Nosara Part 1: Turtles
We had the opportunity to spend some time with some friends, Josh & Dayli Braun in Nosara.
Funny story: Justin and Dayli were good friends in high school....some 15+ years ago. They didn't talk much after that, and then one day Justin saw that she'd posted some pics of Costa Rica on her Facebook. Justin messaged her, asking where they went on vacation and how they liked it, because "we wanted to vacation there too." Turns out they had moved here about a year and a half ago! After that, poor Dayli got bombarded with questions and was asked for advice on all things moving-to-Costa-Rica.
They were awesome enough to let us spend a couple nights at their house, which was great becuase we got to save money, and the girls had such a blast with their kids. It was fun for Justin and Dayli to get caught up, too.
The first night we were there, Dayli announced we were going to the arribada in the morning (Aug 18th). What is arribada, you ask? Every new moon, tens of thousands of sea turtle mommies crawl up onto the beach to lay their eggs. It usually lasts a few days with tens of thousands coming EACH night.
The drive there was fun.....as in, had to drive over a few tidal rivers; as in, you can't go when it's high tide because it'd be too full.....
We went at sort of the tail end of arribada, right around sunrise. There were only a few turtles left, but I personally think it was better that way. If there are too many turtles, it's hard to walk around or see anything but a carpet of turtles (at least, that's what it looks like in the pics I've seen). This way we got all up close and personal with one mommy. We got to watch her dig the hole, lay the eggs, fill it back in and pat the sand down, before making the long trip back to the ocean:
It was very cool watching the whole process. The video was sped up in some places because moving around for a sea turtle takes a while! We watched her crawl her way allllll the way back to the ocean afterwards, and you could tell she was exhausted. But it was a really cool experience for the kids to be able to see them up close and personal.
Of course, a beach trip in Costa Rica is not complete without an adorable stray puppy to cuddle:
