Turtle Love

Well I thought I best write to you all with news of turtle love. Congratulations! You all have an adopted turtle to love. You don´t need to donate money, or anything really, but Meagan and I thought that buying everyone a turtle was far better idea that just some stupid fluro pink Panama singlet top. Although I know that some people maybe gutted that they won´t get the top. Kathy particularly.

So you´re turtles name is Ashima. It´s from the book The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri (I know I must have spelt her name wrong), a wonderful read and a talented author (her book of short stories, Interpreter of Meladies, is as equally brilliant). Now this name, Ashima, means something very cool in Bengali, but I can´t remember what. Someone read the book and get back to me can you.

The Turtle is a female Green Sea Turtle that was tagged in 2004. If you want to check out the work of the organisation doing great work here and in other areas of the caribbean, check out www.cccturtle.org, I have a certificate and everything!

The past few days have been long with travel and rich with experiences. Last night I saw a female green turtle laying eggs and then waddle and puff back to the ocean. It would have been even better if it weren´t for the 6 israeli´s that would not shut up. Be especially annoying as it was all in deep gutteral hebrew.

This turtle was huge, about the size of two Svenos. No joke. For those of you in Tasmania you´ll realise how big this is and as I´m sure sveno will never read this, I´m sure I´m safe in saying so. Honestly, it was massive. Even the young gal from california beside me at one stage said... "Like, Oh my god! That thing is totally huge. Is that its head up there? No way! It must be like at least 400 pounds." Unfortunately God/Nature/Allah had not endowed her with 400 brain cells (or looks to make up for it, before some of you ask).

Aside from having to hang out with twits, the nature side of things was awesome. I got to look in as the turtle layed the eggs, covered it´s little nest, then covered and disguised it´s 2 metre wide body hole, before hauling her worn out and completely non-terrestrial self back to the ocean. Then today and yesterday on the boat rides, plus the canoe tour at 6am this morning; I saw... Crocodiles, Caimans, Toucans, Herons, Iguanas, a River Otter (!!!!!), Spider Monkeys, Howler Monkeys and my favourite, the three-toed sloth. No doubt I have forgotten some creature but this is all I could remember and I just had to write and tell you all. Especially the poor souls in a Tassie (or Victorian) winter right now.

Well, quite obviously everthing is just fine and dandy with me. Heading back up to Honduras right now, it´s going to take a couple of days. I´m looking forward to work and getting in the water. Hope everyone is well, all my love and cuddles.

Cap´n Turtle Courtney.

By myself

You know you are on the caribbean coat when they put coconut milk in the rice and beans. Well I'm in Costa Rica right now, traveling by myself. It's definitely a different feeling, but I was blessed enough to be traveling with a cool crew of people I met on the farm and we stuck together for about a week.

But first, the farm. It was hysterical at worst. Between making friends with the town drunks, milking cows with Ronald and hearing one of americas finest state that "I thought only the old school people spoke french in Canada" (there's actually a whole provence that tried for independence); i definitely laughed very very hard. a lot. deep laughs that were very very good for me. The farm was a great place and apparently i loved it so much i donated my trusty head lamp. bugger. But at least it is in a good place.

From the farm I set forth with Josh, Karissa y Francais. To the caribbean coast we went and a fun time we had. Free avocados dictated our diets, and whilst Francais tried to recruit people for his french separatist movement back in Quebec , the rest of us enjoyed the beautiful beaches and chilled out atmosphere. Puerto Viejo was great fun we rented bikes (francais crashed his, and nearly had the rest of us die in laughter) and snorkeled a beautiful beach in Manzanillo.

After a few days on the coast we headed to Bocas del Toro for a few more days of relaxation, whilst francais tried to grow his army. We had a great time there on little Basimentos. Great food and any tropical island with 50 cent beers gets my vote of approval. the coco bread, pan dulces and cheap lifestyle was a welcome retreat from Costa Ricas stupid high prices. Damn gringos. We also saw strawberry poison dart frogs!! Unfortunately we heard news of MASSIVE development projects attempting to get underway on Bastimentos right now and i fear this little paradise will soon look like the big isla, isla colon or any other stretch of Costa Rican beach front property... over run with horrible trashy homes. The beaches there were gorgeous, but maybe the frogs won't last much longer; in vain irony to just how splendid an environ they wallow in.

