Human knots and nest excavations

Hi I am Rachel the seventh blogger!

Yesterday July 22nd, we awoke at 11am and had a delicious brunch. The food here is surprisingly delicious and healthy filled with beans, rice and pork! After brunch we had a team meeting and did a hilarious game of trying to pass an apple to one another down a line without using our hands! It got quite gross after a while once the apple fell on the floor and had bite marks on it! Haha! We also played a team building game called 'human knot' were we all held hands and tried to untangle ourselves without letting go.

Human knot!

In the afternoon we drove to Matura Beach and got the pleasure to excavate Leatherback Turtle nests, luckily it wasn't to hot yesterday so the sun didn't seem to harsh while digging. Excavating the nests was fun but very dirty work, we had to count how many eggs were rotten, undeveloped, yolk-less or dead. It was pretty disgusting every time I had found a rotten egg the smell was overpowering, but I could not help but to laugh when James while poking an egg to see if it was rotten, got yoke juice all over his face! After we had finished collecting the data of how many types of eggs were in the nests (each group did about ten nests) we all gathered back up in the truck and went back to the villa for dinner. Luckily we all got a chance to change so we didn't smell like rotten eggs while eating.

Oli (left) and Reon (right) excavating a turtle nest.

That night we went out to search for nesting turtles again. It started to rain lightly on and off on the beach and lighting was in the sky, although it was a rare night and we didn't find many turtles (my team found none - that was the first time that happened on our trip so far!) we still had fun running up and down the beach and playing the card game UNO during our break. (I won the first game!)

A baby iguana cooling himself in the ocean waves last night.

That night there seemed to be a brownout in the villa and there was no running water to take a shower with, but this morning the water came back on again and we all rushed to shower. (Some of us still smelled like the turtle eggs from the day before.) Now, after being showered and fresh and clean we are off to go to a nearby city to shop Sangre Grande. So far our trip as been swell what I love most about these fun loving teens that I am with is that even if we are sweaty, dirty and tired we still manage to keep up our good spirits and have fun no matter what!!