{"id":4222,"date":"2016-03-13T07:37:34","date_gmt":"2016-03-13T13:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=4222"},"modified":"2016-03-13T07:39:06","modified_gmt":"2016-03-13T13:39:06","slug":"turtles-and-whales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=4222","title":{"rendered":"Turtles, whales, and cowboys!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m so glad that John came down for the weekend – we really had a good time. After dropping him off at the airport in the early afternoon on Sunday, I had the taxi driver take me to a local charro<\/em>, or rodeo. I was hoping to catch the women riders, who do some type of formation riding, but they weren’t on the program that day. Instead I watched bull and bronco riding, and bull and bronco roping. I couldn’t really stomach the bronco roping – much to violent for my taste – so I headed on home for a walk on the beach. I was glad that I went to the event, though. There definitely weren’t a lot of gringos there! I enjoyed seeing the Mexican cowboys in their fancy sombreros performing their rope tricks, and just seeing the whole community come out on a Sunday afternoon.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Rope<\/a>

Rope tricks<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Oops!\"<\/a>

Oops!<\/p><\/div>\n

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My last night in Vallarta, I was incredibly lucky and got to see two sea turtles (Olive Ridleys) laying eggs on the beach! I was walking along and saw one come out of the water. I and several bystanders followed her up the beach and watched for the next hour or so as she dug her nest in the sand and laid her eggs. Volunteers were on hand to collect the eggs; they take them to a nursery on the beach where they are protected from predators. After she was finished, she covered the hole and went back into the ocean.<\/p>\n

I left that scene feeling really lucky, then lo and behold, I saw another one laying eggs about five minutes up the beach! I ran back and got the volunteers, and we watched the mom return to the sea. I really can’t believe my good fortune to come across these two creatures!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Coming<\/a>

Coming out of ocean to lay her eggs<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Volunteers<\/a>

Volunteers gathering eggs<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Covering<\/a>

Covering her tracks<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Back<\/a>

Back to the ocean!<\/p><\/div>\n

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I was busy at work, as well. On Monday I paid a visit to the district attorney to discuss arrest cases, and Tuesday morning I attended a large breakfast meeting with 50 city officials (their monthly meeting). It was great to meet many of them in a relaxed setting.<\/span><\/p>\n

I returned to Guadalajara on Wednesday afternoon, so it was back to the grindstone in the office on Thursday. It is good to be home, though, with John and Flavia!<\/span><\/p>\n

The whale watching company sent photos from our trip last Saturday – here are three!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Mom<\/a>

Mom and baby<\/p><\/div>\n

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\"Baby<\/a>

Baby humpback learning to dive<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Mom<\/a>

Mom waving goodbye to us!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Click to see all my Puerto Vallarta photos<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m so glad that John came down for the weekend – we really had a good time. After dropping him off at the airport in the early afternoon on Sunday, I had the taxi driver take me to a local charro, or rodeo. I was hoping to catch the women riders, who do some type […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4222"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4222"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4245,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4222\/revisions\/4245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}