Here Come the Ants!

The rainy season has come late to the Province of Limón this year.  Usually, the rainy season lasts from December to January, but this year it didn’t rain much those two months and instead has picked the end of February to middle of March.  They say that here you used to know that it was the beginning of December when the rains started coming and not anymore.  Some folks see it as the beginning signs of a more threatening climate change.  Despite the possible future ramifications, for us it is an present unexpected welcome, because as Melinda recently posted in Facebook:

Dear Hone Creek,

Thanks for not being excruciatingly hot and humid. My friend rainy season can stay as long as she likes.

Love,
Melinda

Speaking of rain, we were recently warned of an impending rain by an “hormiguero” – a legion of army ants (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_ant).  Actually, the invasion of ants came not just once this week, but twice.  There is a local belief that an invasion of army ants portends precipitation.  The ants come in the tens of thousands and march in a steady single file line, entering your house looking for other bugs to eat.  They often seem to appear without noticing and leave without warning, nor goodbye.

Army Ants on our front porch

Another benefit, other than foretelling rain, is that because the army ants devour bichos of every kind (cockroaches, termites, spiders and can even eat small vertebrates), your house gets an uninvited, yet much appreciated cleaning.  However, if you get in their way, the hormigas (ants) do bite hard (not to be confused with bullet ants that we’ve also found in our yard which when bitten can actually make you sick with fever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_ant). 

Bullet ants (hormigas balas) encountered in the field with Corredor Biológico

 

First reaction says to get out your RAID and start going to town on the suckers, but given the benefits its actually best to abandon your house, or at least their path as they don’t stray far, and then come back in a few hours and they are usually gone.  One interesting fact via Wikipedia is, “Army ants do not build a nest like most other ants. Instead, they build a living nest with their bodies, known as a bivouac. Bivouacs tend to be found in tree trunks or in burrows that are dug by the ants.”

Below are pictures of the second invasion we had, which actually was much less severe than the first.  As we have a house that is primarily made of cement and not of wood, the ants had no interest in anything except our wood roof where most of the bichos – termites, etc – hide.  The second time around which is documented in the photos, they didn’t even enter the home and just used our front porch as a marching ground to move onto their next battleground.

The ants go marching two by two hurrah, hurrah!

Legacy and Change

Yesterday marked the last day of a visit from my family.  Their visit also happened to coincide with our 1 year anniversary of life in Peace Corps Costa Rica.  My wife and I hugged my mother as she readied to take the hotel shuttle to the airport and I couldn’t help but to think about all the changes that had occurred during our past year of service, both here in Costa Rica and on the homefront, back in San Francisco and Medford, OR.

When we arrived one year ago, we arrived as a group of 32 eager volunteers ready to take on whatever challenges lay ahead.  We had no idea of our site placement and came in with an intermediate level of Spanish, just enough to be generally conversational, but lacking in fluency and comprehension.  Now, we are a group 23 volunteers, some having left for medical reasons and the others having left for personal ones.  Gone is our unconditional eagerness, and in its place is a sense of realism that the visions that we once had to change the lives of the people in our host communities has met with the obstacles and the difficulty of bringing change to a foreign community without the change happening organically from within the community itself.  We’ve adjusted our expectations, oftentimes at the expense of our full personal satisfaction of our service, but at the end of the day we maintain the same ideals that brought us here: We are soldiers of peace and compassion and that we as a global community are connected.  We hold true to the fact that through our service, we can change lives, even if it is just one at a time and that those lives that we change have the ability to multiply, as people pay it forward to others in their lives.

These days we are able to switch fairly easily between our native English and Spanish and although we don’t always comprehend everything, we’re able to place a context and ask relevant questions to ascertain meaning.  With the time spent in our community and our improvement in communication we’ve been able to integrate better with our community, and love to come home from a long weekend trip to the “saludos” from kids and families in the community that we know.  Almost always, we see someone on the bus that we know from ours or a nearby community, and stop and chat – usually about the weather “¡Qué calor!” or when the next English class will be occurring.  With this integration, some of the projects that we came in dreaming are finally starting to be realized.  Communication and community integration have and will be a key to the successes that we hope to achieve in our brief stay here.

