Volunteering in marine conservation in Costa RicaHave you ever helped bringing baby turtles to the world? I have! Hundreds of them. And it was one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. Almost 10 years ago, I wanted to do something meaningful with my vacation days. At that time, volunteering and voluntourism was nowhere near where it is today. Nowadays, volunteering is trendy and everybody does it, even though often for the wrong reasons. 10 years ago, I’ve spent 2 weeks in a very remote area in Costa Rica, in a campsite at the beach for the sole purpose to help protect the many turtles nesting at those beaches. This experience never left my mind, even when volunteering in other projects, Costa Rica was always a very fond memory. So, last year I just had to go back there and do it all over again. Different people, different turtles - but nonetheless rewarding and meaningful. Why? Well for one, it is a unique experience to witness these giant sea turtles (leatherback turtles are around 2m long) nest on the beach or seeing baby turtles (about 7cm long) hatch and do the run for the ocean. But also, doing 4h walks in the sand at night without any lights is more exiting than you would imagine. And spending 2 weeks at the beach, on a little remote half island with only around 40 locals and no electricity except solar power, water from water tanks and no cell phone reception or wifi is just the best thing to relax and recharge your batteries. But let’s begin with some facts. Why is it even necessary to have these projects? Sea turtles are one of the most ancient species on earth, and all the 7 known living species are nowadays endangered. Sea turtles come out of the water to lay their eggs at the beach, usually during night time, because bright lights disturb them. They lay around 70-140 eggs, depending on the species of turtles. After around 60 days, the baby turtles hatch and start their very long run for life. They have to get to the water without being eaten by crabs or birds, then they have to swim quite some time to get to areas where they can rest, hide under seaweed and basically just have the time to grow up. This can take up to 10 years or more and there are many dangers, like sharks, ocean pollution or fishing nets that can kill turtles. These years are called „the lost years“ among scientists, as not many evidence of turtle movements are available for this time. Ten to fifty years after they hatched, they reach sexual maturity and start mating and reproducing. The female turtles come back to the beaches where they were born to lay theri eggs - and the circle of life starts all over again. But besides the many natural threats like birds, sharks or crabs (that may even dig into the sand to eat the baby turtles still in their eggs) as well as coastal development (e.g.erosion), there are so many manmade threats. Global warming is one of those, but there are more. Turtles can get entangled in fishing nets (legal and illegal ones) and drown, they get sick due to polluted oceans, they may die because they eat plastic floating in the ocean or they simply get killed by humans who poach them for the shell to make jewelry for tourists, to get their meat or the eggs. Eating turtle eggs has a long cultural tradition in Costa Rica, so it is no wonder there are many poachers who make a living hunting for eggs at night. This would not generally be a giant problem, if the turtle population would be high enough. But sea turtles unfortunately are critically endangered and need all our help to stay in this world (since it was us who put them in that situation in the first place). Both times, I stayed for two weeks at this awesome program called „La Tortuga Feliz“ (The happy turtle). It was founded by late Paul Lepoutre, a dutch guy who more or less built the whole camp himself. An amazing and very inspiring person So what do volunteers do in this program? One task is to patrol the beach at night, together with a local guide. During the 4h shift, volunteers cover a distance of 10km while looking for nesting turtles. If you find a nest or a turtle digging the nest, the volunteers dig out all eggs, collect them and bring them back to the hatchery where all details (amount of eggs, date, time etc.) are written down before the eggs will be reburied in the sand in a designated area in the hatchery. Or you are staying in the hatchery at night or daytime to protect the eggs from poachers (who might dig out eggs put until 3-4 days after nesting) or