The Quest To Save Some Turtles - Part I: It's the journey, not the destination.

You know that I've had internet difficulties, so these next three posts go back in time a bit.  The end of August is Trinidad & Tobago's Independence Day, so we were given a 3 day weekend to celebrate.  Looking to take advantage of a little time off, a pack of my fellow teachers and I took the time to get away for the weekend and do some exploring.

One of the things to do in TT is watching the leather back turtles lay their eggs and then after a couple months, help any misguided turtle hatchlings back to the ocean.  The turtles lay their eggs in the sand along the northern and eastern coast in April and May and the hatchlings come out in July and August.  Being the very end of August, we were told by some of the local teachers that we wouldn't find any hatchlings.  Even if that were the case, we all wanted to get out of dodge for a bit and see some new scenery.

There were 11 of us going for this two day excursion - leaving Saturday morning and returning Sunday afternoon.  Kate and Aaron left before the rest of us because they wanted to run some errands before leaving.  The rest of us (Ginger & Charlie, Mark & Rebekah, Nick & Gina and their girls, and me) were going to go up as a convoy.  Nick, Gina and the girls piled into their car and the rest of us piled into Mark's car.  I guess two cars isn't really a convoy, but we followed each other nonetheless.  We were ready for our adventure to begin.  I say that now, knowing that truer words could not be spoken.

As I mentioned in a previous post, there are driving challenges in this country.  Roads are not always in the best of shape.  Drivers are not always the most courteous.  Because of this, Mark decided to lead since he had been here for a year and had a better feel for the roads and directions.

We were driving along and we approach a single pass bridge (ie - a bridge that is only the width of one automobile) and as we get on it, we see a cargo truck approaching the bridge from the other side.  This truck was not on the bridge when we first entered the bridge, but it did not appear that it was slowing down at all.  So Mark put the car in reverse and started backing up.  Nick was not immediately on our tail so we were able to get almost all the way off the bridge, but the front of the car was still positioned on the bridge.  At this point, the truck was halfway over the bridge and still not really slowing down...that is until he started driving up on top of the hood of Mark's car.

It all happened in slow motion.  Rebekah, who was in the front seat, was actually talking to her grandmother as all of this was going down.  She started yelling that the truck wasn't going to stop and we all jerked forward from the impact and then back again when we were stopped by hitting Nick & Gina's car.  The truck finally came to a standstill approximately a foot from smashing into the windshield.  But as you can see from the picture of the aftermath, it was on top of the hood of the car.

Once we came to a halt, Mark sat there for a second in a bit of shock.  Rebekah, who is a Trini, got out of the car and started yelling at the driver, and I got out and ran back to Nick's car to make sure that they and the kids were ok (which they were).

Traffic started backing up on both sides of the bridge and people were milling about trying to figure out what happened and making sure that everyone was all right.  The truck driver backed up a bit to get off our car and we backed up to get off the road and get out of the traffic's way.  The truck driver pulled forward a bit and Nick ran and got his insurance information.  Then surprisingly, the truck drove off.  Rebekah called the police, who are not the most expedient people in the country, and i called Kate and Aaron to fill them in on the situation.  They were already checked into the guest house and were about 2 km from Toco Beach, which is about another 45 minutes past where we were going and is supposed to be a quite beautiful beach.  They turned around and started heading back to the guesthouse to wait for us and see how they could help out.

After a bit, it was decided that Nick, Gina, their girls, and Ginger would head up to the guesthouse so at least the little ones could still make it to see the turtles before dark.  Aaron was going to drive down and pick up the rest of us and the head of our security at the school, Mr. Ralph, was calling a wrecker to come and get the car and decided to come out to make sure that we were all ok.  Oh yeah, Mr. Ralph also got into an accident coming out to check on us.

A short while later, the driver of the truck came back in another car driven by his wife and some friends.  He piled our with a beer in hand and waited with us for the police to arrive.  While it was a little suspicious that he left the scene of the accident (we think he had too big a load in his truck and was scared about getting cited by the police), apparently it's no big deal if you kill time waiting for the police to show up to a motor vehicle accident drinking a beer.

The police showed up, stories were exchanged, reports were taken, and things started to calm down in general.  Aaron arrived and we all piled into his car to continue our quest.  Nothing was going to stop us from saving those turtles.