On the homefront, my nieces and nephews are growing and going to school, my sister is changing jobs, my mother retired and traveling constantly, friends having babies and everyone aging.  I spent my 35^th birthday in Costa Rican last April 12^th and will have the luck to be able to experience three birthdays while in country.  I will leave Costa Rica at the ripe old age of 37, no longer a jóven, by Costa Rican standards, which lasts until 35 years of age.  Instead, I will be a viejito, with the obligation and responsibility to condense my life experience and extract packets of wisdom which will guide me and my family in the years to come.  Life may seem to move slowly, but every moment we have on earth, represents an infinite amount of change.  I find a beauty in this change, a somehow ordered chaos, as each thing, both living and non-living, adjusts to these sometimes minute, other times sudden and violent changes, as if through some sort of sophisticated dance.

My mother remarked to me during a dinner that my sister commented to her after my father passed away that she is thinking more about what her legacy will try to imprint on the world before she to leaves the earth, as we all must do in the end.  Aging, and through aging, change, is something through which we all experience, and oftentimes fight, while trying to come to grips with what we may call the enigma of the human experience.  We all have ways to cope and manage with this experience, and some more healthy than others such as religion, meditation, writing, exercise and setting and achieving of goals.

Legacy was actually the theme of our last All Volunteer Conference last October as Peace Corps celebrated its 50^th anniversary (in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy).  Melinda and I will also be lucky to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Peace Corps Costa Rica, which began in 1963 in the final months of our service before we head home in 2013.  I think of all the volunteers who have sacrificed more than 2 years of their lives, believing in the same ideals which brought me and 31 other volunteers here to Costa Rica (and more than 7,000 worldwide).  I think about all the projects completed, schools built, relationships made, children taught and health improved, mostly through very simple initiatives.  Small efforts together equal enormous change.

So, I think both of my legacy as a Peace Corps volunteer and as a citizen of the planet.  I struggle to keep perspective on the big picture, that all the little things that I am accomplishing, as small as greeting someone with a smile, a hug and the intention to bring that person love and understanding in the face of the unknown, that all these small things we do, may seem small, but when aggregated together over the term of two years, or for a lifetime for that matter, is immensely positively powerful especially when multiplied by the people we touch.  I have to remind myself of this constantly, as small and as little as we may feel, we are also very powerful as free agents of change, that we are the masters of our decisions and the way we approach life.  The paradox of this opposition is that it can render us incapable, undeserving and powerless, but if liberated from this thinking, it brings this incredible sense of ownership and strength over our journey through life.

So, I guess the take home message I’m trying to get to here, is don’t get too fixated on the small things, especially the mistakes that we unavoidably all make.  Focus on your intention and think of how the positive small things that you do relate to the big picture.  If you like what you see in the big picture then you are likely on the right path.  As far as legacy goes, I’m not sure that in my case it may be as easily deducted as I would have hoped, but rather so far it is focusing on the quality of the experiences, relationships and work that I do – all small, but important details, which when added and multiplied are bringing positive change in our world of uncertainty.

What do Peace Corps Volunteers Really Do?

So now that they’re approaching our 1 year anniversary as volunteers (March 1, 2012), you’re probably thinking – well, I know that Melinda and Stephen are Peace Corps volunteers, but what do they really do?  Below is a summary of some of their projects to give you an idea what they’ve been up this past year.

March 1 – May 15^th – Training in Central Valley

May 15^th – Present – Working in site

When they first arrived in site, Stephen & Melinda were tasked with writing a community diagnostic detailing what they learned about during training regarding the strengths, resources, weaknesses and opportunities that exist within the community.  Generally, Peace Corps volunteers do not start many, if any, projects during the first three months in site and focus their efforts on getting to know people in their community, drinking coffee with neighbors and community leaders, interviewing community members, getting to know the institutions and organizations that work within our pueblos and the people and power structures which make it tick (or not).   After the first three months, volunteers are supposed to deliver a first draft (which usually winds up being a minimum of 30 pages).  Between months 3-9 the fine-tuning and revisions are done and finally a final draft is printed to be presented to the counterpart organizations and community as a whole.  As this report was to be returned all in Spanish it presented a major challenge for both Melinda and Stephen.  They are happy to report (no pun intended) that their finally copy was finally printed (87 pages!) and they will be presenting it shortly to their counterparts and other interested local citizens and organizations.

