How good are sleep in's ?!!! We both woke up around 6am by our body clocks that are already so use to the early starts. It was nice to lie back down & continue sleeping for a couple of hours. We officially left our bed & hotel room just after 9am & made our way down to the restaurant on the beach side.
After breakfast we worked out in the sand with Phil & Nathalie doing a HIIT session on the beach followed by a swim. Then spent an hour handwashing all our clothes in the shower and hanging them over the balcony & furniture.
At 4pm Tom, Phil, Natalie, myself & 4 others from our group meet at the reception, climb into a taxi & drive 15 minutes to a natural lagoon. Inside this lagoon is many varieties of fish & lots of marine turtles that have been rescued locally after they have been found injured or accidentally caught by fisherman. The conservation organisation pay's more money to the fisherman to save them, than the locals will pay to eat them. The organisation then pays for their veterinary treatment & keeps them safely in the lagoon to create further funding & a unique animal experience. There appeared to be no unethical practices such as breeding them only for the purposes of tourism. They were absolutely gorgeous, even the injured ones! There was quite a few with cracked shell's that had been repaired, missing flippers and scars from trauma, all of which would have resulted in death, if not for this organisation.
We both thoroughly loved swimming with them, feeding them & cuddling the more confident & affectionate ones. They had no inhibitions about people swimming with them & they all looked very happy & healthy. They were so confident that they would swim between your legs & right next to you. You had to be very careful about your legs while swimming so you didn't kick them. They were quite curious about my hair & I was slightly concerned they would mistake it for kelp & try to eat it, thankfully they didn't, though a small one did get caught in it.
We've got some amazing underwater footage of us feeding them & swimming with them. Tom hopped out of the water before I did & managed to catch this beautiful moment on video, where i am sitting on a rock feeding a large brown one who moves in for a closer cuddle once I start tickling under its belly. It rests its flipper on my chest, puts its head on my shoulder & is very close to me, even allowing me to give it a kiss before it starts to move off again. We were told they were green sea turtles, though they didn't look as big or as green as I would have expected them to be. They were various shades of red & brown, some were really dark & they had beautiful patterns on their shells. We're so glad we did this. It was unbelievably magical, one of our all time favourite animal encounters & something we will always remember. I was the last one out of the lagoon, I wished I could have swam with them for hours. Unfortunately Tom was one of the first people out of the water, he was worried that he would get an ear infection and it was very deep. He was still able to interact with them while sitting on the steps.
We drove back to the hotel feeling very elated from our special experience. The sun was setting & we got the chance to drive through the villages & observe the local people cooking, singing, dancing & playing soccer in a big field. Sadly the infrastructure was very dismal, a lot of stone dwellings that were crumbling away & mud houses. We arrived back at the hotel around 6.30pm, had a shower & met our tour group at the restaurant for dinner. Tom & I ordered a massive seafood platter with lobster, bugs, prawns, octopus, calamari & 2 types of local fish. We were ecstatic to see the kitchen must of run out of giant prawns & had instead given us extra lobster, winning!
After this it was off to enjoy a hot shower & collapse onto our bed. Today was one of the best days we have had on this tour & while travelling!
- Alli
After breakfast we worked out in the sand with Phil & Nathalie doing a HIIT session on the beach followed by a swim. Then spent an hour handwashing all our clothes in the shower and hanging them over the balcony & furniture.
We refuse to pay the extortionate amount of US $1 per item to have our washing done. It also gives us an excuse to use the exotic smelling soap we locally bought while doing the spice tour. The rest of the day passes by slowly as we relax on the beach, go swimming, drink beer & eat pizza. It actually feels like were on holiday, from our holiday. It's nice to catch our breathe. The ATC overland truck tours are action packed.
At 4pm Tom, Phil, Natalie, myself & 4 others from our group meet at the reception, climb into a taxi & drive 15 minutes to a natural lagoon. Inside this lagoon is many varieties of fish & lots of marine turtles that have been rescued locally after they have been found injured or accidentally caught by fisherman. The conservation organisation pay's more money to the fisherman to save them, than the locals will pay to eat them. The organisation then pays for their veterinary treatment & keeps them safely in the lagoon to create further funding & a unique animal experience. There appeared to be no unethical practices such as breeding them only for the purposes of tourism. They were absolutely gorgeous, even the injured ones! There was quite a few with cracked shell's that had been repaired, missing flippers and scars from trauma, all of which would have resulted in death, if not for this organisation.
We both thoroughly loved swimming with them, feeding them & cuddling the more confident & affectionate ones. They had no inhibitions about people swimming with them & they all looked very happy & healthy. They were so confident that they would swim between your legs & right next to you. You had to be very careful about your legs while swimming so you didn't kick them. They were quite curious about my hair & I was slightly concerned they would mistake it for kelp & try to eat it, thankfully they didn't, though a small one did get caught in it.
We've got some amazing underwater footage of us feeding them & swimming with them. Tom hopped out of the water before I did & managed to catch this beautiful moment on video, where i am sitting on a rock feeding a large brown one who moves in for a closer cuddle once I start tickling under its belly. It rests its flipper on my chest, puts its head on my shoulder & is very close to me, even allowing me to give it a kiss before it starts to move off again. We were told they were green sea turtles, though they didn't look as big or as green as I would have expected them to be. They were various shades of red & brown, some were really dark & they had beautiful patterns on their shells. We're so glad we did this. It was unbelievably magical, one of our all time favourite animal encounters & something we will always remember. I was the last one out of the lagoon, I wished I could have swam with them for hours. Unfortunately Tom was one of the first people out of the water, he was worried that he would get an ear infection and it was very deep. He was still able to interact with them while sitting on the steps.
We drove back to the hotel feeling very elated from our special experience. The sun was setting & we got the chance to drive through the villages & observe the local people cooking, singing, dancing & playing soccer in a big field. Sadly the infrastructure was very dismal, a lot of stone dwellings that were crumbling away & mud houses. We arrived back at the hotel around 6.30pm, had a shower & met our tour group at the restaurant for dinner. Tom & I ordered a massive seafood platter with lobster, bugs, prawns, octopus, calamari & 2 types of local fish. We were ecstatic to see the kitchen must of run out of giant prawns & had instead given us extra lobster, winning!
After this it was off to enjoy a hot shower & collapse onto our bed. Today was one of the best days we have had on this tour & while travelling!
- Alli
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