eggs will take approximately 30 days to hatch, but the survival rate for these baby turtles is less than 1 in 1000.
We are here in this adorable town with the lizards for two weeks! During this time we will take on beach patrols and shifts at the turtle hatchery! My host family again speaks zero English, but thanks to my brilliant roommate in Heredia, I am now picking more up!
Hopefully towards the end of our stay we will see the Olive Ridley arrabada. This is a mass nesting of turtles that occur only a few times a year! Over three days thousands of turtles take to the beach to nest! It sounds like an amazing sight, so hopefully we will be here for that!
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