An unexpected stay in San Ramon

As the last update ended with me telling you, I would not actually make it to the second half of my volunteer project... Instead I would come to end up staying with a Costa Rican family in a town called San Ramon...

Across the course of the weekdend Stef had been getting steadily more ill with a fever etc, eventually we decided it was best to head to the doctors. Despite the trip to the doctors on Saturday afternoon, by Sunday evening Stef wasn't in a good way, and by Monday morning (my deparature time) she was worse again.

I left Stef in the care of some of the other volunteers and headed with George by bus up to Punterenas to get the ferry to our next volunteer placement. About half an hour into the three hour journey I got a message from Stef saying she really wasn't well and had collapsed twice. I immediately made the decision to drop George off with the others in Punterenas and head back to San Ramon to make sure Stef was ok.

About 5hrs of buses later I arrived in San Ramon and headed straight to the hospital. Unfortunately the first doctor in Manuel Antonio had prescribed the wrong pills and although the shot he had prescribed had worked in the short term, it had quickly worn of. Stef had a chest and throat infection and needed bed rest to get back up to full strength.

Once in San Ramon I made the decision to stay with Stef until she was better and more accurately until she returned to England.

Whilst Stef got better her host mother, from the family she was staying with during her volunteer work, insisted we stayed with them.

Flory's house

Flory was our host mother and took care of us as though we were her own children. I don't think I've ever eaten so well in my life and I've definitely never had as many fresh fruit shakes. Flory baked cakes for a living and sold them to local bakeries... which ment delicious cake after each and every meal.. Also I think maybe Flory thought I looked undernourished from my time in the rainforest, as their were numerous mornings I ended up with at least two breakfasts. How I haven't gained ALOT of weight during this period I'll never know haha.

Flory, Stef and lots of fresh fruit (and a cake)

Stef and the raw ingredients of another fresh fruit shake

After my time working at Heliconias I was desperate to do some washing and everything was looking decidedly grubby... especially my trainers (all three pairs). Flory would not hear of us doing our own washing and waged her own personal war on my filthy trainers. As the below photo shows, Flory won the war and my trainers actually came back cleaner than when I purchased them

New shoes... no old clean shoes

San Ramon itself is a relatively small city about an hour or two outside of San Jose, mostly famous as an administrative capital with a large proportion of Government workers and a fair sized university to boot.

The view over San Ramon

One of the many busy streets of San Ramon

The Cathedral

And finally heres another photo for Mum, Dad, Nick, Gran and Gramps and anyone else who appreciates the wonder that is... Malta buses. Again this is Costa Rica, and more specifically, San Ramon's take on the malta bus.

Malta bus

Weekends away part 2... Manuel Antonio... Again

So after a fond farewell to all the guys up at Heliconias, it was time for me and George Breezy to head to the capital to meet up with the other volunteers, before heading on to Manuel Antonio the next morning. We'd managed to skip out a little early but still had to get a connecting bus to San Jose from Bijagua.

Knowing my wonderful use of Spanglish and what happened the last time I got a public bus unaided (the whole motorway central reservation incident) I was a little on edge over whether we'd make our connections etc. We were nearing the bus station I knew we needed to change at, but things were beginning to look a little tight timewise. So as we pulled up at one of the bus stops on the outskirts of town I saw another bus and heard a tout saying something about San Jose, I woke up a half asleep Breezy and we jumped on the next bus not really knowing whether it truely was San Jose bound. This time my traveling luck held out and it was the correct bus, and we arrived at the Hostel just as everyone else was checking in.

The next morning we had a 5hr bus ride to Manuel Antonio, and so by the time we got there we just headed straight to the public beach for a little sun bathing and to watch the sun set.

George Breezy and an MA sunset


We were staying in the Wide Mouth Frog hostel (again... there's a recuring theme here of me returning places) and so decided to do a little cooking again.And this ment supplies, to the supermarket...

Am I a giant or is it a small trolley?


George Brreezy inside the chiller cabinet... just chilling


The resident (slightly stinky) dogs were in attendance again at the hostel, and George took it upon himself to try to rescue one of the mats from a delightful canine (who had more than a little resemblance to a rockweiller).

