We Have to be Ashamed

Costa Rica is a beautiful country; it is a wonderful destination if someone wants to get away from big cities and be in a relaxing spot

Costa Rica has been known as a paradise. Its beautiful beaches that are international well-known, its great diversity of flora and fauna, its weather that makes your vacation quite comfortable, but not everything is what it seems. This small country differs a lot from the image the Costa Rica’s government wants to sell and from what ¨Ticos¨ sometimes show off.

Every year, in rainy season, there is a magnificent natural phenomenon at Ostinal Beach.  Hundreds of thousand sea turtles come to the shore to nest. Once at the beach, the turtles drag themselves, dig a nest in order to deposit the eggs, and then they return to the ocean. 

This natural process do not occur all year long; there are periods when the number of turtles increases significantly. Due to this, Ostinal is the only beach in the world where harvesting the eggs is permitted. However, people have abused, and over the past years this whole process has become a circus.

In September 2015, the number of people who went to the beach was surprising. People crowded the beach, and without any consideration or care. They walked along the shore when the turtles were dragging themselves or digging a nest. 

All this process was interrupted, a lot of sea turtles were disturbed and they returned to the sea without completing the nesting. 

Authorities are concerned about the situation, but the sad part is that we have not heard a solution for this problem.

How much longer do we need to understand that we are putting animals in danger, and if we do not do something about it, we will regret it.

Source:

http://www.ticotimes.net/2015/09/09/crowd-tourists-costa-rica-prevent-sea-turtles-nesting

This week I am quite excited because this coming Saturday I will be starting my photography courses at the university.

As I mentioned in the other entries, photography has been one of my biggest interests and now that I am about to start makes me feel motivated.

In two years from now I will be taking pictures as a professional photographer. My idea is to have another activity to do and to have my own business related to it. 

I really like landscape and urban photography, so in a long term future I will travel around the world capturing the beauty of our natural environment and the extraordinary things that human beings have built during centuries. 

In terms of my current job and career, of course that I am not planning to quit teaching. I like teaching english, and I will continue doing it. 

Another activity that makes me feel alive and active is exercising. This year I am into running and cycling a lot because any time soon I will participate in a duathlon competition. 

Next year if i have time, I will continue swimming, because someday I will love to participate in a triathlon. 

In my life there are a lot of projects that I would like to accomplish. The problem I have is that in some moments I have no time to do everything, especially when I want to do all at once, but I know that I have to be patient and step by step I will get things I want.  

This is a picture I took some weeks ago at Florencio del Castillo Highway

Sixaola: A place to remember

When I think about my childhood, I do not have a lot of memories, but what I do remember is the place we used to visit every vacation. 

My parents had a house in Sixaola located in Limon. My father worked as an engineer at Chiriquí Land Company, in Changuinola, which is near Sixaola and my mother had a bar and a small hotel there. 

During every school year we did not see our parents very often because we were studying in San José and they were working in Limon 

We used to live in Tibas because my parents had a house there. An aunt and my grandma were taking care of us while we were living there.  

That was the reason we usually went to Limon for vacation. Once there, we used to spend time with some other kids there. We would play with them all the time and we would go to the nearby beaches. 

When I was 9 years old, my mother decided to move to San José because she wanted to spend more time with us. My father could not do it because of his job, and they both left someone in charge of the family business. 

When my mother decided to move to San José, my aunt had to leave. It was really difficult to see my aunt leaving since she was taking care of us for so many years.

While my mother was living with us, she used to go to Sixaola frequently because she wanted to see my father and she wanted to know how the business was going. 

Nowadays, I do not go to Sixaola. The last time I went there was 3 years ago. It was like a time machine, I had a lot of flashbacks because It has not changed that much. 

Sixaola is not a nice place, I do not like it, but I surely have wonderful memories there.