Tortuga Sanctuary - Chiapas, Mexico
So great to volunteer and help out at the turtle sanctuary in Puerto Arista Chiapas. We met these awesome travelers @raclette_van who showed us the ropes on how to take care of the baby turtles and what we needed to do to record the hatchling numbers and transport them to the dark room to prep for release to the sea. Such a great experience and place. We also filled up a bag of trash the following day from walking on the beach-so there’s always something to do! They always need help so if you’re traveling by stop in and camp for the night and help with the tortugas!
That's it. We were off to explore Haines. By the time Saturday came around we had met most of the people that would be running the Half Marathon (we promised one or two of them shots!) -- there were 7 of them. We had checked out some cool hikes in and around Haines, gotten some solid glimpses of the surrounding peaks, and got a great view of the Perseid Meteor shower!
We showed up to the Sheldon Museum at 9am, got some coffee and breakfast sandwiches at the cafe across the street, picked up our shirts and made our way to our respective corners. The idea is runners trot to all of the totem poles around Haines... It was about an hour and a half wait till the first Half runners came through, and in that time, we had amassed mini shots of bourbon and fireball, a few locals scouting the front runners for us, and Candice had the great idea to load up some "eye of the tiger" and "the final countdown" loud as can be on the speaker. I also had the water Jerry Can out ready to spray down anyone or give them refreshment.
The runners all came by pretty close in time to each other, and they were all a bit too seriously into it to smash the shots, but a couple of them carried them to the end. They were stoked to have the music blasting and us yelling and cheering our faces off. After all the runners passed my checkpoint, Candice and I teamed up by the finish line to bring everyone in with some more music and excitement.
It was such a cool event and fun to be part of. We couldn't stick around for the rest of the day to celebrate with some of our new friends as we had to catch the ferry to Skagway -- that we just barely made on the standby list. And they sent us off with tons of baked goods that were leftovers from the finishers. A good way to spend a morning in Haines for sure.
Get out and Vounteer!