Thomas Verbeek

Review of AAMVECONA

Last week we arranged a visit to the San San Pond ...

Last week we arranged a visit to the San San Pond Sak wetlands with AAMVECONA. You can easily contact them by email but they only speak Spanish.
We chose to combine the manatee watching with an overnight stay in their bunkhouse, so we could also get to know the sea turtle conservation project. We arrived in the late afternoon and were taken by boat up the creek to the (very basic) bunkhouse. We cooked our own dinner and by 9 pm we were invited by one of the volunteers to join him on his night patrol of the beach to protect the nesting sea turtles from predators and poachers. We walked for three hours along the beach, saw many tracks but unfortunately didn't spot a nesting turtle. Still, it was a special experience to get to know the commitment of the volunteers. A bit disappointed we went to bed but early in the morning we were suddenly woken up by one of the volunteers with the news that some turtle eggs, which they protect behind a fence, had hatched. We could help release the baby turtles and watch them reaching the ocean. An hour later the two of us were brought to the viewing platform by one of the volunteers, where another volunteer had tied banana leaves to trees so they were hanging just above the water. This should attract the manatees but we still needed to be patient. It took more than two hours but eventually two manatees came to feed themselves. For about half an hour we had a perfect view on these amazing, extraordinary creatures.
We are so happy we did this tour and that we could contribute a bit to the great work of AAMVECONA and get to know their passionate volunteers. It helps a lot if your Spanish is good, sometimes we were 'lost in translation'. I'm sure we could have had much more interesting talks with all volunteers if our Spanish was better.