North of Puerto Limon - Costa Rica

OK so here is the low down on the turtle project, and an original excerpt from my life I will always look back on it as!

Thursday 19th, get up in the early morning and drink tea on lovely raised roof patio of the Hostel Pangea until I have made myself late. Go to room and manically throw all things back into back pack and sit, stamp and generally jump up and down on it until I managed to make it close. Run out the door and throw myself and back pack into a passing Taxi within 30 seconds, much to the amusement of the security guard on the door and the taxi driver.

I then managed to actually get on the bus, even though I arrived 1 minute before it left and had the wrong ticket, thanks to a very lovely bus driver who ran off and changed my ticket for me.

I had so carefully gone out to buy the right ticket the day before.....    http://thegoldenpathblog.com/2007/04/18/do-you-know-the-way-to-san-jose.aspx
talk about the best laid plans going to waste!

So five or so hours, a bus, and boat later I arrived at the site of the voluntary project, and about five and half hours after that I found myself walking up a very long beach, in the pitch black, in the middle of nowhere, with poachers known to be in the area, and nothing but a mini mag lite for defense. The thought did cross my mind "What in gods name am I doing this for?"

I do have to admit that this project did not turn out to be quite what I had hoped for!

Although the work is damn hard, which I will describe first, its not the work that put me off... But here is the work.

First of all, its all nights, (and do I hate night shifts!!)
 
Hands up every one who's ever cleared asbestos enclosures at three o clock in the morning, and shout "yey - we do indeed hate night shifts!!!"

Now, anyone who has ever worked on a turtle conservation project will be like, yes, der, of course it´s all night shifts. If you were a turtle and you had to haul your gigantic aquatic self up a beach, dig a huge great hole, and lay 70 odd great big turtle eggs in a feat of strength that is Herculean, only they are of course ladies, (Herculeet?), would you do it in 35 degree heat, or would you do it in the middle of the night at some kind of sensible temperature? So there we are.

Well the thing is my first night shift started at 12 midnight, even though we had traveled all day, (a 7am start). I then finished at 5.20 am or so, and then got "lucky", and got the only day shift for the next day, and so was at work again at 11am. Gee I felt so lucky!

The first time you walk up and down that beach, you die. When was the last time you went for a 7 mile walk at 12 midnight? Well try it at 12 midnight add 25 degree heat, and then do it on soft sand. One of the girls vomited several times and had to turn back from sheer physical exhaustion.

So seeing some of the countryside and the wildlife, as I intended was never really going to happen. In this project what I did mainly was sleep under a tree. In fact all everyone does is sleep! They are all to exhausted to do anything else.
 
I did actually see loads, about 30, of the Leatherback Turtles and they are amazing. However when you´re that tired, you are not really that amazed. You just want to go to bed!

A straw pole of the volunteers there found that some of them had expected this level of work, but me and various others, did not. Maybe it was something to do with this excerpt from the Tortuga Feliz website....

"After your few hours of 'work' you can go moutainbiking, fishing, sunbathe on the beach, read a book in your hammock, drink a cold beer at "Mathilda's", play several games................."

Now hang on a minute, I´ve done all sorts of work, I am very well versed in what is and isn't "work", and I can tell you this was definitely not "work" this was  WORK!!!!!!

They do warn you should be "physically fit", but in the same way as the work above, I think this is more like extremely physically fit, 

I also thought it was really quite mean the way the girl who could not manage the walking, instead of having the shift patterns changed, was dispensed without ceremony onto the next boat. This could be to do with the fact the shifts were being managed by 23 year old volunteers with no managerial experience, not by the project staff, they were apparently not very interested in her problems.

So anyway I was going along with the whole Lord of the Flies scenario quite well actually. I did meet some really, really, nice people on the way in, big kisses to Calina and Petrick, and we were having an interesting time.

and then....

Well first a word about the guides. The guides are all ex poachers. They lived somewhat on the edge of society before joining the project, making a living poaching turtles and there eggs. Therefore they are all somewhat like, well, ex poachers really. On the whole they are really nice, although they do use the camp outside where the volunteers are trying to sleep like a late night social club.

I came back from night shift one night to find the one of them who does have a rather more challenging personality, (he is completely mental) raving and gibbering at me, like, well, like someone who is completely mental. So I ignored/humored him and did my paperwork, and went inside.

I then hear a noise that was really quite drawn out and disturbing, and in all honesty I thought he had got hold off and was trying to kill the project cat. This in the middle of the night and everyone trying to sleep.

So off I go to see whats happening.

It wasn't a cat, it was a chicken. He has in a bag in front of him containing a chicken and rather than, as thought at first glance, he is ringing its neck, and getting it badly wrong, I work out after a while he is just toturing the animal.

Now this came as a bit of a shock to me, but then I think a 5´10 of extremely enraged mad British woman demonstrating some of London's East Ends finest expletives at him at top volume, also came as a big shock to him. It stopped him anyway.

So there I am champion chicken, arguing with a mad man who is likely to pick up a machete if I am unlucky, in the middle of the night on a conservation project in the middle of nowhere, with no project staff coming to my aid, even though I had surely woken up the whole camp. Most of the volunteers were probably just as terrified as the chicken.

Now call me picky but for a conservation project, torturing animals to death is not exactly joined up thinking, or what I joined up for. Turtle torture, chicken torture, its all kind of the same to me. He did still kill the unfortunate bird I believe, but I did not hear it screaming so hopefully it was a better way to go.

My real problem with this place is that there were three other guides sitting there doing sweet FA (i.e to my international reader, nothing) about this. Apparently they lack the willingness to take responsibility.

I spoke to the man who set up the project, and we discussed the fact that the projects long term success depends on it being taken over, and forward by the (ex poacher) community. It was implied that he could not dictate to them on the matter. However as it seems that the responsibility lies with them, and at this point they do not take responsibilty, it left me  confused and questioning the structure and processes within the project

In as much, I did the only thing I could do at the time, which was to vote with my feet, and get on the next boat out. I was in fact in the company of various other people who were also leaving early.

We do have to note however that this project saves a lot of turtles.

It stops hundreds of the green turtles being hacked to pieces on the beach whilst alive, when they come ashore in breeding season It also takes the eggs of the Leatherback which is severley endangered and hatches them, as they are otherwise all stolen. So I can not really write off the whole project. One girl there told me of the treatment of live turtles in the markets in Nicaragua which is abhorrent. They keep them live in the markets whilst hacking lumps of meat off of them. The project also saves them from this fate.  

However, for me at least in terms of this one incident, poultry as it may be, they are not exactly practicing a holistic ethos!

and so ended the chicken chapter.....

I went back and had a drink in San Jose, it was much more fun!