Whilst strolling down main street Pto. Escondido I saw a sign in the tourist office saying "Liberacion de Tortugas, 17.20". I had some wild visions of wearing my Che Guevara t-shirt, donning a PLO scarf and breaking into a turtle sweatshop and freeing some repressed turtles. It turned out to be slightly less dramatic, but all the more impressive.
A group of volunteers camp out on the beaches north of Pto. Escondido and every night when the turtles come ashore and deposit their eggs, the guys dig up the eggs and take them to a safe enclosed part of the beach. When the eggs hatch they put the ickle baby turtles together and release them all at the same time.
I got a truck down to the beach at sunset and found the camp. There were only a few other people present and there was literally a bucket of baby turtles on the sand. So we all picked up two handfuls of turtles and brought them down to within about 3 meters of the water's edge. It was like the grand national gone wrong as the little feckers used their not-suitable-for-the purpose flippers to tug themselves towards the water. When you are 3cm long, 3 meters is a long bloody way. Every so often a wave would come in and wash them back to where they had started. Sisyphus eat your heart out. A couple of the silly buggers even started frugging their way in the wrong direction, but luckily the hand of God (well I like to think that the turtles believe that) came down from above and pointed them in the right direction.
After about 20 minutes the first sprinters made it to the water's edge and started to disappear into the sunset. All very touching, until that is, one of the volunteers told us that only 5% survive...
Photos of puerto escondido and the turtles here
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