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 Travel & Outdoors | September 2005 
Turtle Camp in Nuevo Vallarta
 Korah Winn - PVNN
Puerto Vallarta - Last Monday I had the opportunity to do one of the most amazing things I think I have ever experienced. I had the chance to release baby sea tortugas (turtles) into the Pacific Ocean. Wow! It was incredible. I feel unbelievably fortunate to be living in Puerto Vallarta where I have access to something like this.
The way it worked out is that I ran into a bookstore owner named Tom who is from the US. He said that he would introduce me to a couple of people who would give me insider tips on Puerto Vallarta, so we arranged to meet this past domingo (Sunday). It was a completely guilty pleasure for me to hang out with these people, since I know that I am down here to learn to speak Spanish by spending time with Mexicans.
However, I gave myself a break since I really could use the information they were giving me. I was amazed at the sense of community the foreign people who live here in Puerto Vallarta enjoy. Being around them made me feel like belting out the theme canción (song) to the television series, "Cheers."
The evening started out with just Tom and myself sitting outside a café before it branched out into a couple of more people, until finally there was no room at the table for any extra sillas (chairs) to be pulled up. I'm relating all of this to lead into the cuento (story) of my chance meeting with Griffin and Erich, which led to an incredible experience.
Griffin is a conservationist from Canada. She works as a guide for an adventure tour company here in PV. She told me that Monday was the last day this year that pretty much guaranteed people would be able to see female sea turtles coming up on the playa (beach) to lay their eggs.
I told Griffin that I really wanted to go on her tour the next day - if it was at all possible. She said she would check with Vallarta Adventures, the tour company that she works for, to see if they still had room. Erich was right there with me, and she told him that he needed to come on this trip too, since he works with the team that is redeveloping the website and they needed more turtle photos.
Since the turtle nesting season in the Banderas Bay area was wrapping up for the year, this would be one of the last chances he'd have to take great pictures of the mother tortugas laying their eggs. So he decided to take the tour, and as a favor to me, he worked things out for me to go with him for free. As part of the deal, I would have to be his assistant and help with taking pictures. Being a poor college student, this sounded like a fine idea to me.
The next day, we left Puerto Vallarta at 6:45 pm and drove to a hotel beach in the neighboring town of Nuevo Vallarta. The turtle camp was set up there. The night started off slowly as we patrolled the beach looking for mother tortugas, but we finally spotted one and watched her lay her eggs. More time passed as we enjoyed some light snacks and waited for our batch of baby sea tortugas to arrive, but when they finally did it was completely worth the wait.
The hatchlings were some of the most precious creatures I have ever seen. We were allowed to name them, take one picture with individual tortugas, and then we all stood in a line near the agua (water) and cheered the tortugas on as they made contact with the arena (sand) and headed toward their new lives in the ocean.
This was a terrific experience. I hope that by writing this story I can inspire many more people to visit Puerto Vallarta and participate in helping these amazing creatures get off to as safe a start as possible. ˇSalud! |
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