To enhance Alex and Matt's trip to Costa Rica we decided it would be a good idea to do the turtle walk at night. This was posing to be a problem though, our only option for walking was to leave at midnight on Tuesday night. So when all was said and done we went Tuesday night. We arranged to have a taxi pick us up at 11:30 outside our place. We weren't sure if this guy would follow through, we were pretty sure he was a drug dealer of some sort. This only started our journey.
That night after resting and dressing in black we waited outside. I started to get nervous seeing as how if this guy didn't arrive at 11:30 we would for sure not make it to the place on time. We were supposed to arrive at 11:50. I suggested that we start walking into town seeing as how if he was coming we would run into him and if he wasn't coming we had the off chance of maybe catching another taxi. We started walking in our all black attire towards one of the main roads and down, and by "one of the main roads," I mean the only main road.
We see the car approaching us, Matt and I both go ok good here he is. Alex proceeds with "oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it's going to hit us, it's going to hit us." This is done in a high pitch squealing voice as she is jumping up and down behind Matt. This action was of course a huge sense of laughter for the rest of the trip. We could not stop making fun of her for this.
We arrived at the entrance of Puerto Vargas by the grace of God. Our taxi driver/drug seller drove all of over the road, which ever lane he decided fit best. He was all over the place. Alex of course could not stop panicking.
The turtle walk started and it was beautiful weather. We had an amazing lightening show for the majority of the four hours. We did a lot of walking and I honestly couldn't stop laughing the entire time. Matt was just looking around and came close to falling the first time he saw lightening. I was sure himself and Alex were going to kill me for allowing this trip to happen. In the end there was success and we saw one leatherback turtle. She was a bit on the younger side and quite faster than the others I had previously seen. She was booking it back into the ocean. They were able to touch and feel and see how large she was. I think that in itself made the four hour journey worthwhile.
We also learned that the hard back of the leatherback is just skin and not a shell which we had previously thought.
All in all a great time, until....... 4:30 arrived and our taxi driver did not show.
Maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was sleep we aren't sure... all we know is that come six o'clock in the morning we were still at Puerto Vargas awaiting the public bus to take us back to Cahuita. We waited since otherwise we would be walking another two hours back to Cahuita and non of us had the strength in us.
When we got back to Cahuita, this was the first time there was a sense of tension around. Everyone was exhausted and in desperate need of sleep.
Sleep was hard for me, seeing as how my bedroom is a heatwave/sauna. I did manage to literally sweat my way through a few hours of sleep.
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