We finally arrived in Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula last Tuesday, wet and tired after a long day of travel in public buses and rainstorms. They fed us right away on rice and beans, and we tried our best to stay awake for their presentation on this recently created turtle sanctuary, wildlife refuge, and public access beach called Camaronal.
Four types of turtles visit this three kilometer stretch to lay their eggs, and without protection they don’t stand a chance. Animals will dig up nests for food, and so will humans — each egg sells for about two dollars, and a single nest often contains more than a hundred. We slept well that first night, despite the thin mattresses and teetering wooden bunks in our open-air dorm.
We woke up sweating in the morning heat, and, after a breakfast of rice and beans, began our daily work: building a new beach access trail, digging up unhatched eggs in the nursery, excavating drainage ditches behind the kitchen, and picking up the trash that washes up on the shore. We spend only two or three hours on these projects each day because the heat becomes suffocating around noon. After lunching on rice and beans we find ways to occupy ourselves, reading, writing, trying to sleep. But the oppressiveness of the heat makes even thinking difficult, and we pass many hours lost in inactivity and sporadic conversation. The ocean water is almost too warm to be refreshing, and its waves too violent for swimming. The beach is most beautiful just before sunset, when the sea breezes cool our overheated bodies and the sky fills with color. Playa Camaronal faces south, towards the equator– just ten degrees away, it feels like we can almost see it. The sun sets behind a jungle-covered hill to our right, and never touches the water.
Our real work begins after a dinner of rice and beans supplemented with canned tuna, when the turtles climb out of the dark sea to lay their eggs and leave wide tracks behind them in the sand. Night patrols last from six pm to six am in three hour shifts. At these times the porch of our main building has the subdued and nocturnal feeling of an isolated military post: people scattered across picnic tables in near darkness, sipping coffee or playing cards while others doze in hammocks. Our voices are low murmers compared the the constant crashing of the surf behind us. As our designated shift approaches we gather, groggily waiting for the group before us to return with our equipment: a backpack containing clipboards, measuring tape, plastic bags and gloves. Finally we walk the short trail to the beach — in moonlight, if there is any; with dim red-covered flashlights if not.
The beach at night doesn’t lend itself to easy description. The waves roll and crash, invisible except for their glowing white foam, and as they recede the wet sand reflects the moon and starlight. The walking is monotonous and the breeze constant, warm or cold depending on the time of night. Washed up trees, polished driftwood skeletons, rise up eerily against the horizon. Something, still, is lost in these details — the mystery and expansiveness of the ocean at night, the incredible reality of searching for turtles on a wild Costa Rican beach.
-Peter
