Friday, April 27, 2012
Puerto Escondido: Markets, Turtles, and Phosphorescence Posted in Animals, Mexico, Travel on April 27th, 2012 by Lisa
Puerto Escondido: Markets, Turtles, and Phosphorescence
Posted in Animals, Mexico, Travel on April 27th, 2012 by Lisa
Puerto Escondido’s market is very clean and well maintained, with a good selection of food and small restaurants. We had a jugo verde at Myrna’s juice stand and tortas (for which Ty developed a taste in Guanajuato) for lunch,
bought a big bag full of produce, did a small walkabout downtown, and jumped on the camionetta once again for the trip back. Back at the ranch, I enjoyed a swim in the pool. Puerto Escondido is hot – the day after we arrived the temperature hit 38 degrees.
The Hotelito Swiss Oasis supports the Escondido economy by recommending local people with whom to do eco-tours. Brandy had done a turtle release and lagoon tour and highly recommended it, so yesterday evening was the moment to give it a go. Chop (not sure about the spelling), a fellow who lives at the lagoon, arrived to pick us up at 6:40 and we were off in his car to Playa Delfin (Dolphin Beach), a twenty five kilometer long beach a ways north of Escondido, to release turtles.
This beach is almost deserted along its length; a few housing developments, most shuttered or unfinished, dot the area, and one small town lies near its middle but other than that, the beach is undeveloped.
It is home to a couple of species of endangered sea turtles, the Green Turtle and the Leatherback (although leatherbacks are rare in this part of the world, apparently). We were driven to the turtle release area, which consists of a couple of small camping tents, a wooden lean-to, two quad motorcycles, three nesting areas, and one crazy dog who keeps the fellow who looks after the area company.
This place is a one man operation; the caretaker works here alone, without pay, subsisting on the tips of people who visit to participate in the turtle release. He live here all year round in one of the small tents.
This evening, in addition to Ty, myself, and Coco, there was a van load of Mexican tourists for the release of four baby turtles, three tiny greens and one larger leatherback, born that morning and ready to start their life in the ocean. The four turtles were kept in a small pink plastic tub and, after we washed our hands, we were allowed to pick up and examine them (I wasn’t sure about the merits of handling them …).
After waiting for a while to watch the sun descend in the sky, and watching a couple of kids pretend to be turtles crossing the sand, the moment for the release arrived. The caretaker drew a line in the sand and told us that we weren’t allowed to go beyond it.
I had thought that we would guide the turtles down the beach but that wasn’t the case; once released from the tub, they must make their own way down the beach to the water without human help. This enables their location to imprint and helps to ensure that they can return to this beach later on; if we simply put them into the water, or helped them out, they would likely die.
All of us lined up and each small group was given one turtle; we received the leatherback and I put it on the ground facing in the direction of the ocean. It started moving towards the water but then got disoriented and headed back up to us again. I really wanted to pick it up and turn it around but the guide said that we must leave it to make its own way. It was painful to watch the four tiny beasts attempt to crawl towards the ocean and life.
“Our” turtle, the largest and strongest of the bunch, figured out the correct direction and headed off at a fast crawl towards the huge waves; finally, after a couple of false starts, a large wave caught it, and lifted it out to sea – we all clapped.
This same process was repeated for each of the other three, one of whom was particularly weak. Although they all reached the sea eventually, the weakest one had to be helped out a couple of times by being lifted down towards the water (I don’t think that it will survive, unfortunately).
After it was washed out to sea by a wave, one of the tiny turtles was washed in again farther down the beach by another wave; Ty saw it struggling and gently put it back in the water again – hopefully it will live.
I found the whole experience very moving; it’s hard to believe that these creatures, only one day old, have to go through that onerous process in order to begin their lives. Very few turtles survive; many die on their way to the ocean, picked off by predators, and many die in the ocean from ingesting plastics they mistake for jellyfish. Cut up all plastics before disposing of them and don’t dump plastic – better still, don’t use plastic.
After the turtle release, which probably took about two hours or so, we were off north again to the six kilometer long Manialtepec Lagoon, a body of water surrounded by mangrove swamp vegetation, its tropical climate lending itself to a diverse ecosystem. Dozens of migratory bird species such as herons and ducks make Manialtepec lagoon their home at various times of the year. Chop told us that, in addition to birds and fish, crocodiles live here.
