Jasmin and Josh have become happy potters every time we go to Tamarindo. This is not to be confused with Harry Potter which I am reading to them while we swing in the hammocks. The pottery industry here stretches a little further back than the demand for tourist souvenirs. Somewhere around 500 A.D. the Chorotega Indians migrated from Mexico down to Costa Rica. The town of Guaitil has become infamous for its pottery production and is the home town of Arbin who runs a studio in Tamarindo. Arbin learnt how to make pottery from his mother, a skill which has been passed down through the generations. The traditional techniques have changed little.
The pottery lessons give us a great excuse to drive into Tamarindo every Wednesday and have breakfast at the Italian deli. While the kids are busy, Greg and I wander the tourist shops looking at all the things we don't need and can't carry. Costa Rica has an amazing array of really cool wooden bowls and boxes, which of course Greg drools over.
Playa Negra lost internet connection for several days when a couple of cunning thieves decided to steal the fibre optic cable running into the village. I struggled to understand the logistics and motivation for this but as I am merely a dumb blonde on an adventure. I have to accept that there are many things beyond my comprehension and no internet is no internet and it matters not what the reason is. The lack of contact with the outside world for almost a week meant that once we deposited our Happy Potters with Arbin we went in search of an internet cafe. To our dismay we were injected into a Spanish speaking world of PC computers. After my fifth "perdon, una problem" the lady working at the desk just hung out beside our station and babied us through retrieving emails. My poor Spanish and distant PC operating memories were frustrating to say the least. With nothing too vital sitting in the inbox we graciously gave in and exited the air-conditioned hell asap. I think Tamarindo is on its way to becoming a new Kuta Beach, Bali. The signs are all there, a developed surf community, plenty of tourists with coin and the promise of paved roads all the way from the airport. In Bali the invaders have Auzzie accents, here in Costa Rica they seem to be Americano.
Driving home from Tamarindo takes 30 or so minutes along the coast road. It's always a dusty wash board experience with the kids trying to count cows. Is that the opposite to counting sheep at night? Ahh the simple life, talking of which Playa Negra didn't get electricity until 1994. A few folk seemed to have a special nostalgia for the time before power. I simply see it as camping. I'm really glad we have electricity even if we have to replace a few bulbs.
The manager of Casa Fuego is a Texan named Jerrod and his wife Meghan. They are a wonderful, helpful couple and set us up with a farm visit with their local friends Yeti and Raffa. It was such a learning experience for the kids to see the self sufficiency of a typical Costa Ricans on their small holding. Josh is a chicken catcher from way back, as he gets bigger so does his prey.
I think the milking of the goat put the kids over the edge and my camera battery seemed to fail at the crucial moment. Still, the papaya eating rabbit put us all back on track. Inspired by the farm visit and chicken eggs, we booked to try and see turtles hatching at night. Marc is the local Negra Turtle hero. He has spent over a decade running a protection program for turtles in the area. These include, Green, Leatherback, Olive Ridley and the almost never seen a Hawksbill.
It all felt very clandestine as we made arrangements through Lola, a booking agent, to meet Marc at 7.30 in Cafe Playa Negra. At 7.29 a gray haired, haunted looking gentleman pulled up in a 4x4. Wearing a red bandana on his head, the adventure was starting to have a piracy feel to it. However, looking at his watch he urged us to quickly follow him as everything was dependent on the tides. We sped in convoy along the dirt tracks, splashing through the river ford crossing and taking a sharp turn towards the ocean. We abandoned our vehicles in a grassy field where we rendezvoused with his assistant. We ventured forth on foot clambering down a clay ravine with no moon we relied on a couple of flashlights. Once we were down on the sand, Marc began radio conversations with a couple of his scouts who were roaming the beaches looking for signs of turtles.
The biggest threat to the turtles are, of course, human beings. With a price tag of $2,000 for a nest of turtle eggs the temptation to poach the eggs is great. Apparently, with turtle eggs its all about he quality of the yolk to the white. Slowly Marc is hiring the poachers to work for him as scouts and re-educating local communities about the value of keeping the turtles from extinction. One of his main goals is to locate the adult females as they come ashore to nest, wait for her to lay the eggs and then relocate the nests to spots with high hatching success rates.
As we switched off the flashlights we were plunged into darkness until Marc switched on a red light which does not disturb the turtles. In reality all we had done so far was drive at night to the beach next door to us and brave the bugs for a nighttime beach walk. Yet it didn't feel like that, this was a grand adventure, the adrenaline was pumping and expectations were high. I think that perhaps the addition of radio communique always makes things seem way more official.
There was a "positive, repeat positive, nest hatching". We all scurried over as quickly as the soft wet sand of high tide would allow. In the crimson glow I managed to make out the tiny bodies of ten or so dead turtle hatchlings, high above the surf line. It was a sad sight, they had emerged in the full heat of the day and just fried in the hot sand. Marc quickly measured and weighed each one before starting to sift through the sand below. The mood completely changed when we sighted the first live hatchling flailing its tiny flippers to pop up through the dry sand. Pretty soon more followed and with the help of Marc we were soon weighing in the first ten live ones. I wanted to carry them down to the water but they need to struggle down the sand so they can imprint their birth place and set their bearings for eternity. It made me think about how many would actually make it back here. Marc's faithful assistant was now digging in the sand about an arms length and then scooping out all the unhatched eggs. There was a total of 104, 10 dead on the surface and 20 eggs which didn't develop because the fly larva deformed them. A few maggots were writhing around in the empty shells. I suppose just another one of natures parasitic arrangements. The odds for these turtles just to overcome getting through the hatching process and out to face the ocean seemed like insurmountable odds to me with man, flies, raccoons, birds and dogs all out to eat them. I followed one little guy down to the waters edge and watched him so small against the enormity of the ocean. Not for one second did he falter he just skooched onwards into the water and was gone. I say he, but Marco wanted all of them to be girls. With only 1 or 2% surviving to adulthood, he had hopeful visions of them returning as egg layers.
While he filled in the hole and left no sign of turtle activity Marc relayed a story he heard at a beach some 25 kms down the coast. An old man in his 70's spoke of how he had only seen turtles hatch twice in his life. If a turtle lives around 50 years I was starting to understand how important it was to try and help the turtles surmount the seemingly massive odds against them.
“Success is determined by those whom prove the impossible, possible.”
James W. Pence
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