Its a battle you'll never win


A trip to the Wide Mouth Frog is never complete without a nice nightime dip in the pool.

That beer's not mine I swear...

Slightly confused...

The next day we got up and headed to Manuel Antonio's main attraction... the national park. But that wasn't before me and Stef had taken the opportunity for a lovely photo to be treasured forever ;)

Who'd have known I was so well endowed?

After the photo opportunity we headed for a nice trek through the park, taking in the abundance of wildlife always on offer here. And again it was picnic lunch, this time on one of the largest beaches.

Lunchtime

Now I've talked before on my blog a number of times about the sheer abundance of wildlife here (infact about two sentences ago) but its true, all kinds of animals are everywhere... and they've become so used to humans some of them are not afraid to get a little daring in their pursuit of goodies... take the little critter below for instance, he's got us sidetracked with his cute ways, rummaging in the undergrowth like butter wouldn't melt. Meanwhile his buddy is about 10ft away stealing George's lunch right out of his bag haha. We can't say the signs didn't warn us!

Syril Sneer and the Racoons

Again not wanting to repeat myself too much but the beaches down in Manuel Antonio are actually the most beautiful I've ever seen in my life... take the below photo for instance, they're actually picture postcard perfect (a bit of tongue twister but you get my drift).

Beautiful

A slightly more orthodox photo

After a bit of swimming, abit more walking (and another encounter with a baby sloth) we headed to my favourite abandonned beach and hungout until the sun began to cool. Another beautiful afternoon in Manuel Antonio National Park.

Totally abandonned once again... other than us that is

And again all too quickly it was time to head on to our next project and say good bye to people... which was getting all the more difficult with a certain someone... but not before a chain of events started by illness would see me not actually make it to my next volunteer placement...

Farewell heliconias...

We were now into our last few days working at the reserve. The weather had taken a turn for the worst and was now almost continually torrential rain, as such we headed to the reserves tree nursery (which was thankfully undercover).

Preparing grow bags


A single mornings work


It was almost time for us to move on from Heliconias, but not before the volunteers took on the lodge locals in a 5aside football tournament. It was actually mixed teams and me, Henry and George more than held our own, though George did almost collapse at one stage haha.

Deadlock penalty shoot out... more tense than the worldcup


And with that it was our final day with the kids at the summer camp. In the morning it was another english class and a final chance for the children to finish colouring in their english workbooks before their efforts would be judged in the competition. A few children were absent so George took it upon himself to try and win the competition for one of them...

So much concentration


Some internatitional quality colouring in... how he didn't win I'll never know?... I think it might have been fixed...


There were a number of characters at the summer camp, Sergio being one of them. On the last morning of the camp he came and gave me and George a little material bracelet he had made himself for us.

Sergio throwing down some mad gang-signs

Another little character was Valerie, she kept me, George and Laura entertained throughout the camp... the photo below shows me, George and Valerie having a face pulling competition. I think you'll all agree I won.

Funny faces

Finally before we went down to the sportshall to meet the childrens parents we had a giant group photo of all the children and helpers from the summer camp.

Summer camp crew

And almost suddenly our time volunteering at Heliconias was complete. The girls had decided to stay in Bijagua for the weekend and then travel on to our second volunteer placement in Romelia on the Monday morning. Me and George had decided however to travel down to Manuel Antonio to meet the other volunteers for another weekend away.

Hanging bridges and wild animals

The reserve at Heliconias consisted of three main trails, a short wildlife trail, the hanging bridges trail and the Tenorio volcano trail. The wildlife trail passes through areas of primary forest, untouched original rainforest, and secondary forest, forest which has been replanted after its previous use for farming and will take about 20 yrs before it is classed as primary again. The volcano trail was a 4 to 5 hr hike up to an extinct volcanic crator, whilst the hanging bridges trail crosses three or four valleys through the use of the bridges.

The bridges were actually constructed by the guys at the reserve about 5 or 6 yrs ago with the help of an 'expert' from Monteverde. They were more than a little rickety, one of potential jobs for the two weeks was to repaint the bridges to combat deterioration of the timber etc. I have to say I wasn't overly worried this particular job never actually happened.