crabs and check the nests for hatchlings. If you have hatchlings, the measurement begins. They hatchlings are being counted, weighed and measured and then released at the beach to start their run for the ocean. There is also the task of beach cleaning and recycling. Volunteers grab some trash bags and start collecting all trash found at the beach. You would be astounded to know what you can find there. Besides the usual plastic bottles, bottle caps and the very dangerous plastic straws, you also find lots of medicine glass bottles, brooms, puppets and what not. This trash is very dangerous. Birds may pick that up because it is shiny or it can land in the oceans where it is eaten by the animals there. Plastic will never dissolve and it will kill ocean life. Turtles for example normally eat jellyfish. Plastic bags floating in the ocean look exactly like jellyfish to them. Because of the little hooks on their tongues, turtles can’t let go of plastic bags once they started eating them. Even though they realize it is not food, they have no other option but to swallow it completely. Keep that in mind the next time you buy something wrapped in plastic… The day after a nest has hatched and the baby turtles have made their way to the ocean, it is time for the excavation of the nest. The camps biologist digs up the nest to see if there are some live baby turtles left who did not make it out yet because they were a little slower than the others and to check if all eggs have hatched. Usually, there are some undeveloped eggs, some eggs where the turtles died inside due to bacteria or fungus next to all the empty shells of the hatched eggs. Everything is counted and exactly written down. One night, we even found a live stage 3-4 (almost fully developed but not able to hatch) turtle in one of those eggs, and it was an albino turtle. Check the images to see how that looks like. It was only barely alive and had no chance of making it in this world. That was heartbreaking, even more than to find dead turtles in their eggs who were not fully developed. After everything is noted, all these eggs and shells are buried deeply at the beach, under some wood and covered with sand, in the hope that the dogs will not dig them out again. When there were many hatched nests the day before, the volunteers get to help with excavations. Besides the daily patrols and hatchery shifts or the beach cleaning you have plenty of time to relax and recharge. During the day, you can go swimming, lay in the hammocks, play cards, read or engage in conversations with the locals who work for the project. At weekends there usually are excursions by boat to the near Pacuare Reserve where you can spot birds, monkeys, snakes, frogs or sloths. All the local guides who work for the project used to be poachers before that. Now they help to save the turtles. And throughout the years, many other projects like this started along the beaches of Costa Rica, the whole caribbean and the pacific coasts of the americas. During those 10 years between my two stays, the turtle population improved and some species made it from the critically endangered to the endangered list. So you see, volunteer work helps but it takes a long time and the turtles still need all our help to get off all of those endangered lists for good. How can we help from here? You can either book your stay at La Tortuga Felix now(or some other turtle project from LAST/Widecast for example) or start doing what you can from home to help save our oceans. One big help is to strictly recycle, to reduce or even better refuse to use plastic. You don’t need plastic straws, to-go cups or plastic bags from the mall. Just bring your own reusable cup/mug to get to-go coffee, bring your own reusable bag for groceries shopping and if you cannot exist without straws, buy one made from stainless steel and carry it in your handbag. And of course, try to reduce your trash generally as much as possible up until you reach a zero waste lifestyle. In the food section, you can make the effort to check where your fish products are from and how they are produced. If you don’t want to live without fish, insist on only buying MSC labelled fish that comes from sustainable fishing. Also, check the WWF labels and endangered species list to check, which fish you should not eat at all. If you have read all this and made it up to here, don’t be shy, leave a comment and let me know who your are. And of course: thank you for helping to save our oceans and all life within.