Melinda and Stephen started two projects during our first three months, both of which they are still currently working on: Guías y Scouts (the Costa Rican version of Boy & Girl Scouts, Guías being “chicas” and Scouts being “chicos”) and a basic English class for 7-12 year olds.  The Guías y Scouts group represents the entire canton of Talamanca (roughly the size of a couple large counties in the US) and they currently have 40 members between the “manada” (herd) group, which are between 7- 10 years old, and the “tropa” (troop) ages 11-15.  Melinda and Stephen work with the tropa group.  One highlight during last year was that the tropa group was able to locally raise enough funds to participate in the first regional Guías y Scouts camp to be held in the southern part of the province of Limón.

Limón Campamento in Octobrer 2011

In addition to attending the camp, they have organized workshops with the local Cruz Roja (Red Cross) teaching the Tropa group about First Aid, taken trips to entertain the elderly in the community of Bambú during the holidays in the Talamanca Indigenous Reserve at the “Hogar de Ancianos” and went out into the community to raise funds for a children’s hospital in San Jose during the annual “Teletón”.  Below are a few pictures of both the Guías y Scouts group and our English class.

Our first students - we taught in both houses and a neighborhood church

Guías y Scouts learning first aid at the local Red Cross

As Stephen may have mentioned in a previous blog, Melinda and he are also working together in the elementary school doing environmental education, oftentimes in conjunction with his counterpart NGO organization, the Corredor Biológico Talamanca-Caribe (The Talamanca-Caribbean Biological Corridor).  Melinda and he have also worked with them in the field of solid waste management with a focus on recycling, but also getting people to be able to separate their organic and non-organic waste correctly as this lack of separation attracts bugs and disease and invites stray dogs to tear open and scatter trash in the streets as they look for something to eat.  They have performed numerous community-wide clean-ups in many towns across Talamanca and this month we are starting our first domestic recycling initiative in our own barrio.  This is a unique project and will be the first time in any town in Talamanca to have a domestic recycling pick-up system.  As they perfect their pilot plan, they will then extend the program to include the entire community.  This is a huge goal in a region where a large portion of the community still burns their trash and where the Municipality still does not have a consistent garbage collection system.

Recycling campaign in Shiroles/Suretka - two communities in the Talamanca Indigenous Reserve

Separately, Melinda has worked in the elementary school with a counterpart from the Health Ministry providing recreational activities and hosting “charlas” or talks around such important issues as self-esteem and stereotyping.  She also has had a young women’s support group in a nearby community which also dealt with similar subjects until the high school in which it was being held was closed for health concerns.  Note: The high school was being held in a community center which did not have proper walls (plastic), ventilation or a proper sanitation system and Melinda had to facilitate the charlas on the basketball court for lack of sufficient space.

Melinda and local counterpart faciliating an activity about stereotypes at the local elementary school

Stephen continues to use his IT skills as a member of the ICT Committee supporting other Peace Corps volunteers in all things technological, including writing up documentation to help volunteers navigate the online banking, internet and telephone networks here in Costa Rica.  Melinda and Stephen are also both active in their regional Limón volunteer support network.  They also

They have worked with a fellow Peace Corps volunteer in a neighboring community on a Community Map mural painted on the wall of the elementary school to teach kids about geography, history and current events, worked on a dengue prevention campaign with the local clinic and hosted online presentations and exchanges between youth in their site and 5^th grade students in Howell, New Jersey in coordination with a program called World Wise Schools, helping to fulfill both the second and third goals of the Peace Corps which are concerned with cultural exchange and understanding.

As they head into the New Year, Stephen is working on a grant to get solar panels installed at his counterpart organization in an attempt to bring more consciousness about energy conservation and Melinda is contemplating starting a girl’s empowerment group here in our own pueblo.  Melinda and Stephen will also be looking to raise funds to help support the Bandera Azul program at the local elementary school which works toward improving the school environment (building a small recycling “warehouse”, replacing damaged ceiling tiles and fixing broken fans, improving/replacing the poorly maintained restrooms (see future blogs as we ask for your support!) and will also include a community map mural project of their own.

They’ve also participated in countless other activities and projects too numerous to be named, but just wanted to let you know that they’re not spending every day at the beach although when they need to take a day or two to get away from the stress, Costa Rica is not a bad place to be :-).

Living with the 'Rents

One of the challenges that Melinda and I faced when we joined the Peace Corps is that we knew we would have to live with host families during our first 3 months of training and then for our first 6 months in site.  There were many advantages to this scenario: we didn’t have to worry about cooking (an advantage and a disadvantage as you will discover), had our laundry washed and ironed, being able to practice our Spanish and generally not having to worry about cleaning anything except our rooms.  However, after leaving for college more than 15 years ago and being used to manage our own schedule without having to check in with anyone, there were more than a few tough adjustments we had to make.

