Marine turtle Festival 2009
It was with great excitement that all the Expedition Member’s here at Punta Gruesa departed from base on Friday morning bound for Tulum and the annual Turtle Festival, a celebration of the end of the turtle nesting season.
After a long bus journey we arrived into Tulum with the midday heat. After spending 2 weeks cut off from the outside world, it took a while to settle into the routines of cosmopolitan life. Once at our hotel; which felt like a five star hotel to us because it was a tiled floor rather than a sand one, there was electricity and most importantly, hot running water and air con; we unpacked and went out for a lunch of meat and cold beverages.
First up on the agenda was an afternoon of festivities at the local culture center with activities including turtle tag, coloring in and a main stage with music, puppetry and interpretive dance, all turtle themed. All the children seem to have a great time, enjoying all of GVI’s games and activities.
Saturday morning started bright and early making our way down to Playa Pescadores for a beach clean. Once the beach was spotless we waited for the local children to turn up for a kite making workshop and turtle sand sculpture competition, which bought out the child in all of us.
The evening however was the main event. We arrived and were distributed around the arena to do our designated jobs. Those Spanish speakers among us worked together with the children who were to release the turtles, some looked after some Mexico City soap stars, others prepared the performance area while the rest of us acted as crowd control to protect the baby turtles as many parents were keen to get their children onto the beach to play with them.
The evening was filled with lights, fire, dancers, musicians and of course turtles.One of which was a giant lit up turtle which paraded along the beach and disappeared into the distance. The atmosphere from the crowd was one of happiness and excitement. All in all the whole event went well and a good time was had by all.
After a long bus journey we arrived into Tulum with the midday heat. After spending 2 weeks cut off from the outside world, it took a while to settle into the routines of cosmopolitan life. Once at our hotel; which felt like a five star hotel to us because it was a tiled floor rather than a sand one, there was electricity and most importantly, hot running water and air con; we unpacked and went out for a lunch of meat and cold beverages.
First up on the agenda was an afternoon of festivities at the local culture center with activities including turtle tag, coloring in and a main stage with music, puppetry and interpretive dance, all turtle themed. All the children seem to have a great time, enjoying all of GVI’s games and activities.
Saturday morning started bright and early making our way down to Playa Pescadores for a beach clean. Once the beach was spotless we waited for the local children to turn up for a kite making workshop and turtle sand sculpture competition, which bought out the child in all of us.
The evening however was the main event. We arrived and were distributed around the arena to do our designated jobs. Those Spanish speakers among us worked together with the children who were to release the turtles, some looked after some Mexico City soap stars, others prepared the performance area while the rest of us acted as crowd control to protect the baby turtles as many parents were keen to get their children onto the beach to play with them.
The evening was filled with lights, fire, dancers, musicians and of course turtles.One of which was a giant lit up turtle which paraded along the beach and disappeared into the distance. The atmosphere from the crowd was one of happiness and excitement. All in all the whole event went well and a good time was had by all.
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