12/11/2012 - Heroes in a Half Shell

They're the world's most fearsome fighting team (don't worry, this was allowed in the name of turtle salvation!)

San Juan del Sur

Cowabunga dudes!

Bumped into a couple on the ferry who were also headed to San Juan del Sur, and quickly came to the realisation that it was both quicker and cheaper to take a taxi together rather than mess about with public transport. Good thing as it turned out, as we still only arrived mid-afternoon, and immediately made a beeline for the more picturesque northern beaches.

When the evil shredder attacks...

These turtle boys don't cut him no slack!

This was our last bit of time on the Pacific coast, so we had to make the most of it – mother nature obliged by arranging a hatching of baby turtles on the next beach over, repatriated to the one we were on to hopefully give a better chance of survival. Despite giving them a helping hand to get them closer to the water, the survival chances for these cute baby Raphael’s (cool but crude), Michelangelo’s (party dude), Leonardo’s (leads) and Donatello’s (does machines) are very poor…

Decided against the surfing this time

If you've got decent
eyesight and a good
imagination you can
see the turtle eggs!

Another glorious sunset later, then we were carted to La Flor nature reserve through numerous flash floods to see hoards of Mama turtles come ashore and lay their eggs. A great experience – despite being restricted to views under red light, you got occasional flashes of the hoards of Olive Ridley turtles coming on to the beach that night (definitely in the thousands!). Heading back to the bus we had to take real care not to do a turtle trip – something one of the military supervisors didn’t manage too well!

Cute, but tired!

Head to the sea/light boys!

Spinning the sun

Key Learnings:

1. Taxi drivers across South America don’t seem to be at all bothered about hanging around to take you back to your original destination - even if they wait two hours it doesn't change the price!