Road Trip, Part 2

Look! Here is my baby turtle friend less than 2 minutes old! who erupted to the top of the sand from it's nest with 60 or so of it's brothers and sisters. Sh/e is ready to head for the ocean at this very moment but the turtle protection project where we found her will keep her for a day so they can release her tomorrow night with several hundred others at a time for a higher success rate. We were so fortunate to witness her hatching.

The short story is that during our drive down 150 mile the magical Michoacan coast we happened on a turtle ecology project. There is literally nothing on this coast and after several tries we were able to locate someone to rent us a cabana on a remote beach nearby. No hot water and only one light. Literally the middle of nowhere. We couldn't find a restaurant for lunch but met some Canadians in a bus-sized rig who took pity on us and fed us dinner in exchange for driving them to the nighttime turtle monitoring project.

Saturday night was a full moon when we witnessed a female lay about 75 eggs, bury them and then return to the ocean. The employees of the turtle project tagged her, then collected the eggs and brought them back to the station to bury them where they will emerge 45 days later.
She is a black turtle, one of up to about 60 a night who lumber out of the ocean during this season to lay their eggs. They come twice a year, leaving distinctive tracks in the night in the sand.




Today, Sunday, we left early and continued down the coast to Zihuatanejo. We fell in love with "Zihuat" and plan to stay a few more nights as we explore this laid back beach town. It is also nice to have hot water, cable TV, a cell phone, internet access and an air conditioner. So much for the simple life.

I want to take a moment to retract some of what what I said in my last post about Puerto Vallarta. The last evening we were there we happened on the southern part of the city, known as "Zona Romantica" where we finally felt at home. We would definitely come back to this area for a longer stay, avoiding the more touristy central city. We enjoyed a margarita in the sand watching the fishing boats and the sunset.