It’s approaching midnight as hundreds of anarchists gather at the edge of the surf at a beach in Acapulco, Mexico. Monica Vallarino urges the crowd to part in half. She’s holding dozens of Gulf sea turtle hatchlings in a plastic bowl. It’s time to release them to the sea.

It’s a crucial moment in their lives, she explains. She has protected them from poachers and prey, and shortened their trek by carrying them just 10 feet from the undulating waves lapping the shore.

The turtles must feel their way toward freedom so that they can return in 10 years to lay their own eggs on the same beach where they were born.

It’s loud. And chaotic. “No lights!” she begs. It’s far from ideal, having a large group amassed to witness this pivotal journey. But Vallarino needs funds that the anarchists are helping supply. She has tirelessly defended baby turtles for 25 years against others in the community who steal the eggs to eat or sell as aphrodisiacs.

The government won’t help. And donations are at a trickle. The anarchists have rented her property for a party during Anarchapulco, an annual event that draws thousands of free thinkers to Acapulco. They were able to buy tickets to the turtle party with crypto, a currency free from government intervention.

Just that morning, poachers had crept onto Vallarino’s beachfront property to snatch two entire nests—250 eggs—that an employee had collected for safekeeping. “He got careless,” Vallarino recounts. The thief also took the employee’s hat and sweater as he snoozed.

It could have been worse: Vallarino has had eggs stolen under threat of gun and machete. Sometimes the poachers make it to a nest before her. Sometimes the thieves take more than eggs. She has found sticks with long nails used to plunge deep into the skulls of a mother turtle. And she has found carcasses of the majestic creatures, butchered on the spot for meat.

The sky is dark, stars sparkle, and the moon is nearly full as the baby turtles scamper haphazardly toward the water. It’s a slow, meandering ritual that plays out over 10 minutes. Children of anarchists squat on the wet sand, urging the little ones along. Occasionally an anarchist scoops up a wayward hatchling to redirect it toward the ocean.

Vallarino says she likes the anarchists, because they care for animals. The anarchists profess adherence to the nonaggression principle, which asserts that aggression is inherently wrong.

Acapulco is kind of a lawless place. Once a thriving tourist mecca, it’s now considered one of the deadliest cities in the Western hemisphere because of its high murder rates. Corruption runs high and government institutions are weak in Mexico as a whole. Some would even call Mexico a narco-state, since organized crime has so deeply penetrated various levels of government. This port town on the Pacific Coast is, in many ways, a perfect yet imperfect place for anarchists to come together.