Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
but there are also a few 42- and 43-foot boats. Expect to pay about $2,100 per
person for two people on a two-day/three-night fishing package on a 28-foot
boat. Most packages include food and drink, accommodations, boat and captain,
gear, and transfers to and from the Guatemala City airport. Anglers often spend
their last night in Antigua or Guatemala City.
If you're traveling to the Monterrico-Hawaii area between June and December,
you might have the opportunity to witness a sea turtle coming ashore to lay its
eggs or watch baby sea turtles making their maiden voyage out to sea.
Turtle nesting peaks during August and September, when you might be able
to catch a large leatherback
(baule)
or the smaller olive ridley
(parlama)
coming
ashore to lay eggs. Unfortunately, locals are also on the lookout for egg-laying
sea turtles to snatch up the eggs and sell them, but under an agreement with the
CECON monitoring station at Monterrico and ARCAS in Hawaii, they donate
part of their stash toward conservation efforts. Your best bet for seeing a nesting
turtle is to go with one of the CECON-trained guides or volunteer with ARCAS.
Volunteers are welcome at both stations. Among the duties are the collection
ofturtleeggsafterthemothershavecomeashoreandmovingthemtoaprotected
nesting site, where they are reburied and allowed to hatch. Typical incubation
periods for olive ridley eggs is 50 days, 72 for leatherbacks. After a few days
in a holding pen, the young turtles are released, either at sunrise or sunset, and
make their way across the sand and into the ocean. As the young turtles scamper
acrossthesand,theyarebeingimprintedwiththeuniquedetailsofthebeachand
its sand, where they will return and nest when they are adults. All this assumes
they make it to adulthood, a big assumption when taking into account that only
one turtle in 100 makes it to adulthood. Sea turtles are threatened not just by the
collection of their eggs but also by fishing activities, where they often end up in
nets, and sea pollution. Plastic bags, for example, are often mistaken for jellyfish
by hungry sea turtles.
The CECON station at Monterrico (
www.visitmonterrico.com
) releases about
5,000 sea turtle hatchlings per year. If you're there on a Saturday night between
September and February, don't miss the sunset sea turtle race sponsored by the
CECON turtle hatchery. For just a $2 donation, you can pick a winner from a
batch of recently hatched baby sea turtles. Set it at the starting line and wait for
the “go” signal before watching it make its dash across the sand and into the sea.
If your turtle is the first to make it across a string near the waterline, you'll win