The hanging bridges


105m wide, 35m high


The view down into the forest

As I said before in my previous post, I believe by far the best way to see wildlife first hand is to volunteer in a reserve such as Heliconias. And the incident with the baby Sloth is no exception.

One day whilst we were sat eating lunch Henry came and asked us if we wanted to see a baby sloth. We were expecting a far off view of it high up in the forest canopy, however when we got there we were greeted with a far different view. It turned out the sloth had fallen out of its tree and as such was on the ground amongst the roots and undergrowth.

He looks so happy

With him (or her) being a baby it was important we got him back up into the canopy away from potential predators etc. So Chica and Henry got him onto a stick and lifted him as high up a tree as they could to get him started.

Climbing climbing

Disaster quickly struck again however, as once he got about 20ft up the tree he lost his grip and came plummeting back down to earth again. The poor little thing bounced as he landed, and actually nearly took out a couple of members of the watching group. Chica was quick to collect him up again and hoist him back into another tree and thankfully from there he made it back into the canopy. Sloth's are a funny creature they actually appear like little robots, their movements so jerky and slow.

A sloth on a stick

Climb little man, climb!

Our wanderings through the forest have uncovered many weird and wonderful things, including the below brightly coloured millipede. I think I actually have a photo from the first time I was in Costa Rica (all those many moons ago) with one of these on my hat.

Stop trying to run away and pose for the photo

This was a brightly coloured bush cricket we found near the entrance to the trails, such vivd colours.

Look at the Go-faster stripes on his legs

Finally these not so little beetles were Nobert's pets at the lodge. He had two of them wandering around in the planters down one side of the lodges restaurant area. The longhorn bettle (I'll let you guess which one that was) had a habit of flipping himself over, so whenever we would head for a meal one of us would go and check whether he was up-side-down waves his legs around frantically.

Another hairy little man

Vicious looking but completely harmless

5ft Boa's and milking cows

Following our return from La Fortuna it was finally time to get our teeth into some conservation work on the reserve. This basically involved moving wood chips from the store to where they were needed on the trails. It was good old fashioned manual labour and you could tell Henry, the main chap who maintains the trails, appreciated our help as it would have literally taken forever for him to do this on his own.

The day got off to an entertaining start when, as soon as I had picked up my first bag of wood chips, everyone began to shout 'snake snake'. Ah don't worry it won't be anything serious I thought as I almost stepped on the 5ft Boa Constrictor I'd accidently uncovered.

Sorry I woke you up Sydney snake


If you found a Boa Constrictor what would be the last thing you'd do with it? Pick it up and let it wrap itself round your arm? Strangely that was Henry's first thought. After a little while of looking at it and taking photo's of it, Henry put it in one of the wood chip bags to take it back to the Lodge to show the other guests haha.

Henry the strong man


After shifting bags of damp wood chips through the forest for an hour or two, Henry decided it was break time and we should help him with his other mid morning activity... Milking the cow. Milk is relatively expensive in Costa Rica especially in the remote areas, as such it makes more sense for the Lodge to have a few cows to provide fesh milk.

It was quite quickly apparent that this morning Henry would be having a rest and it would be us doing the milking, he needed a volunteer, so I stepped up to the plate... sorry bucket ;)

It was a very strange sensation, but Henry said I had it down... well he was speaking in Spanish but I'm pretty sure that's what he was saying. If 12 months ago you'd have said in one year's time you'll be milking a cow in a remote area of northern Costa Rica, I'd have told you you were a crazy person!?!

Good technique


The cows were kept in the fields infront of one of the neighbours houses, after we had finished our milking we sat and had a chat with them. The neighbour was a retired lecturer from San Jose who was originally from the area. She had her grand daughter staying with her, who appeared very bemused by the funny speaking foreigners.

Slight distrust


As I said earlier the main of the work today was manual labour, carrying the bags of wood chips from the store to the point they were needed on the trail. They weren't too heavy and it was all about technique (again). I managed, with a little guidance from Henry, to get to the stage I could carry three at once, though on the uphill sections of the trail I did have a few entertaining incidents where I nearly toppled off the trail into the forest.

