la coronilla

about a week ago now, i left montevideo and headed up the coast to la coronilla, the town that brad has been volunteering in for the past few months. [he's working with an NGO called karumbe that researches juvenile sea turtles who forage in the algae/seagrass beds in the area during the summer. pretty cool, really.] of course, it's really good to see brad again, even if this time it's only for about ten days and then ... it could be thanksgiving until i see him again (but no more thinking about that one).

so i arrived in the midst of the "olimpiada tortuga" - a weekend thing the NGO was doing for all the local kids to find my boyfriend dressed up like a turtle (for more on that one, talk to him about carnaval), and was thrown in the next day to help "lead" the group through a treasure hunt thing. haha. let me just say that kids speak quickly and they are hard to understand. but i did enjoy running through the streets of coronilla singing our team's song (we were tortuga verde) and attempting to talk to the kids.



[our team drawing a map of where all the turtles are born, live, et cetera]


after the olimpiadas finished up, we had a free afternoon, so brad and i went up to brasil (just to the border town (chuy) – no stamp for the passport ... sad) so i could buy havaianas. hooray! i paid about $7 and they're like $30 apparently in the states. chuy's your pretty typical border town, except that unlike nogales, there isn't even a fence. you just cross the road and you're in brasil!

la coronilla is gorgeous. the town is adorable and the beaches are beautiful. gorgeous sand dunes and ... yea, really, really beautiful.







the next day, i went with brad and some other volunteers on a capture. the basic idea is to use nets to capture juveniles, collect basic data about the turtle, tag it, and let it go. i was really excited because i've never actually seen a sea turtle before ...





the one we caught was so small (for a sea turtle, only about four kilos) and ... yea so cute and ... it was great. i even got to hold her!

i'm glad i got out here to see where brad has been living and to help out with some of the stuff he's been doing.