Corals, mangroves, and tropical forests, that’s how we lived an unforgettable journey. Join us on this adventure, where we learned that there is so much we can do to help and so many things we need to stop doing to protect our planet… These 3 days taught us how to give back to The Earth a little bit of what she has given us! This MAAJICAL experience connected us to the paradise that is OUR EARTH and we had the pleasure to share it with our ally and ocean lover Claudia Bahamon, on the first anniversary of BeCla her inspiring and sustainable initiative.
DAY 1: Our journey began planting mangroves
We arrived to San Guaré, a natural reserve surrounded by the Caribbean Ocean and the tropical dry forest. This paradise is what we called the perfect balance between land, water and life.
We started by giving extra life to one of the most important ecosystems on the planet when planting baby mangroves.
Did you know they are the only species of trees in the world that can tolerate saltwater? They mark the transition between land and water along the most tropical coasts of the world, and are known as MAAJICAL trees because they are the nursery of the sea acting as refuge, feeding zones, and nesting area for different species. Mangrove forests are one of the most important line of defense against climate change, as they incredibly store 34 million tons of C02, up to 10 times more than terrestrial forests!
Experiencing the Maajical bioluminescent plankton
Already loving this trip, we continued our adventure embarking on a boat back to the reserve where we had some fun getting to know new friends and practicing some kayaking before our next magical experience: getting astonished by bioluminescent plankton.
Even though is a tiny organism, it has a huge purpose on earth as they produce more than half of our planet’s oxygen. These wonderers of the sea (as their name origin says) are microscopic organisms that emit a beautiful and rare light turning the sea into a sky full of stars. This bioluminescence serves as a protection mechanism against predators, and in the darkest places like the mangrove forests, they look like stardust in the water.
This is an incredible experience you must add to your bucket list when visiting this Colombian paradise with family or friends!
DAY 2: Beach clean up
Our mind, body and soul had a beautiful moment to connect with nature on our second day, when we had some early morning yoga and meditation!
After having a cleansing inside our bodies, it was time we did some cleansing outside, on the place that was happily having us. We took out everything that did not belong to the beach that surrounded the reserve.
This place is entirely natural and they are almost 0 waste; they have an eco-conscious culture and do not use plastic. But the ocean has an immense quantity of trash and plastic that travels through its waters and lands inside the mangroves; it gets deeply attached to the soil and endangers the ecosystem.
We have received so much from the earth for so long that is only fair to give it back a little bit, so we divided into kayaking, walking and boat riding groups and in just 2 hours we picked up 415 Kg = 914,918 Lb of trash. Imagine if every time you went to the beach, you did a little clean-up with friends, we could really have a huge positive impact.
DAY 3: Returning 4 turtles to the ocean!
We were very excited for this happy and lovely day; where we had the joy to return 4 adult turtles to the ocean, they were mistakenly captured by fishermen days before we got there.
Did you know only 1 out of every 1,000 turtles gets to an adult age? This is in part because of us humans. People loot their nests to eat their eggs, transform their nesting beaches into places for tourism, hunt them for consumption, remove their shells to sell them or use lots of plastic which result in the ocean and are eaten by these creatures and kills them.
Just by reducing single-use plastics, you will be a turtle conservation guardian!
We are doing the best we can to make a change and we hope you do too. If you are starting your sustainable journey, keep up! Even if it seems like a small action, you are having a huge positive impact on nature.
Tell your friends, the future of the ocean is our responsibility.
