{"id":1973,"date":"2023-06-11T16:19:27","date_gmt":"2023-06-11T04:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backpackerswanderlust.com\/?p=1973"},"modified":"2024-10-08T21:18:53","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T08:18:53","slug":"lazy-days-volunteering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backpackerswanderlust.com\/lazy-days-volunteering\/","title":{"rendered":"Lazy Days Volunteering – Ostional, Costa Rica"},"content":{"rendered":"

Falling asleep on the beach<\/strong> and waking up at 6am to the sun rising<\/strong> is definitely a beautiful sight. Last night I decided I was too tired to walk home so just crashed at the volunteering hatchery. After being woken by the bright sunrise I snuck back into the house<\/strong>. I needed a couple extra hours sleep.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\"Ostional,\r\n

Today was fairly quiet after the busy night we had releasing baby turtles<\/strong>. So, I went down to the station after breakfast and chilled out for a while to use the WIFI and play some card games with the group. After lunch was a sea turtle ecology and biology<\/strong> talk lead by one of the older volunteers<\/a>, Sarah. We learned quite a lot especially about leatherbacks and their diet of Jellyfish<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n\"Ostional,\r\n

At 3pm I had hatchery shift<\/strong>. Though, as it was so crazy hot I decided to go swimming between checking on the turtles.<\/strong> Next it was time to head home for dinner and an early night<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n\"Ostional,\r\n

The next day\u00a0. .<\/h2>\r\n

Another day in the paradise of Playa <\/strong>Ostional<\/a>. Waking up around 8am I quickly had breakfast and went to my hatchery shift<\/strong>. \u00a0About thirty minutes in a couple leatherback babies<\/strong> appeared on the surface of the sand. We place them in a bucket and walked the little ones to the station. They will be released later at night when the tide is high and sand is cool<\/em>. \u00a0There was then a discussion led by Wade so we didn\u2019t have to return to the hatchery.<\/p>\r\n\"Ostional,\r\n

At the discussion we learned a lot about the work he does in regards to turtles, hummingbirds and salmon<\/strong>. It is pretty awesome how they capture hummingbirds- catching them in a trap, putting in a straight jacket to stop them flapping<\/em>. Also, because of their exceptionally high heart rate they need to be feed often. This is where you literally have to fly the hummingbird around the room\u00a0<\/strong>between your fingers\u00a0to convince them to eat. The rest of the afternoon was chill time. Everyone went swimming<\/strong>, dried off in the cabana, played cards and bonded.<\/p>\r\n\"Ostional,\r\n\r\n\"Ostional,\r\n

That evening I had night patrol<\/strong>. We walked 12kms<\/strong> along the beach searching for black and leatherback turtles<\/strong>, but to no success. Since my shift was from 7pm-12mid I was there for the release of the baby leatherbacks that surfaced earlier in the day<\/strong>. Though, unfortunately for some reason in Costa Rica<\/a> once it is past a certain time I just fall asleep wherever. So I was physically there just not mentally<\/em>. Unfortunately, after five hours of walking the beach, a small amount of sand made its way inside my shoes<\/strong>. This resulted in the bottom of both my feet\u00a0getting majorly blistered up<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n\"Ostional,\r\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Falling asleep on the beach and waking up at 6am to the sun rising is definitely a beautiful sight. Last night I decided I was too tired to walk home so just crashed at the volunteering hatchery. After being woken by the bright sunrise I snuck back into the house. I needed a couple extra […]\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,156,59],"tags":[136],"class_list":["post-1973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-costa-rica","category-topic-central-america","category-volunteering-abroad","tag-ostional"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backpackerswanderlust.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backpackerswanderlust.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backpackerswanderlust.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backpackerswanderlust.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backpackerswanderlust.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backpackerswanderlust.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backpackerswanderlust.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backpackerswanderlust.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backpackerswanderlust.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backpackerswanderlust.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}