Baby turtles and sloth

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I am working 10 month a year on a cruise ship sailing around the world the other two month I am on vacation, usually exploring the world in a little more depth. While I usually visit the family in Germany for a few weeks, I also tend tp pick a random country every year to volunteer in.

This summer I spend a month in a small village on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. Matapalo is a small village in between Quepos and Dominical, right on the ocean. Here I stayed a local house with about 20 other volunteers. The accommodation was fairly simply, but cozy. We had small rooms to share, with outdoor showers and an outdoor kitchen, were local meals were prepared by the staff. The house was surrounded by coconuts and mango trees and once in a while a gang of capuchin monkeys came visit the property to cause some "trouble". Apart from the monkeys we also had regular visits from little lizards, frogs and two crocodiles were living in the back yard.

When working at the volunteer project, every night we went on a hike, mostly in the rain, to find turtles. The sea turtles would usually come out of the water to lay their eggs on the beach. At this time we would dig out the eggs and bring them to our hatchery, since the turtles have a bigger chance of survival when monitored than in the wild. The nests in the hatchery were monitored 24 hours and we took turns. I usually preferred the night shifts, because it meant I could lie under the stars. On a clear night we would be able to see the milky way and even catch some shooting stars.

Once the the little turtles started hatching und coming up we would collected them and brought them to the ocean to release them. Usually it was about 100 turtle babies per nest. This was an absolute highlight of my stay, watching hundreds of baby turtles waddling to the ocean is definitely one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced.

Other activities while on the project included sloth monitoring, beach cleaning.... I really enjoyed the sloth monitoring, even though sloth are very lazy and don't do much all day. I had the change to spot loads of sloth just hanging in the trees and even go to observe a few baby sloth as well.

I only spent a month on volunteering in Matapalo, but I had a great time learning about the animals, I met new people and made new friends and I got to learn about local life and for a short moment I felt that I was part of it.

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Comments

[Home and Away]

You have a good life balance...
thanks for sharing your experience monitoring sloths and rescuing baby turtles!

[Readingfcboi]

Capuchin Monkeys
Thanks for sharing your experience and for volunteering to monitor and rescuing wildlife. I imagine you visited Manuel Antonio National Park. I enjoyed my visit to Quepos and Costa Rica, as it is so enriched with wildlife :D

[Readingfcboi]

Capuchin Monkeys
Forgot to say those capuchin monkeys are so mischievous!!! I'd be trying to sunbath by the hotel pool and they would be running around me... just couldn't relax for one second lol

[D MJ Binkley]

Adorable
Nice blog.