Again... all about technique

Spreading the wood chips

Rest time

There were various storage points throughout the trails and the piles of bags of damp wood chips formed the perfect place for various creatures to call home.

Whilst we were resting we found another little creature running around the wood chip store, a fair sized Tarantula. Apparently your generally fine to handle Tarantula's, just make sure you don't make them feel threatened. I've never been massively keen on Tarantula's, it's the fact they're hairy... it weirds me out. Anyways as with so many things on this trip... when am I ever going to get the chance to hold a Tarantula again?

Hi little man

Hairy little fellow isn't he

Immediately we found the Tarantula we got another little surprise when we stumbled across another unexpected friend. At first glance we thought this was a Coral snake, one of the most poisonous snakes in the world. However on closer inspection it turned out to be a Milk snake. Milk Snakes are non-poisonous however they imitate the markings of the Coral snake in order to warn off predators.

A little Milk Shake... sorry Milk Snake

All in all it was an awesome day of animals, volunteering on a reserve is definitely the best way to see some real wildlife.

Volunteer weekends away

On our volunteer projects we worked through the week, Monday to Friday, then had the chance to go off and have a few days away at the weekends. We quickly formed a plan with some of the volunteers from the various other projects to go and have a weekend in La Fortuna. Despite having visited La Fortuna earlier in the trip I was excited to go and see friends made at the volunteer induction and have a relaxing weekend. Also having previously visited the area it made me a sort of accidental tour guide for everyone.


The minibus to La Fortuna, George stumbles across a machete under the seat



We were a little later arriving than the building volunteers and by the time we got to La Fortuna the plans for the weekend's accomodation were pretty much all sorted. We stayed in some delightful cabins on the road up to Arenal waterfall.

The cabins




I've written a little about the activities available in La Fortuna earlier on in the blog, and our plans for this trip were little different to the last time I visited. First of all we headed to the hot springs again, this time heading to a different resort, Baldy Hotsprings. Baldy wasn't quite as fancy as the resort we visited last time (not far off though), but it was alot more fun.


It had a number of waterslides, one of which was probably the world's most dangerous waterslide... to the extent it actually carried a disclaimer and health warning. The first time I went down it, I hadn't noticed this and tried to really launch myself down the slide. By the time I hit the pool I was going so fast at such a random angle I actually cartwheeled into the pool at the bottom. It made for a fun afternoon.

Like a human bullet


Hotsprings hangtimes


Stef and George in the waterfalls

Poolbar

Volunteer group shot

The one main thing I'd missed last time we were in La Fortuna was a night visit to the volcano to watch for lava flows, which are obviously far more visable at night. It involved a walk through the rainforest in the pitch black, which none of us were prepared for at all, one or two torch's between the group of 14 haha. It was fun and we saw a couple of lava flows glowing as they spilled down the volcano. However possibly the highligt was me being attacked by a huge insect and hitting myself in the face in an attempt to get it off me, then nearly falling off the bench I was sat on.

Volcano Arenal by day

The viewing area had a couple of toilets and after a couple of people had used them someone noticed they hadn't been alone in there... A huge spider and an even bigger bush cricket had also been sharing the facilities.

Giant creepy crawlies

The cabins we stayed in were very nice, and included in the price was a delicious breakfast which we all enjoyed together in the morning.

Breakfast time

Also somewhere across the course of the previous evening George and Sam had somehow adopted a dog and named it Scrumpy. The next morning they awoke to find Scrumpy asleep on the doorstep of the cabin.

Sam and Scrumpy

On the Sunday we got up and only really had one activity planned... ziplinning. Having missed out this activity earlier on in the trip whilst in Monteverde I decided to face my issues over heights head on and join the gang whizzing through the canopy.

I'm glad I did as well, it was another very fun activity and a very unique way to get a view of the rainforest from within the actual canopy of the trees.

Ziplinners

And then suddenly, as quickly as the weekend had come upon us, it was time to say goodbye to everyone as we all headed back to our various projects... and for not the first or the last time I was more than a little sad to be saying goodbye.