The first adjustment we had to make was living apart as Melinda’s and my training programs were different and thus required us to live in different communities which turned out to be a little more than an hour bus ride away on a journey that took you from a rural, tranquil, mountain coffee growing community to a busy, congested and polluted suburb of the capital, San Jose.  Melinda’s host family lived conveniently closer to where we would have a number of our group core trainings, representing one of advantages she had over my training location.

We’ve gotten used to taking the bus…

Serving guests enormous amounts of food is one of the cornerstones of pride of the typical Costa Rican mother or housewife (known in Spanish as “ama de casa”).  Living in a Costa Rican home is like the proverbial visit to grandma’s house where you are served a gigantic heaping of food, and then when you’re done, you are always asked for seconds.  It is generally considered good manners to say yes to as much food as possible and a compliment to both the food and the “cocinera”.  Turning down a second helping could send a message to the chef that you didn’t like the food, potentially hurting the pride of your hosts.  If you do turn down food, it should be done so diplomatically, complimenting the food while giving an excuse like: “A mi me gustaría comer más de la sopa tan deliciosa, pero tengo que caber en mis pantelones!” (translation: I would like to eat more of your delicious soup, but I have to fit in my pants!) – gesturing dramatically toward your distended belly and pulling on your pants’ waistline.

Olla de carne (one of our favorite Costa Rican dishes)

Side Note: Comments about your weight or others at the table are not taboo here, you could be called skinny (delgadito(a) or flaco(a)) or even called fat or a little chunky (gordo(a) or gordito(a)).  In fact, such a comment could even be considered an endearment (like: Ah, here comes my little “gordito”!)

Another difficulty with not being able to cook for yourself is that you cannot control the manner in which the food is cooked, or the nutritional content of the meal in its entirety.  Frying food with copious amounts of oil is a very common practice here.  Also, the fat on meat is considered to be one of the most flavorful parts (see chicharones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicharr%C3%B3n).

chicharrones

Melinda once noticed our former housemother at our current site pouring a bottle of oil into the rice cooker and at their family party during training, Melinda and another volunteer had to impede an invitee from pouring oil into their freshly made mango salsa that they had made for their host families.

Another major inconvenience that we experienced living with host families was the lack of privacy.  Our rooms were small, walls were thin and the curtains appeared to be diaphanous (from the inside although from an outside test they appeared to be sufficient).  Not only every conversation on the other side of the wall could be heard, but you could hear snoring, breathing and the multitude of cacophonous sounds of everyday life.  And surely, if we could hear these sounds on our side of the wall, the same could be heard on the other, leading us to live our lives on tiptoes and in whispers.  Another cultural difference which Melinda touched on this on her recent post, is that people will also show up at your door unannounced.

While I joke about the challenges that we faced in our initial living situations, we actually have had mostly positive experiences at all our host families’ houses.  In fact, the majority of our house parents have since turned into good friends and collaborators and we recently spent a couple of days around Christmas with Stephen’s host family in the Central Valley.  The host families that the Peace Corps generally pick out take their assignment seriously, which is to share their family, space and culture with us as volunteers and to help us adjust and integrate into our new lives as Peace Corps volunteers.  Many of them feel that the generosity of their service to us as volunteers allows them to feel connected to the work we do as volunteers in our sites, thus connecting them to their large community as members of the Costa Rican family.  And through their selflessness and patience as hosts, Melinda and I feel more connected to our Costa Rican communities and see ourselves in the perspective as one global family, with an urgency to care for one another should we be able to confront the challenges of our increasingly interconnected and threatened "home" (Earth).

Observations on Urban (United States) vs. Rural (Costa Rican) Life

*Disclaimer: The urban areas I have lived in include: San Francisco, CA, Berkeley, CA, &, in New York, Harlem, The East Village, The West Village, & Brooklyn.  The rural areas I have lived in include only my small town – of around 1,400-1,500 people – in Costa Rica.*

Walking Down the Street

Urban life: People often avoiding eye contact, talking on their cell phones/iPhones/etcetera, listening to iPods, wearing sunglasses, walking quickly to their destination.  NOTE: New Yorkers often get a bad rap…my experience was if you smile at others, they will frequently smile back, as long as they are not at a near gallop in their pace.

