The Great Turtle War

This is the entrance to Nuevo Vallarta, and behind the sailboat on the right is a long, dark sand beach that is a turtle nesting site. And, behind the long beach are hotels and condos plus a fairly public beach entrance for this side of Nuevo. We had been seeing strange marks on the sand, and one morning saw two baby turtles trying to make the break for freedom. A very large lady came tearing out of one of the hotels and puffed and huffed her way to the babies and pulled them out of the surf, saying they were going to be placed somewhere safe. Ok. Then we saw a giant dead one on our morning beach walk. And yesterday, a man was digging up turtle eggs in front of the first hotel, and I tried to see if he had the same "official" shirt as the lady had, but he just kept digging and wasn't up to talking. A tourist reported another man to the police as he had been taking eggs from "our" beach. They just laughed. It seems that the turtles are protected, and there is a nursery somewhere around here, but messing with mother nature and the turtle's "return to their birthing ground" instinct is just screwed up.

Costa Rica has one beach that is so prolific in turtles/eggs/etc..that they allow one day for the locals to dig up eggs to sell to local bars or personal use for male libido. Ai yi yi. Supposedly this allows the next mother egg layers to have their eggs hatch. Again, messing with mother nature. (reported in Latitude 38). That doesn't make sense, either as the eggs are either of an endangered species or the Tico libido is declining. But it was a government decision.

Robert is at the little swap meet in the next small town to us - where we get lost every time we try to find this Tuesday market. We stock up on fresh papaya and pineapple and veggies and then find a good place for tacos to rest up from getting lost and the angst about the turtles.