La Tortuga Feliz, Part I: Or, How I Walked a Marathon to Protect Sea Turtles

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How'd you like to spend a week on a secluded island, laying in a hammock, eating authentic Costa Rican fare all day long, listening to the Caribbean Sea and playing with sea turtles every afternoon? Not too shabby, you say? Volunteer at La Tortuga Feliz!

As I mentioned previously, the point of our trip to Costa Rica was to do some volunteer work before each of my sisters and I started our new lives at our individual colleges. La Tortuga Feliz (LTF) seemed like the best option for us because it gave us the opportunity to work with sea turtles for a week at a bare-bones cost. I can't believe how many projects out there had a price tag of $ 1500 or more for one week's worth of volunteering. In a country where most people can live comfortably for $ 600 a month (all amenities included), someone's getting a nice salary…

Instead, LTF was committed not only to protecting endangered sea turtles and their nests, but also to not over-charge the volunteers that spend their time at the project. Money is important to building infrastructure, providing education and so forth; but in some places - money can only go so far. Hard work is needed! And hard work we did indeed. Here is Part I of my account of the volunteer week.

Our week, which felt more like a mere few days, started when we landed on the project dock. Immediately, we unloaded our boat and were given a tour of the grounds. Mosquito-proofed cabins, a working outhouse with 2 showers and 2 toilets, drinkable water… quel luxury! We would be living quite the life in the jungle, especially compared to many other living conditions near and around us. But it definitely came at a price of working your butt off for the cause. We landed at LTF around 3 pm, and by 5 pm - after our safety and logistics training - I had already signed up to begin my first beach patrol at 8 pm.

Beach patrol? Let me explain: Most sea turtles are highly endangered animals. Unfortunately, aside from destruction of their habitats, a major reason of why sea turtles are close to being extinct is due to poaching. Poaching has been going on for hundreds of years, but technically it's illegal nowadays. I say technically because despite the fact that it's against the law, it's still incredibly prevalent. Turtle meat and turtle eggs are a delicacy and will pay the rent if you can sell them on the black market. It's an attractive (and lucrative) business for someone in need of money, into that scene or perhaps with a drug or alcohol problem. A single turtle egg can get you as much as 1 US dollar in the black-market, and a typical nest will yield around 80-90 eggs. Ninety US dollars will go a long way in Costa Rica, so despite the illegality of the practice, it still happens. It doesn't happen as much in the national parks like Tortuguero NP because the Coast Guard is there to patrol, but on small, isolated islands like ours…. it'll happen every single night.

Hence the need for LTF. At night, when the turtles come up to the beach to lay their eggs, we'd go on patrol. Every hour, on the hour from 8 pm - midnight, a small group of volunteers would depart from our camp to walk the 7 km beach with a local guide (paid by LTF, trained to protect the turtles, usually an ex-poacher). For four hours (or more!) you'd walk 10-14 kilometers on the beach, at night, next to the roaring Caribbean looking for nesting turtles. It was a workout! All night long, there'd be at least one patrol combing over the beach, looking for the turtles. Over the course of the week, I went on enough patrols to have walked more than a marathon. IN SAND!

It was tough. For half of my walks, the moon didn't rise until midnight. The first time I was out in the absolute darkness with my group, it was so bizarre! I tripped over every single piece of driftwood I came across, making me feel ever so graceful as the guide without shoes on sped along the sand. It wasn't for a while that my eyes became slightly adjusted to the lighting. Since we didn't use red light unless we were inspecting the area for a turtle or turtle tracks, it was definitely a situation you had to learn how to adapt to. Between walking and sweating like crazy and looking out for turtles and anything that might cause you to trip, the 4 hours of patrol went quickly.

But it was amazing - the stars would be out (unless it was pouring rain… which happened twice), lightening would be fluttering in the clouds, the waves would be crashing, you'd see the white light of a distant poacher, scan the darkness for what might be a turtle (the guides were experts at knowing what was a log and what was an animal… it all looked the same to me), the moon would start to rise over the sea, you'd see turtle tracks (which looked like a train ran from the sea to the brush), you'd see another group of LTF patrollers, you'd start to remember various landmarks along the walk there and back, the sweat would pour down your face at 3 am as you realized you had another hour of pumping through the sand. It was tough, but it was very worthwhile.

Unfortunately, I never got a nesting turtle. I saw another group's turtle that they located and I saw a LOT of baby hatchling. I also unfortunately saw a turtle being poached. And there was nothing we could do: The unspoken law of the beach was completely non-confrontational between the patrollers and the poachers. It felt like some sort of weird battle to find the turtles between the two groups - each walking the beach in search of the animals, for different reasons. But once someone got to a turtle, be it someone to protect or someone to kill, it was that person's turtle. It was amazing how that was respected by both parties.

You'd think people walking around with machetes, with the "evil" intent to kill a harmless turtle would have a great advantage of getting whatever they wanted… but it wasn't like that. I'm not even sure these people were evil, despite the fact that I was working to counter their efforts. It's just not that black and white. Poaching has been going on for a long time. It's bigger than just "poaching is illegal." It's a part of the culture. Not that that culture can't change, and maybe it is slowly. Not that what they do isn't wrong, at elate in our view. But for people that perhaps don't have a lot of options or are just that desperate, it's a means of survival, it's a means of staying afloat. What would you do to survive?


A large part of our time was spent in the hatchery with the turtle nests, and also lounging around playing cards. I'll write up a bit about that soon! Which means - pictures of baby sea turtles!! Enjoy the pictures of our island retreat, aka La Tortuga Feliz. Hasta luego!

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