Rural life: Almost everyone trying to make eye contact/giving a smile or a simple greeting, almost unheard of to wear sunglasses while walking (despite the crazy sun/heat), hardly anyone wearing headphones, everyone walking/biking/driving slowly to their destination (regardless of being early/late).  Cell phone usage is common, but it does not usually stop the person from greeting you (unless maybe they are a teen).

Shut the Front Door!

Urban life: People mainly keep their front doors closed (unless it is an excruciatingly hot day/they are having a house party).  Closed doors do not signal that no one is home.  In order to see if anyone is home, one would knock on the door a few times/ring the bell (usually not more than twice, though).  If there is no answer, they would leave.

Rural life: Almost everyone leaves their front doors open, regardless of weather.  This signals to others that someone is home.  If the front door is closed, it almost always means no one is home/everyone is asleep.  In order to see if anyone is home, a person walking by on the street will loudly yell “Upe!!”  Depending on the person, they will yell this repeatedly until they get an answer.  Most people will stop after a handful of “Upes,” though.  If you’re having a rough day/don’t want to be social, it’s best to keep your front door closed…this often prevents “Upe-ing.” (NOTE: some people will walk right in if the front door is open).

More on Doors

Urban life: Bedroom doors & bathroom doors, as well as front doors, when they are closed, are almost never opened by a person on the outside of the door, unless they knock first & get a response that it is okay to enter (or unless it’s a significant other or something).

Rural life: Closed bedroom doors, bathroom doors, & front doors are not always a signal to not enter.  Children in particular are known to just walk in, especially into bedrooms.  I learned early on in my host family’s home (that I no longer live in) to LOCK the bedroom door.  I entertained a way to make sure no one would enter our bedroom without knocking, but did not think it was a good idea to traumatize others just to make a point.

Let’s Get Together!

Urban life: When people want to meet with others for coffee/dinner/whatever, they often set up a time in which to do so.  If they say “We should get together!” & leave it at that, they often are only doing this as a nicety, & don’t really intend to see the other person again, unless they run into them.  However, if it’s a “Let’s get together,” followed by taking out one’s blackberry/other electronic device (in order to set a time/date), it’s on.  That all said, if the intention is to get together, a time/date is set, & generally adhered to.  One might show up at 7:10/15 (to a restaurant, say, for a dinner date), when the time agreed upon had been 7:00, but later than that would be pushing it (unless they were in rush hour traffic/had a medical emergency/etcetera).

Rural life: When people meet up with others, it is almost always by chance/informal.  It is not common to set up a time & date for coffee, especially.  If you want to have coffee with a friend in the community, it’s usually best to just “drop by” during cafécito time (in the afternoon, usually between 2 & 5pm), & often the other person will welcome you with coffee & maybe a snack (and a 1-2 hour chat).  People are not usually put off by someone just dropping by (in urban life, the drop by is not common, unless it’s a super close friend/there is an emergency/it’s a, um, “special friend” dropping by late at night).  NOTE: People will hardly ever say “no” if you say “we should get together.”  They may agree, generally, to a possible date/time, or say “that should be fine,” even when they have a legitimate other engagement.  No one likes to say “no,” to anything, ever, even when they really mean “no.”  It’s best to avoid saying “no” at all costs.  “Maybe” works well.  Oh, one other very important thing.  If you do have a legitimate meeting (like for an organization), it is customary to show up anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour+ late.  People who show up late will not apologize/advise others in advance (as it is, again, customary to be late).  If you show up 15 minutes late, you will almost always be the first person there.  The first staff meeting I attended for one (very legitimate) organization started 1 ½ hours late!

Keep it real,

The Lannings (btw this is Melinda writing, and it’s my first blog post.  Exciting stuff!  Lol).

Parade of the Lanterns (Desfile de los faroles)

Every 15th day of September Costa Rican's celebrate the independence of Central America from Spain.  From my understanding the actual act of independence was not signed until October 29th, but the 15th was the day when they officially started formal discussions about the iminent declaration.  On the 14th day of September, Costa Rican children and family gather at their schools and community centers to sing the national anthen, sing songs of independence and to show off their lanterns, afterward which they parade through town.

Willie is a member of our Guías y Scouts troop (Costa Rican version of Boy and Girl Scouts) 

Why lanterns?  As the story goes María Delores Bedoya went through the streets of Guatemala with a torch to invite the citizens to congregate and participate in the discussion for independence in the plaza in front of the Palacio Naciónal.  I couldn't help but think of the legendary ride of Paul Revere when I heard this story.

