Were back

We had a really great time at the beach but are glad to be back home with the kids. I took a few pictures of the countryside while driving. Some of you might not know that there are mountains right outside of Guadalajara. It is a really beautiful drive. The mountains are increadible but they do make the trip twice as long!

There is a ton of forestation that we drove though. I didn't get pictures of them but we also drove by a ton of banana trees, mango trees, and coconut palms.

Here is a picture looking out of our room. It was a really pretty view. The weather cooperated a little bit. It rained all three days that we were there but it didn't keep us from getting into the ocean - that is until the lightning arrived. I mentioned it earlier in another post but it was an all-inclusive hotel. Which means all meals etc are included. This restaurant is a reservation only restaurant. There are only about 6 tables and two reservations per table - 6:30 or 8:30. We choose the later apt since we didn't have lunch till 3. Right after this picture was taken I noticed something really big moving on the beach just right on the other side of the red wall. It was a sea turtle!

Right now is the time that the moms come onto shore (at night) and lay their eggs. They dig a hole in the sand and lay around 100 eggs at a time. Then they cover them up and head back to the ocean. The eggs take about 1 1/2 months to hatch. These sea turtles don't have a very good chance of survival. They are highly protected. Infact there were 3 or 4 night guards at our resort that all they did was work the graveyard shift and watch for turtles. Two guards were protecting her. They made sure that no one took pictures of her while she was in the process of laying her eggs. They said she could get scared and head back to the ocean before finishing. They also guarded the eggs. They called a marine biologist who later came and picked up the eggs to take them to a protected area to hatch (check out my posts from last November - there you will see our family releasing the baby turtles into the ocean). The guard actually had to move one of the chairs you see behind us because that was where she wanted to lay her eggs. Even with human intervention they only have a 95% change of living until adulthood. The waiter we had that evening told us that often when you are in restaurants in Vallarta they will quietly offer you the eggs and turtle meat. He said the eggs cost $10. He didn't say how much the meat was worth.
We foud out the next day that if you get caught eating one of the turtle eggs you get one year in jail per egg. If you get caught eating the meat you get 5 years. They allowed us to take pictures of her when she was heading back to the ocean.
Cory was taking a picture of me standing behind her and the guard told me that I could touch her. Notice the guard is holding a clip board. They monitor everything, what time she arrived on land, how long it took her to lay the eggs, and what time she went back into the ocean. On Wed we got to meet up with Kris and Barb Smith (my coordinators when I was in AIM and really good friends) and Jeff and Stacy Smith (Cory's coworker at Sunset and really good friends). We had a really good time with them. The guys went deep sea fishing in the morning while the women went shopping in town. Then we all met back up at the resort where they bought day passes and we got to spend some time at the beach and then in the pool. It was a lot of fun.