I can’t believe I have been back for 4 days already. I had migraines, forced myself to go to school, and yesterday started making the 40-or-so shirts for the Squam Art Workshops Vendor Night where I have a table (only 3 weeks away!). But no excuse for stopping at week 1 in Costa Rica…and I have thoughts on school I want to write, so I better finish Costa Rica first.
So after I left my love at the airport, and wrote the first post on Costa Rica, I boarded a bus for Hojancha where I met the regional coordinator, who the next day got me off to Playa Camaronal (the middle of nowhere…but soon to the luxury vacation home of hundreds of foreigners). My first couple days in Camaronal were hard…only a couple people spoke rough English and I missed Ben. But I finally got out and learned more Spanish and learned how to communicate simply and had a lot of fun.
Hojancha: love those benches
My room for a week. I love little rooms under the eaves.
The Main Building - my room was upstairs
Rocks on the beach
There were hundreds more hermit crabs than humans on the beach...all sizes. The funniest moment of the week: I found a hermit crab that had made a bottle cap (the size of a cap on leave-in-conditioner) his home instead of a shell! I laughed so hard!
Toes
Camaronal: gorgeous isolated uninhabited beach...but not for long
Gecarcinus quadratus (Halloween Crab) - freaky little territorial crabs big and small...this one was not afraid of me at all and challenged my size with its purple choppers!
Dawn outside my window
CANE TOAD! I was so excited to see cane toads because I teach about during ecology (they are a terribly invasive species in Australia)
Turtle Eggs! I am moving a nest because at Camaronal poachers are the main problem. We move the nests to random locations to hide them.
A nest
Mama Turtle laying her eggs
Mama Turtle returning to the water
Domenica - one of the staff at the Wildlife Refuge
Jacklyne (the cook) took this one of me
Jacklyne with assorted beach items
Click on the picture...can you see that surfer way out there? Now you can see how big these waves were! And these were smaller than at the beginning of the week!
Sunset on my second to last night at the refuge
Crocodile tracks! Yikes!
wish i could have been there!
Great pics. Love the crazy colored crabs. They look spray painted!
Will the turtle beach still be a preserve or will that be lost to the developments as well???
The sunset pic is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! miss u….keep posting!
The turtle beach will still be preserved. It will stay as it is now…you can’t be on the beach between 6pm-6am without a guide. Domenica thinks the development will stop the poachers, but she worries all the lights will effect the turtles and throw them off.
Jess, the Costa Rica pictures look awesome and Stephen & I are thinking of going there in October. What are your recommendations about “must see” places and “must do” activities?