Diana (girl to the left) is in our Guías y Scouts troop

On the 15th of September, it is common for children to participate in bands, traditional dances while again parading through town.  No crazy fireworks, just a lot of amazingly precious kids and their families participating in some good, wholesome civic pride.

Here are a few more pictures from the Parade of the Lanterns (Desfile de los faroles)...

Andri is the son of a friend

Gerald (pronounced Harold) was formally a member of our English class

Tortuguero: A Costa Rica Must See

Note: I recommend reading this blog post via the website and not by email as the many pictures and video (don't miss the video if you have time to view) may not appear in your email.  http://peacecorpscr.blogspot.com/

This last weekend we took the opportunity to travel to Tortuguero, which is located in the northeastern corner of the Province of Limón.  So far, our excursion there has been the highlight of our time in Costa Rica as we were able to see the nesting of the Green Sea Turtle and also watched a baby Green turtle, just newly hatched, struggle to finally meet the ocean (see video below).

The town of Tortuguero is located on the outskirts of the Tortuguero National Park (Parque Nacional Tortuguero) which is a prime location to watch turtles nesting on the beach.  Of the turtles that nest in this location, you can see Hawksbills, Loggerheads, Green and Leatherbacks, many of which are endangered.  The nesting season for the following turtles is from mid-February to the end of September, depending on the species with the highest population of turtles, mostly Green Turtles, arriving in the month of August and the beginning of September.

The town of Tortuguero, population 2000 (rough local estimate), is situated with the Atlantic Ocean on its eastern end with a long, flat and wide beach that stretches for miles in both the northern and southern direction.  The western end of the town is bordered by a river which connects with a series of canals, some natural and others manmade.  Some of those that are manmade were constructed so as to float timber down the river as transporting logs over the marshy, swampy terrain would be impossible.  (See history of Tortuguero: http://www.tortuguerovillage.com/english/history.htm)

As the town is only accessible by boat or plane, the town does not have any cars and the houses that are scattered throughout the village are connected mainly by meandering dirt paths which weave their way throughout the village which gives the town a very quaint and leisurely feel.  The center of town is the dock where you can find two supermarkets, a number of sodas or restaurants and a few cabins.  The “main street” of Tortuguero runs parallel to the river and perpendicular to the dock, with the northern half consisting of a paved sidewalk (not unsurprisingly, the majority of the upscale souvenir shops, jewelry stores and restaurants are located on this end).  The northern end of this walkway leads to the regionally famous Afro-Caribbean restaurant, Miss Junie’s.

The animal life that can be found in the park include manatees, as well as caimans, crocodiles as well as numerous fish. The forests are home to jaguars, three-toed sloths, and three of Costa Rica's four species of monkey: Geoffroy's Spider Monkey, the Mantled Howler, and the White-headed Capuchin. Basilisk lizards and poisonous frogs also inhabit the area, along with 375 species of birds, including kingfishers, toucans, blue herons, peacocks, and parrots. There are more than 400 species of trees and approximately 2,200 species of other plants.

Of the above, we were able to see Howler Monkeys, Spider Monkeys, White-headed Capuchins, Basilisk lizards, toucans, caiman, an anteater and kingfishers among others during a canal tour we took the morning of September 3^rd.

However, the real reason we came was to see the Green sea turtle nesting.  We took a night tour on September 3^rd from 10 pm – 12 am where we were able to see the four stages of turtles nesting, laying eggs, cover, camouflage and return to the ocean.  We were not allowed to take any lights nor take pictures during the tour so as not to scare the turtles during this very critical time.  The only way to see the turtles was by infrared light and this was only to be shone from behind by the guides or turtles spotters.  It was really hard to comprehend the turtle's immensity (a mature adult weighs between 250-420 lbs!) and the struggles that the turtles must go through to lay their eggs.  Our guide told us that only 1 turtle out of a 2000 eggs would ever survive to come back to nest after 35 years.

Some other interesting facts:

-Each Green Turtle lays between 100-200 per nest.

-A green turtle can live up to 80 years in the wild.

-Sea turtles mate between 2 and 4 years (on average they nest every 3 years).

-Mating season for Green Sea Turtle is from June to September.

-After 45-75 days the turtles hatch at night and instinctively head for the beach which is the most dangerous time of their life.

Needless to say, I highly recommend visiting Tortuguero should you have a chance to visit Costa Rica.