We, and six other people, boarded the small tour boat and headed out on the cloudless night to tour the lagoon and see the phosphorescence created by the water’s phytoplankton. Beside the boat, we could see streaks of bright silver zipping hither and yon; these were fish. Running our hands through the water produced long streaks of brilliant white and silver; resting in the lagoon, our hands appeared white and skeletal because of the phosporescence. Encouraged by Chop, several people, including Coco, jumped in and swam,
their bodies making white and silver patterns in the dark – fabulous (unfortunately, it was impossible to get a decent picture of the phosphorescence). We were told that, in the rainy season, the area is completely dark and the falling rain makes the entire lagoon shine brilliantly against the black background. That would be amazing to see.
See more pics here.
LA To Tulum, Day 10 — Puerto Escondido To Tulum APRIL 26, 2012
LA To Tulum, Day 10 — Puerto Escondido To Tulum
APRIL 26, 2012 BY LEAVE A COMMENT
By Larry Crowson
Day 10
It was raining softly when I woke up and the surfers were already pounding the waves. I really wanted to stay for a couple of days—I was both road tired and wanting to explore this inviting place.
Walked down the malecon and had coffee and breakfast and then headed out south towards Puerto Angel, a small fishing village that I had heard about and wanted to see for myself. It turned out to be a little surfing and fishing village with not much in the way of services but lots of For Sale signs. I got out briefly to see the turtle museum and then got back on the highway. I was feeling the call of home and it was time to fly.
I cut up at Salina Cruz and headed over the Oaxaca mountain range towards Minititlan and the Gulf of Mexico.
A couple of hours in, I came upon a huge wind farm. Going up, there must have been over 100 parts being staged for assembly. This was a large valley in the mountains and I have to assume that it blows hard here between the oceans.
I came into a small village in the mountains called Matias Romero. It seemed like a junction for many smaller roads all converging from the countryside and the street merchants were out in force selling everything you could imagine. I even saw several folks selling Parrots just sitting on their arms.
Well this place has had a history of trouble with the cartels and drug smuggling, and I ran into a pretty serious Mexican Army checkpoint where they proceeded to go over my paperwork and car with a fine tooth comb. They were all very polite and then told me to have a safe day and proceed as I pulled away. Literally 100 yards ahead was a Federale checkpoint where the guys acted like we were going to do this all over again in case the Army missed something. I have driven many thousands of miles in Mexico and never seen this before.
The guys were all about checking my VIN numbers to make sure they match my title and car permit paperwork.
Funny thing was, this one cop seemed almost disappointed that it did match, as his partner was opening up a few bags asking me what each item was where had I’d been and was going. One of my bags had several boxes of Trader Joe’s chocolate covered almonds with Sea Salt, and he didn’t seem to understand why I had so many. This isn’t my first rodeo, so I opened one up and offered him a taste. He immediately said no politely, but I insisted and you should have seen the smile come across his face as he chewed on it. Priceless! Wish I had a picture of it! He then said he understood why I had gone to so much trouble and I told him my wife would kill us both if I didn’t show up with these intact. He laughed real hard and said take care and have a nice drive.
The drive over to Minititlan was uneventful until I turned off onto the new highway heading towards Villahermosa. About 5-6 miles down, both lanes on my side came to a halt with everyone out looking down the road. I figured it was an accident which can cause quite a stir, sometimes for hours. Well, all of a sudden, lots of folks further ahead started turning around and heading back and then just ahead I noticed some farm workers cutting an opening into the fence to access the small dirt road running along side of the highway and everyone started taking their turns jumping the dirt mound to get up and over onto the dirt road. I wasn’t so sure if my Honda SRV would clear but what the heck—made it, now what? I hadn’t a clue where we were all heading now and after a mile or so we came to a bridge junction going over the highway in both directions. It seemed that no one knew exactly which way to go so I followed a couple of folks left towards the town off in the distance. A couple of miles of weaving thru the little village and we came to another on ramp back to the highway and we were off again. I never did find out what had happened back there.
The rest of my drive back to Tulum from here bored me, as I have made this drive many times thru the countryside and then the jungles off the Yucatan— home was calling and I picked up the pace considerably now. Traffic flow here was an easy 80-85 mph until you reached a small town. Everyone seemed to be going towards Merida or Cancun up the Yucatan peninsula. Two more Army checkpoints and then home.
In closing, this was a long road trip and I had no choice but to keep up a good pace, but it also opened up a wealth of incredible beauty to explore further on longer trips as I seek to better understand my newly adopted country of Mexico.
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