So now i'm back in the land of high prices and really looking forward to tomorrow. I'm heading up to Tortugero a national park where a bunch of turtles come to nest each year. I will be one of many whitey touristas but it been is something i've been looking forward to for a while. I know meagan will really miss this bit, so i won't talk about it too much.

I've laughed a lot over the past few days and life on the road has been fun, but only a week before i meet up with Meagan again... and that i am looking forward to a lot. It was great to travel with Josh, Karrisa and Fran; but new adventures await in Honduras. I can't believe the new job opportunity. Sorry Alpal, you're right I'll be swimming in bath water whilst you are trotting to work each morning in more clothing than i have with me.

hope everyone is well. If you get the chance, buy, borrow, steal or loan out a great book called "three cups of tea" by greg mortenson and some other author dude, a brilliant read and idea in todays tough world with the "war on terrorism".

Back home again in IN

Crazy, exciting, and unexpected opportunities have come our way. The dive shop that we did our divemaster and assistant instructor has offered jobs on their live aboard boat the Utila Agressor! It is still all just sinking in as we prepare to start on August 25th. We will have some amazing work schedules. Courtney being on the boat for 5 weeks and off for 3 and mine being more flexible but something similiar maybe 4 on 4 off. Besides getting to dive everyday in the Caribbean we are planning to travel in our breaks. At the moment I am feeling like one lucky lady because I also got the opportunity to come home before work and visit with my family. I got to meet Kylee my new cousin (who is absolutely adorable) and road trip with family from California and Texas. We drove from Indiana to Wisconsin and for those of you who don't know Midwestern US geography it is a good haul. Well worth the journey to watch cousin Justin play in the collegiate summer league.

For the time being I'm soaking up Midwest life... a little slower, more humid, and more consumer driven than I remember (I swear malls are starting to surround my home). Naturally I've been taking advantage of the family garden and cooking all sorts of fresh food with the novel ingredients you can only get in the developed world. All I have left to do is get ready to go back to Honduras on the 21st. Hope everyone's summer/winter has been treating them well and everyone is taking a little time for themselves. Keep us posted by leaving a message, much love to all!

Scorpions and Hospitals

Well, you know how we usually write and say that well not much has really happened bla bla bla, well after the last blog we were walking through a park and i was stung by a Scorpion. Some how it was on my jacket right near my chest/heart area and i didn't see it when i went to unzip it a little. Damn it hurt. A real intense throbbing, deep ache and then swelling so as i couldn't move my finger. Thankfully it was just my finger. It was a big bugger too and I had no idea what to do. We took off for the nearby pharmacy which gave us directions to a nearby clinic. There, we were in and out in under an hour and a half. In that time I was registered, seen by a doctor, given two jabs, one in the butt and one in the arm, and handed a bunch of drugs. They treated me with spanglish speaking doctors and pharmacists.

The worst thing about it all was that when i was told i was going to have to have the injections we went to the pharmacy and Thought that one of the two hot young pharmaists was going to have to jab my butt, but luckily there was a nice little older nurse, and my ego is still intact (I write as if it was ever in danger).

At the end of it all I asked the lovely lady doctor where do i pay and it was all for free! The Australian and most definitely the American medical systems could learn a huge thing or two about efficiency, service quality and cost. I'm thankful this happened in Costa Rica.

And i'm okay, the drugs made me all weird (or just weirder i guess) and then i went to sleep.

So yeah, not much has been happening, just cruising around, safe and well. Hope the rest of you are just as well. Take care everyone, love to all

Hensley, when the hair starts falling from my head and accumulating on my back and shoulders in the density of your own body, or when Cleo lists you as one of Australia´s hottest young professionals, then i´ll listen to your advice about vanity and hair styles.

