It’s already been two weeks since I got back from Costa Rica! Time flies when you’re restructuring your life! Before I talk about Costa Rica and the amazing things I got to do there, I first wanna say what a wonderful weekend I’ve had.
Friday night was the red dress run which benefits the Ronald McDonald house. My good friend, Kyla, invited me out and was nice enough to lend me a dress to run in! I must say I’ve never looked so manCHESTic. 
Saturday was a full day, spending most of it at the W where my friend Jamie organized an art show for her jewelry, my book Visions, and other awesome artists. I sold several books and met a lot of really cool people. But perhaps the most memorable part was using an old typewriter I found on craigslist to type out personalized haiku’s for people. Here are a couple. :)
Then, it was my first night of training as a Geeks Who Drink quizmaster. Those guys do SO much more than you’d think. It was hella fun and I got free food! Cha-Ching! I just hope we can make it work out with my schedule so I can really get into it.
I love weekends like this because they really fulfill my True Generalist needs: physical activity, artistic natures, socializing, promotion. Now I’ve got to work on something that doesn’t come so naturally to my Generalist side: consistency. And that’s the main theme for what I learned in Costa Rica.
Changing the Shade of Jade
I’ll be honest, Costa Rica was not everything I was hoping it would be. I did meet some cool people and do some really neat things, but it wasn’t the jam-packed awesomeness I’m used to when I travel. That being said, I don’t think it’s all Costa Rica’s fault. Along the way, I had a realization that I’ve been to 28 countries now, all 50 states, and I’ve had some pretty epic adventures. I might be getting a little jaded.
Being jaded doesn’t mean you’ve lost interest in life, it just means you need an overhaul. [tweet this]
I needed to reestablish my priorities and be willing to make sacrifices where I previously wasn’t ready to. Mostly, this revolves around relationships. Relationships are a difficult subject to talk about, mostly because everyone brings their own judgments to the table. I want to delve into this subject more deeply in the future, but it will be a slow process. The hardest part about blogging on the subject of relationships is that when you’re currently still in the dating world, it’s only a matter of time before you go on a date and hear, “Well on your blog, you said this.”
But rest assured it’s going to become a larger part of my life so you’ll definitely be hearing about it in the future. In the meantime, suffice it to say I’ve realized that creating a relationship I desire in my long term life is now more important to me than travel. I will go so far to say that I will no longer be making any more trips abroad unless they are with a group of people I care about. I’m more interested now in forming strong relationships with a consistent group of awesome individuals. Again don’t worry, there will still be plenty of posts on travel. I have years of experience putting it together and wish to relate that info to you.
Costa Rica: Overview of Awesome!
Now on to what you’ve been waiting for, the fun stuff! What did I truly love about Costa Rica! The Costa Rican coasts are meant mostly for drinking and surfing, but conservationism is a huge part of it too. Every week, hundreds of volunteers pay to walk miles and miles along the beach at night, scouring the sands for tracks of mother sea turtles laying eggs. Sea Turtles like the Green Turtle and Leather Backs are endangered and of their young, only 1 in a thousand ever make it to adulthood. This is why the mothers lay near 100 eggs at a time! However, those eggs are eaten by raccoons and poached by humans plus the newly hatched tortugitas are picked off by crabs and other sea life as they make their way into the ocean. This is why the conservation effort was started and now rangers dig up the eggs every night and move them to hatcheries. After the turtles hatch, they let them go a safe distance from the water and hope for the best.
I met Scott at the hostel I was staying at, Beds on Bohio, and he mentioned that someone was going on a tour around seven to see the turtles. We, along with a Canadian named Fred, decided we’d crash the party and see if we could see any turtles too. This is where the car really came in handy. It should’ve taken 15 minutes, but because of the roads, it took almost an hour to get there and there’s no way we would’ve made it on bikes or the bus. We found a ranger station and wandered out on the beach. We weren’t really supposed to be there but we lucked out and the ranger said we could join him on the beach quest.
And boy are we glad we did, we got to see a mother green turtle, who was HUUUUGE, burying her eggs in the sand. She slammed her giant shelled body back and forth as she packed the sand down over her eggs, then she violently turned her body back towards the ocean and with great effort, made her way back out to sea. I can’t imagine being so used to weightlessness, then suddenly you weigh a ton on dry land. She had to stop a couple times before she was in the water again. Here’s a really bad quality video of the momma turtle. We couldn’t use our lights, just the ranger’s red light, but you can still kind of get the idea.
We thought the fun was over, but no. After the volunteers dug up the eggs and placed
them in the hatchery, they found a group of younglings just hatched who were ready to go out to sea. They put them in a bucket and the three of us, the ranger, and dozens of tiny turtles GOT INTO MY CAR! We drove down the beach and with gloved hands, the ranger let us take the turtles out and place them on the beach. We had to keep our lights off because they follow the light towards the ocean. In fact, there was a couple of times I took out my phone and shined it off to the side and they would totally turn to go towards the light. I quickly noticed and turned the phone off. ;P I stayed down on that beach, warding off crabs until each and every one of my babies was in the ocean.
This was a wonderful experience and the start to a realization that I want more out of life back home.
Well aren’t I a verbose somebody. You’ll just have to wait for more updates on Costa Rica later this week. 
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Sounds like the Red Dress Run charity event happened all by itself with no help from the Hash House Harriers?
Sorry if I left out some credit due. It was really a last minute thing which I was lucky enough to be invited to and participate in. Thanks for helping put it on. I hope my post gets more people to participate next year.