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How to igloo!Have you ever slept in an igloo? Ever since last weekend, I can answer this question with a big fat yes. Being Swiss, I am used to mountains and snow and all that. But putting on snowshoes, trekking through thick powdery snow and building an igloo to sleep in was new to me. If you ask me about my experience with the snowshoes… well, that was not my favourite part of the weekend. I don’t like the sticks you need to balance (I never liked them when skiing as well) and I certainly do not have the stamina to go uphill with snowshoes and a backpack that is half my weight. As a dancer, I can easily dance 5 hours in a row, but snowshoe trekking is something else. But aside from all that, the weekend was as awesome as it could get. Once you picked out a place to set up your igloos, you need to prepare the ground. You will need one round shape per igloo (size depends on how many people will sleep in it) and a square field where you will cut out the bricks for the walls. Yes, you read right, you cut them out., with a saw. I too thought that this will not be possible, but once you firmly stomped down all the snow in that square, that was actually really easy and the bricks hold together pretty firmly. And then it begins. You cut out the bricks, each the same size and thickness and then you start building the igloo, round by round, slightly leaning the bricks inside until you reach the top. Before you arrive at the top, the guys inside the igloo need a shovel to dig their way down and out of the igloo and to make the entrance at the same time. We took some breaks in between and had lunch and snacks etc, but I guess, the 2 igloos took around 3-4hours in total to be ready. We decorated the igloos as well with roofs over the entrance and even house numbers, just for fun. And we used the area where we cut out the bricks to make a couch and guard it from the wind with a wall made of more bricks. Then, someone had to go into the igloo to prepare the sleeping area, to lay out the plastic blanket and arrange the inflatable sleeping mats on it, while the others handed that stuff inside. Check out the interior pictures in the gallery below. Building an igloo is a lot of fun, but also hard work. I could feel every muscle the next day. We calculated that we moved around over 2.5 tons of snow for those 2 igloos, the couch and the kitchen area. Not the worst kind of sports. When all was done, we made a fire in our living room made of snow (that actually did not melt down from the fire as many feared) and started cooking dinner… the scenery was awesome, fire, snow, stars and the full moon. It could not have been more perfect. Wasn’t it cold outside and inside the igloo? Well, we were lucky to have the perfect weekend. Sunny, almost no wind and a full moon. With the sun, it felt like 15 degrees (celsius), when it was only around 5-6 in reality. Inside the igloo you have around 2-3 degrees, but it warms up a little with the people inside. Not one minute during that weekend did I feel cold. That was surprising. I even packed way to much because I feared I would be cold. You have to be prepared with the right gear though. Long thermal underwear is a must, and a thick inflatable mat to sleep on is also helpful. Make sure you use a waterproof coat if it isn’t waterproof itself. And of course, your sleeping bag should be suitable for cold temperatures. I was lucky and could use my dear friends comfort -50 degrees sleeping bag… All that was cold during the night was my nose. Sleeping in an igloo is not much different then sleeping in a tent. Only the entrance is a little more tricky, as you have to crawl in (and out) on your back, then stand up and climb the half meter to the platform where you sleep on. The igloo walls dampen the sounds from the outside, but the inside noise seems louder than usual, so bring earplugs if you are sensitive about noises during the night. The morning after is great, when it starts to get brighter outside, the light shimmers blueishly through the igloo walls and the snow. And the sunset view on the mountain when there is absolute nobody else present but you is priceless… So, when will you go and build an igloo? Dancing in RussiaUnless you are thinking about Ballet, Russia would not be the first country coming to mind when you think about dancing. At least once a year I travel somewhere, where I have not been before. This year, I decided that this would be Russia. So, my friend and I decided to hit the dance floor in Moscow and extend our stay there to see the city a little bit. With her, I had the perfect travel buddy, since she was born and raised in Moscow and I was looking forward to her inside tips to this fascinating city. Our main goal was the Kizomba Festival that took place in this old but huge Hotel (Cosmos Hotel) that has been built for the olympic games long long ago. But more of that later, first I need to tell you about the city. The first days we stayed in little Hotel in walking distance to the red square. Ok, if you know me, everything is in walking distance as I like to explore cities by foot. But this was really only a few minutes away. So of course, the red square was our first stop. This square is famous around the world, everybody has seen pictures of it, the basilica, the museums, the Kremlin… Arriving at the square, I was surprised to see it mostly closed down because of some festivities t come at the