Road Trip to LA

In late July I took a road trip with Jenna to Los Angeles. We found me a place to live for the coming year(!) and explored some of what the city has to offer. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised :) (More photos from my phone camera)

(Me & Jenna at brunch; movie night in the Hollywood Cemetery; view of the hills and the Hollywood sign; Venice Beach; Planetarium; UCLA's Guide to Life- that'll come in handy!; backyard BBQ; cakes at The Alcove; driving back up 101; vineyards near Santa Barbara)

Adventures Close to Home

I've been playing with some apps on my (fairly) new smartphone (and what a smarty it is!) and taking a lot of pictures, since I have this device on me all the time anyway. To share a few of my latest adventures here in the Bay Area- and show off my photo editing skills (haha thank you hipstamatic and instagram) here are a few.

(Creme brûlée maker at the San Francisco Street Food Festival; Dunkin' the pup; Annie & Ian dancing with Dunkin'; Stinson Beach; water lilies in front of the de Young Museum; pie shop)

Tortuguero and the Terrible Turtle Tour

Tortuguero was my last real destination on my travels in Central America, and I really liked the town. I had my own private room and bathroom (!) at a small hotel recommended by a friend that sat right on the beach. There aren't hostels here, so it was more expensive ($20) since I was on my own. I spent the afternoon wandering the town and along the water and watched a spectacular sunset. That night I went on a turtle tour at 10pm to spot sea turtles laying their eggs on the beach. I'm not entirely sure what I expected, but whatever it was, it wasn't this. Obviously I knew it was dark at night, but I had envisioned spotting the turtles from a respectful distance, watching them silently, and feeling a sense of awe at the magnitude of their task. The females swim hundreds of miles to return (usually) to the area where they were born in order to lay eggs 1-4 times a year. They haul themselves out of the surf, clamber up the beach, dig a giant pit of a nest, lay hundreds of eggs over an hour or more, cover the eggs, pat the sand, camouflage (sort of) their nesting site, and then drag themselves back into the water. These creatures, so graceful in the sea, are cumbersome giants on land and it is a miracle they are able to successfully reproduce at all!

Knowing all of this I was excited to witness "the process" as our guide, Robert, called it. But instead of an awe inspiring experience, he viewed it as his means for his existence and seemed to take only a cursory interest in the animals or the quality of our experience. There were 7 of us in his group, and he literally ran us up and down the path along the beach according to the information he had from the professional spotters about where the turtles were. At first I thought he was worried we wouldn't get to see a turtle, but then I realized he wanted to show us the minimum promised as quickly as possible so he could get home.

On paper it was a satisfactory trip for him. We saw a turtle covering her nest, another one returning to the water (followed at a minimal distance by about 20 people), and saw a final mothering laboring through the laying of her eggs. When he moved her back flipper so we could have a better view it almost made me sick with anger. Instead of amazing it all felt so intrusive, so unnecessary, so voyeuristic.

While the tourism of watching turtles at night is fairly well regulated (you must go with a guide, paths are used in the woods behind the beach so you are doing minimal walking on their actual nesting sites, no regular lights or camera flashes are allowed, only faint red lights from the guides) I asked our guide about beach use during the day time and he said it is open to everyone for recreational use. There is nothing that marks known nest areas, there are no signs that there are eggs shallowly buried in the sand, and there is nothing to prevent people from walking on and digging at the nesting areas. For all their talk of conservation, this is one endangered species that needs a lot more protection, even from many of the people and organizations "protecting" it.

Travel Time and La Fortuna

In my final few days I decided to make the haul out to Tortuguero, an area along the Caribbean coast where sea turtles come onto the beaches to lay their eggs. July and August are prime time for the green turtle, though also rainy season and not high time for visitors. The ever helpful Evan from the Tucan hotel in Monteverde made a million phone calls for me and helped me get a direct shuttle-boat combo from the town of La Fortuna, and a taxi-boat-taxi in order to reach Fortuna. Traveling is not always simple, though it is typically worth it!

My one night in La Fortuna I stayed in Gringo Pete's, which had come recommended to me (and, conveniently, was the cheapest in town at $6 a night). I spent the few dusky hours wandering the town which consisted of one main street packed full of tour operators pushing swanky natural hot springs that turn into discos at night, buffet included for $80. I passed on those. At the hostel, Pete, who was akin to Santa Clause in age and stature, though decidedly less jolly, was not my favorite though I ended up meeting some friendly other travelers. Turns out a Dutch guy there had been through Utila months before and my sister was his divemaster. Such a small world! A group of 8 of us went out for drinks and dancing (though it is not as glamorous as it sounds. It was a Sunday night and the one place playing music was a kind of hall with a man singing karaoke. We were the only people on the dance floor at the beginning, and it seemed the locals only decided to come out because we were doing such a butchery of their elegant moves). We all, however, had a good time and when we returned to the hostel after 2am, Pete came out onto a balcony and I am pretty sure was shooting us with rubber bands and definitely hissing at us to be quiet. It was good riddance to his hostel at 7 in the morning when I was picked up by my transport bus.

I made it to Tortuguero without incident. It was a beautiful ride (the parts I wasn't sleeping through) and we drove by mile after mile of banana fields. A "farm" doesn't do these places justice- truly the only way to describe them is as "plantations". There were complex drawbridges and pulley systems over the road, and the trees were producing an inordinate amount of fruit, each bundle of banana practically pulling its slender tree over. Every bunch was wrapped in a large blue plastic bag, protecting it from insects but contributing to the waste that goes into growing (not to mention transporting) this food. Many of the fields were tagged with Chiquita Banana signs, and undoubtedly end up in our local supermarkets. It is pretty incredible to actually see the early stages of this process- and realize how far our food travels!

The final stage of the journey was another boat ride, this time up a river and through a natural canal system, to the island of Tortuguero. (While not actually an island, it is accessible only by boat or by air). The boats are scheduled to leave at 1:30, and there was a long line of people waiting to get on. Though there are 3 different companies, people are shuffled, in a fairly orderly fashion, onto an empty boat and once it is full it pulls away and the process is started again. The boat I ended up on was definitely one of the older ones available, and before setting out our captain came down the narrow center isle to make sure we all were wearing our bright orange life vests. I have been on some pretty dodgy boats, but rarely has the life jacket policy been enforced- I was a bit worried that they expected their passengers to be falling out. Thankfully we made it in one piece, and the town was worth the trek.