#18. or, my day with the turtles

  So, here's something a lot of people don't know about me. My first word ever was turtle. Now i'm trusting my mother on this one because while i was presumably there for the event, i cannot actually remember uttering the word for the first time. Apparently, some friends of my parents had some turtles for pets and i was somewhat enamoured with them. Anyways, i've always liked them and enjoy the times when turtles and i cross paths.

  Last week, we were on holidays in Puerto Vallarta. The resort we stayed at was in Banderas Bay. It's absolutely beautiful there. I hope to return some day. The beach in Banderas Bay goes on forever and it is one of the places where sea turtles come to lay their eggs. Because there is so much tourist traffic, there is a conservation effort going on where guys on quads travel up and down the beach and if a sea turtle lays her eggs there, they relocate the eggs to a sanctuary after the turtle returns to the ocean. This is a track left by a turtle that had come up to lay her eggs some time during the night.

 This is what the sanctuary looks like. It isn't much but it does the job.

    So there was one of these sanctuary's within walking direction either way from our resort. Apparently, if you are there when it happens, they will let you help move the baby turtles into the ocean. There was supposed to be a nest hatching the day after we left so i missed that one. I think i had missed one earlier in the week as well but i didn't know about it at that time. I am pretty sure they had released some because one day while i was walking on the beach i came across this little fellow.

  I saw a few of them on the beach that afternoon. I think they were probably the weaker ones that couldn't get out past the waves. Here is me fulfilling a long secret desire of mine to help a baby sea turtle make it into the ocean.

 That was surely one of the cool things that happened to me while we were on vacation. It is something i have always wanted to at least see and to be able to actually help a baby turtle out was an added bonus. Here is me with my fake Mexican beach turtle tattoo. (also pretty darned cool.)

(this picture was obviously early in the week, well before my awesome tan developed. Also, by the looks of the picture, probably after one of too many trips to the buffet.......i could have sworn i looked much cooler while this was actually happening?) Anyways, that was one of the happy accidents that happened on our vacation. Its funny how things turn out sometimes.

............oh,  If you ever travel to Mexico for holidays, a good rule of thumb is that if you do more than five shots of tequila while you are drinking, you are going to lose one of your vacation days.