Kayaking & Sea Turtles

Las Peñitas, Nicaragua

On our last day at Barca de Oro, we decided to explore its surroundings a little bit more. Mac & I rented a kayak and made our way down the river that runs parallel to the ocean and is separated by Juan Venado Island. We started out at about 8:30am, but an hour into the journey, we could already feel the heat starting to beat down!

We were both thankful when we reached our desired destination – a turtle hatching area & nursery. After a brief walk through stalks of reeds and forests, we arrived on the beach. This area – Palo de Oro – is a wildlife refuge that also has several huts where interested guests can stay.

We were guided to the protected turtle nests and learned a little more about the laying and hatching process. From what we could understand (the guide only spoke Spanish), there are 4 different species of turtles that lay eggs at this beach. One of the four, Wiltora, had just layed eggs the previous night! According to the sign, there were 96 eggs! The expected hatching date is March 14, 2015.

Luckily for us, there just happened to be some baby turtles that had just hatched that morning!! They are kept by the nursery workers in a crate filled with sand during their first day, and then let out into the ocean at night. The reason for this is to prevent any predators from getting them.

After a quick tour of the 2 different guest houses, we were on our way back to Barca de Oro. One thing I should mention about Las Peñitas is the great difference in high and low tide. The beach area in front of the hotel can either be all sand, or 95% ocean depending on what time of day it is. When we left Barca, it was high tide. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this… By the time we returned from our kayaking adventure, it was low tide and we found ourselves quite beached. Nothing a few pushes and a lift across the sand can’t fix!

We had a bit of time before we had to catch the Chicken Bus back to Leon for our next adventure, so I spent it watching our noisy co-habitants of Barca! There were two of these bright green parrots, and if the sun was shining, they were warbling. They had an extensive vocabulary of sounds and notes, and I couldn’t believe how loud they were! Combined with the rooster that cockle-doodle-doo’d at 5:30am, it was quite the noisy place!

With the arrival of the Chicken Bus, our time at Las Peñitas had come to a close. From LP we took 4 (yes, FOUR) different Chicken Buses to our next destination: Esteli – a little remote town in the mountains of Nicaragua. It’s quite chilly here compared to the beaches & heat of Leon. It got down to 23C yesterday!! I even wore pants & a jacket! (Yes, you can all start rolling your eyes at me now…)

Chicken Bus: A converted school bus that provides transportation to neighbouring towns & cities throughout Central & South America. Though often very crowded, hot, and not the quickest option, they are extremely cheap & budget friendly. For your information: we took 4 buses from Las Penitas to Esteli (#1 to the bus station outside Leon, #2 to the bus terminal downtown Leon, #3 to outside Esteli, & #4 to the Esteli bus terminal). For 2 people, this whole trip cost 168C$ (~$6.50 USD) and took about 3.5 hours to travel 161km.