Sea Turtles: Let's See If We Can See One!

It's turtle season on the Pacific coast of Southern Mexico. This means that around this time of the year sea turtles arrive on the beaches to lay their eggs, before going back to travel the great immensity of the world's oceans. Interestingly, they know exactly which beach to go to, the place where they themselves hatched, by recognizing the sand with their flippers.

While mentioning this may raise a number of popular talking points, such as protection of sea turtles, some people eating turtle eggs as an alleged aphrodisiac, or simply as a display of their impunity, as well as the other side of the story, where eggs are dug up in the name of protection, only to be released for the fun (and lucrative) tourist experience of releasing them. We didn't care about any of these things. All we wanted was to see a sea turtle, and for that we went to a secluded beach nearby to camp on.

Finding the beach was super easy. It only took us about half an hour on the motorcycle, including going down some dead-end roads and asking around. Once we got there, we got everything we could ever ask for: soft sand, hardly any insects, a nice ocean breeze, and plenty of driftwood to use as tables and benches and to make a huge bonfire. Some of the more interesting pieces also made great decorative art: you can tell me what these pieces look like to you in the illumination of the campfire. (Don't tell me you don't see the monkey queen and the lion cobra!)

For dinner we had potatoes, onions, and chile wrapped in tin foil and cooked on the embers of the fire, then melting cheese over them. Yum! Add the beer and the joint, and the evening was nearly perfect... except for turtles, which were the reason for going there in the first place. So once the moon rose, we started walking down the beach... right toward a turtle sanctuary, where we had been turned around from: Can't camp there. Okay.

It didn't take us long to find the first traces of turtles. Among the recognizable footprints and quad-tracks we noticed something unusual leading from the sea onto the high end of the beach, where it ended in a distinct hole. From there the tracks led back to the ocean. A turtle must have been here not long ago, and she probably laid her eggs in that hole.

Our curiosity ignited, we moved on, hoping not to miss the next one. On our way we passed several other such holes, most of which looked like they had been plundered. Egg shells lay strewn around everywhere, accompanied by a foul smell - and plenty of flies, which otherwise was unusual for the beach. Who could have done it? Probably not the "rescue teams", as they want to hatch the baby turtles for the tourist activity. But would anyone dig up turtle eggs and eat them straight from the sand hole? You bet! There were numerous paw prints suggesting that local dogs would probably fit this profile.

Our beach walk took us around one or two hours, and we found at least fifteen holes during this time. After a while it became clear that the first undisturbed hole was the exception, and that most of them been looted. So at one point when we saw an unraided one we decided to do our part and become proactive: First we moved the sand around, to make it look less like a hole. Then we created a fake one, and even added the turtle tracks by dragging footprints to and from the ocean. Could this work? A dog probably won't be fooled by it, but a human? Maybe...

Our walk took us deep into the turtle sanctuary, but that didn't mean we would actually encounter one. So eventually we headed back to our camp site, a bit disappointed, even though our adventure had been rich with cool experiences. And then, only about five minutes from our camp, we saw them: fresh turtle tracks, more recent than any other prints. And when we followed them up on the beach, the turtle was right there, getting just about finished laying her eggs.

We watched her from a distance at first, but it was clear that she didn't care one bit about us. Most of all, she was heading back into the ocean, so we accompanied her. She moved along relatively briskly, for a turtle at least. But once in the water, she took on an incredible speed and agility, and disappeared right away.

Is her offspring going to defy all the odds of becoming dog food? Are they going to be taken to a hatchery and released by some giddy tourists? Are they going to grow up in the ocean, and come back to this exact same spot to lay their own eggs? And is the place still going to be the same secluded beach it is today? So many factors, all outside our control. As for ourselves, I can only say it was a worthwhile excursion, with a spectacular highlight.