weekend. So it was hard to admire the full beauty of that huge square. The Basilica with these amazingly crafted onion towers and the voluptuously decorated and gold plated interior was one of my highlights. I am not really religious, but I love visiting churches for their architecture and spacious inside features. And here in Moscow you have all the orthodox churches, something I have not been able to see from close up yet. The Kremlin on the other hand was a little disappointing. I expected it to be a lot bigger than it actually was and the 2 modern government buildings in the middle just don’t fit the scenery at all. Don’t get me wrong, it is still amazing, but of course they don’t let you visit the really interesting stuff. And some parts were closed down toto some ministers from Israel visiting the city. Having a local with me there was great fun. She pointed out interesting facts and of course knew the culinary hot spots in town. But the most fun was hearing her say „oh that is new“ many times a day. Moscow is a city on the move, it changes a lot. She is there every year but every year, things look different. At the end of our travels, even I once had to state „oh that is new“, when the scenery at the metro entrance we usually walked by changed over night completely. You could spend days in Moscow just by visiting churches and museums and parks. There are so many of all of them. And there is so much interesting background to most of them. The (today existing) christ the savior cathedral for example was built where there was a monastery that has been torn down to build the palace of the soviet under Stalin. Then that building was torn down and they built a public pool and then in 1995 they started to build what is known now as the central cathedral of orthodox religion and the tallest orthodox church in the world. And an amazingly beautiful one as well. Enter from a bridge across the Moskva river for the best views. Next to that bridge by the way, on a little island in the river, is a little restaurant run by the Streak Institute that I highly recommend. You can sit on the rooftop terrace with direct view to the cathedral. Great Food and drinks and sunset views! (Link on the tips page.) But how is life in Russia as a european? The hardest of course is the language. While I love languages and speak a decent amount of them, russian is not one of it. And the cyrillic writing is challenging. I tried to learn ist as much as I could. You know some letters are the same, but have a completely different meaning. A restaurant for example is a ресторан. At the end of our trip, I even tried to order in russian… well they understood I think, but it was surely far from being good. As I said in the beginning. We went to Moscow to dance Kizomba. Kizomba is an african dance. It is usually called the „african tango“ because of the similar leading technique. It is a very close and sensual dance, so not something that comes to mind first thing when thinking of Russia. There was a festival in Hoel Cosmos, 3 days of workshops, parties , etc. The level of dancing was very good, but for european girls, it is not easy to get many dances there, since the girl/guy ratio is about 80/20. It was great fun anyway. Hotel Cosmos, as I stated before, was built for the olympic games in Moscow in the seventies. It is one of the biggest hotels in Russia and Europe. It still has this seventies soviet charm. Our room for example had a very ancient radio built in (check the pictures). But the location was nice, next to the Metro station VDNH. There is also the cosmonaut museum and the VDNH Park. The park was built with many pavilions as a huge exhibition space. On 520 acres, you find museums, roller coasters, botanical gardens and much more. You can easily spend the whole day in the park and still not see all of it. We had hours of fun just sitting on the pink snail figures behind the space shuttle… Another nice park is the well known Gorky park. If you know a little bit of rock music, you might know the song „Wind of change“ by the Scorpions. This song was in my head the whole time in Moscow and still now when writing this. One of the main lines in the song is „follow the Moskva, down to Gorky park“. I recommend you to do this, not only because of the song, but because Moscow built a beautiful promenade along the Moskva river all the way down to Gorky park. There are little bistros, museums, huge statues and water fountains. And of course, Gorky Park is gorgeous. It was the first park, built in Moscow in 1927 and it is 1.2 km2 big. It houses ponds, fountains, museums, art exhibitions and restaurants. But what to do when the weather is bad? We were there in may, so it was not extremely warm yet. And we had a fair amount of rain on some days. But since one of the attractions in Moscow is underground, you can even go sightseeing during rain. Just buy a day ticket for the metro and take all the metro lines in the center. Get out at every station and check the very spacious and beautifully artistic metro stations. But maybe not do it during rush hour like we did… So all in all, I loved Moscow and I can only recommend to go through all that VISA paperworks to see and experience that beautiful city. |
about me ...I am a swiss photographer (www.sustainable.photography), a travel, wildlife, volunteer and outdoors addict who cares about zero waste, the environment and simply our planet.
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