Wescombe, I think the fact that you are still talking about goon bags and trying to do your phD means that maybe i shouldn't listen to you at all, ever. And as for manning up? Unfortunately I've hand to punch or shove a bunch of weird guys in Nicaragua either grabing at meagan or our pockets. Meagan tries to kick them but her legs are too short. So that's where the angry rugby player is. Like the brilliant first 3 minute foul against fisher in 2000, i can still go from focused to overly angry in under 2 seconds.

love you both

The story of chocolate

We have been helping out on a chocolate farm lately, i personally would volunteer for a beer farm first but apparently they don't grow on trees around here. As such it is the elusive yellow or orange cacao pod that we have been hunting and wielding machetes at. Yes, they let us hve machetes. I think they actually give them out as first birthday presents around here. Although the farm we are at is very young and the first time they harvested the cacao pods this year they only gave the machetes to the boys and the girls had to follow behind picking up the pods and then carrying them in little sacks. ha ha ha brilliant!

The family we are staying with is great, very... rural and sweet. One of the brother, cousin dudes maybe/should be in Gero's blast program but you can always learn more about cows and good wood. We eat some brilliant meals of beans and rice, rice and beans and Gallo Pinto (a Costa Rican Meal of beans and rice) but it's kind of like Jane Franklin or camp, enough chile sauce (thai sweet chilli or Tapito) will fix anything. And, here in the land of meat lovers and fried food (I think KFC is a health food) they have this awesome veggie sauce everywhere. it is really good with rice and beans or rice and bean soup, or even gallo pinto.

No real plans for when we may leave yet or anything else but we'll be sure to let you know when and if we make our minds up. The farm is very relaxing and I need to practice my spanish and learn the making of chocolate if i am going to continue to eat so much of it.

well sorry it is short and sweet but best be off, take care

So we´re in Costa Rica!!!
Lot´s of stuff going on right now, especially as we head to the ends of our travels with just a month to go. We have two weeks planned volunteering on another farm, some diving, lots of hiking, some camping and probably some more bad chinese food. Last night they served the chop suey with wonder bread.

So the highlight since meagan last wrote was our week long stay at a little permaculture farm on Isla de Ometepe in Nicaragua. It was awesome. We ate really well. They had so many goodies it´s tough to talk about them, but fresh wholewheat bread, woodfired pizzas, honey, homemade salsas, nutella, tahini and a bunch of sweet treats. The chocolate cake was awesome. Needless to say, my slim toned diving physique (if you believe this your drunk) from Utila has wasted away and whenever we finish wherever we finish i´ll be needing a new pair of running shoes and a bit of time with them.

The farm is very very very tranqilo and the locals in the area son muy amable. The place was great, except for the fact that all this humidity is making most of our stuff get a a nice layer of mold on it... mmmmmm yummy! that definitely blows but what are you going to do about it hey?

We´re really looking forward to getting to our next farm and seeing what we can learn and offer and also looking forward to doing some good hiking in a few of the beautiful parks.

well, i best be off, take care all and stay in touch!

Many Thanks!

Thank you all for the kind birthday wishes! It was a fabulous one to say the least. We spent 5 days on Little Corn Island on the Carribean side of Nicaragua. We went diving, lazed on the beach, and enjoyed some peace and quiet. The ocean sent a gift which will most likely make an appearance in the slideshow. A gold lined sea goddess which is a tiny nudibranch we have been looking for the entire time we have been diving in the carribean. I was also treated to a lovely Thai meal and a glass of wine. It just doesn´t get much better than that for a birthday. Since the last blog we have been to the cities of Granada and Leon and stayed in the tranquil Reserva Miraflor. We stayed with a family that is a member of a organic farming cooperative supporting tourism. We arrived in the mountains and were astonished by the splendid quiet. All you could hear were birds, insects, and cows. After baking in the big cities the cool fresh air was a relief. We drank fresh roasted organic coffee and milk straight from the udder. Our mom prepared vegetarian dishes with eggs from the chickens, homemade cheese, and vegetables and herbs from their amazing gardens. The extended family that worked the small farm had ducks, chickens, cows, a deer, horses, organic coffee, fruits (white peaches, bananas), and vegetables (broccoli, carrots, herbs, the works). After asking what they fed each of the animals we discovered that everyone ate tortillas. I could have stayed forever but hopefully we will find more of those luxuries along the way. For now we are on Isla de Ometepe heading for a farm to lend a hand check out the area.

Hope all is well with everyone and thanks again for all the happy birthday´s it really made my day!