JTrav: Puerto Arista and Campamento Tortugera

Well, this last weekend saw us heading north up the coast a couple of hours to the town of Puerto Arista, Chiapas with a couple of friends. Our destination was the tortugera or turtle sanctuary there. We really didn't know what to expect, but we were in for an adventure. The The months of September, October and November is when the Olive Ridley turtles, or in spanish the Golfina sea turtles come ashore to lay their eggs. These beauties are about a meter to a meter and a half long and weigh about 60-80 pounds. They lay about 85 to 110 eggs in a small hole or nest they dig in the sand with their back flippers.

We cruised the beach with our friend Victor looking for their tracks up the beach. We counldn't mess with them while they dug this nest, but once they begin to actually lay the eggs they go into a bit of a trance and we were able to touch and measure them. Once done, we would take them off the nest, no small feet due to the fact that once you pick them up they begin to flap those big ol' flippers everywhere, and collect the eggs to be taken back to the tortugera and re-buried in a safe enclosure. The Tortugera keeps data on location, nests, amount of eggs and physical characteristics of the turtles and nests.

They have a huge poaching problem for the eggs (which are considered aphrodiasics - even through research shows that 1 turtle egg has the same cholestrol of 5 chicken eggs) , and we found several nests which had been robbed while we were out collecting. Also, while the turtles are in their egg-laying trance they are succeptible to maurading dogs and can be injured as we saw when we had to help patch one girl up on Sunday morning who had a rather large hole torn in her shoulder. Pinche Perros! She was able to be mended and released that day.

On Saturday we were able to help release the baby turtle that had hatched in the tortugera the night before. Hundreds of little baby turtles heading out to sea for the first time. It was incredibly nerve-wracking watching them descend down the beach and get swept up by the waves. They are just tiny, baby turtles and the waves are so big! In the water you could see their tiny heads poking up.

What an amazing expereince, some might even say magical.