Day 4 - Playa Naranjo

Nature.
Birds.
Mosquitoes.
The occasional WHIPTAIL SCORPION. (Just kidding. Ha ha.)
At first it's the sound of the wild and elusive Bayle laughing through the morning after the deafening knocks of her wake up call.
Then, it is the sound of the wildlife alarmingly close, if not in, our showers.
With that, we begin a new day.

We started off the day a little earlier than usual, piling into three cars and learning first hand the importance of four wheel drive. Driving there was hectic to say the least, but exciting.The fact that we had to drive periodically through running water that came up to the wheels of the car made it even more interesting. Diana and I even thought of a new roller coaster ride on the way there. Rough terrain road: Experience it now! We stopped briefly for breakfast and a quick hike where we were able to see a beautiful view of the ocean we were heading to. Later, after returning to the cars, we once again stopped to take a quick look at a mangrove estuary. Fun Fact: Did you know mangrove leaves taste salty? Because we do. Via licking. (OM NOM NOM NOM) :P




After arriving at Playa Naranjo an hour or so later, we made a beeline for the beach. After applying a vigorous amount of sunscreen. Because we're responsible. Or had the teachers telling us to do so with the consequence of painful and horrible blisters. Mainly the latter. The first thing that strikes you after passing the scorching sand is the incredible salinity of the water. The phrase, "Water water everywhere, yet not a drop to drink" has begun to make sense. The second thing is the absolute power of the waves. Every crash sounds like thunder with waves pulling you into the next big crest. After swimming for the first few hours, some took on surfing. And by took on, I mean got on a board for about 5 seconds before getting completely wiped out. To our knowledge Katie was the only one who was able to successfully stand up and surf (Go Katie!).

We ate lunch and then split into two groups based on what we wanted to do next. Jeff took some for a crocodile search, while others continued surfing lessons. The crocodile search was successful--we ended up seeing a 15 feet crocodile from a safe distance. Along the way, we also noticed other animals, most abundantly, exotically colored crabs. Meanwhile, surfing was going well, to the best of our knowledge, since none of tonight's bloggers were in that group.

For dinner we ate pasta and then waited till dark to search for nesting sea turtles. Unfortunately, none were found. :( But a bird was grabbed from the sand by the very talented Jeff. Finally, we trekked back to the camping ground where we proceeded to drive home in the dark. (Whoo!)

Overall, today was a cooler day, both literally and figuratively seeing as the water did mellow out the heat a lot. We returned to find gifts left by Rachel and Andrew, the researchers that had organized the experiments we had participated in the last few days, which was incredibly sweet of them. :) After such a long day we hope this blog post finds you all well and not panicking. We are off to now take long showers and scrape the sand and salt off ourselves. Because my god. There's a lot of it. :P

Have a great night! Aparna Pal, Diana Liao, and Diane Kuai

P.S. Check out other photos on the link :-)