Volunteer conservation project

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We spent our first week volunteering at a conservation project for endangered sea turtles on the beautiful Matapalo Beach. It was situated in the heart of the traditional communities of the Tico people with only one small shop and certainly no tourists for miles.

With very basic accomodation, no hot water, a diet of rice and beans and bans on alcohol we all knew straight off it was going to be a long week. We had arrived under the pretence that we may not even see a single turtle or egg, but in actual fact everyone in our group got to see what they came to see and probably much more. Our week consisted of nightly three hour patrols of the 6km beach, watching over the hatchery (where the eggs were kept), making nests for the eggs and beach cleaning.

On one of our nightly patrols both of us came across a huge Olive Ridley turtle giving birth and our training came into practice as we collected the eggs and placed them safely in the protected area of the hatchery. Two mornings later another nest of eggs had hatched and the group was awoken at 6am to help release the tiny 75 turtles into the ocean.

I had my doubts through out the week about some the day to day running of the program as there didnt seem to be an expert of any sorts to advise the volunteers. However, with the new group of friends we had formed and the experiences we shared that week it was truely a memorable one.

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