Sports day

The next day was our first day working with the kids at the summer camp, and it was sports day time. Despite the recent events in the local community there was still a huge turn out.

Our first job as helpers was to make sure all the children got from the english school offices to the playing fields.

A good turn out


George incharge of a rope of children


The journey to the playing fields

A few of us headed on to the playing fields ahead of the kids to get set up with the various games for them to participate in. Being in the Costa Rican uplands in the rainy season we had to have a back up plan for if the weather closed in, and true to form it did.

Setting up

Team George Breezy

Just chilling

As I say, within what seemed like minutes the weather turned and we had to run with the children back to the local sports hall to have the sports day indoors.

Rainy season downpour

Luckily the sports hall had ample room for everyone and all the different activities we had planned.

Mid sports day English lesson

Each of us volunteers had our roles for the day. Most people were helpers and assitants, however me and George ended up with the roles of photographer and time keeper respectively.

Time keeper George Breezy

Event photographer

The kids were all split into teams and there were numerous events for them to take part in. The different events included crab races, football slalom, biscuit and spoon races (similar to the egg and spoon but with less mess when things go wrong) and a couple of other events.

Kids and helpers enjoying the fun

Crab races

The leader board

At the end of the day all the kids seemed to have had a brilliant time and thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing... And I think the same could definitely be said for volunteers too.

Conservation?... no, construction

Once we arrived at the lodge we quickly found out that in addition to our conservation work, we would have the chance to work at a summer camp for the local primary school children being run by Donald and his wife Pip.

The next day was ment to be our first day working at the camp however, due to a very unfortunate and quite shocking incident in the local community, the camp was cancelled. This gave us a free afternoon, we asked if we could get started on some work around the lodge however we were told to just enjoy the reserve and take a walk through the trails and the hanging bridges.

Ironically the next day was to be manual labour from start to finish. As I mentioned earlier on in the blog a group of seventy christian missionaries were arriving from the USA to spread the word of God. The lodge had overstretched itself a little and didn't have enough rooms, as such we were called in to help complete some new rooms which were in the process of being constructed. We had 1 day to finish four rooms to a standard they could be lived in the next day... and there was alot to do. But this is Costa Rica, and we run on tico time so no-one seemed overly concerned.

The before shot


Our first job was a little landscaping next to the new lodges. This involved taking earth from a near by embankment and moving it to the area adjacent to the new rooms.

Professional landscape gardeners


Muscle vest

The embankment

Have a break, have a kitkat

After a couple of hours it was decided we were fighting a losing battle with the landscaping, especially as time was ticking on and the rooms were still nowhere near ready. As such we turned our attentions inside the rooms. Everything needed cleaning out thoroughly prior to the furniture etc being constructed. The Costa Ricans had an interesting approach to this, just hose everything down... including plug sockets and light switches.

Professional decorators

Hose it down and sweep it out of the door

The work force

We managed to get everything finished with literally no time to spare and the light fading. We did point out amongst ourselves that we could quite easily have gotten started on alot of the work the day before when we had our free afternoon... but again this is tico time.

Heliconias Lodge

After our night out at the casino in Alajuela it was time to head to our various projects. We headed off in a minibus and traveled to northern Costa Rica, dropping off the construction volunteers in San Ramon as we went.

Our first destination for our Conservation and Ecology volunteering would be Heliconias Lodge. Heliconias lodge is a reserve run by 10 local families in the foothills of Volcano Tenorio in the Upala region of Costa Rica.

Heliconias Lodge


As I say, the lodge is run by 10 local families and is one of the first of its type in Costa Rica. Originally the reserve was earmarked by the government to be deforested and used as farm land. However the local people protested and got together a petition against this and instead the land was passed over to the 10 families to be run as an Ecolodge and Reserve, with backing from an international tour company looking to build it's eco tourism credentials.

The lodge from above looking over the valley beneath


There were six of us volunteering at the lodge, four girls... Rhian, Ruth, Kelly and Laura, and then me and George. To begin with our accomodation was split into a four person room and a two person room, as such it made sense for me and George to take to the two person room. The girls were less than impressed when they realised that ment me and George were staying in a guest room in the lodge and they would be living in a space little bigger than a cupboard reserved for volunteers.

The smile was wiped off mine and georges face when, on the arrival of 70 missionaries from the US, we had to join the girls in the cupboard.

Mine and George's 5star Accomodation for the first week

A beautiful Heliconias sunset

Looking North to Lake Nicaragua

The builders yard with our cupboard accomodation... it looks bigger than it is



Lunchtime for the workers... left to right... George, Rhian, Ruth, Kelly and Laura

Because the reserve and lodge was run by so many families there seemed to be literally hundreds of people working there, each with their own roles. Donald was a guide and also heavily involved with teaching the local children english and other community projects.

Me and Donald in Leather cowboy hats. nice.

The local town to Heliconias was a small town called Bijagua and was a nice little place, Heliconias lodge sits 45 minutes walk further up the volcano in unspoilt rainforest... the most beautiful location to be working for a couple of weeks.

Bijagua town... under construction

The local carpark in Bijagua haha

Volunteer inductions

After a day in San jose it was time to go and meet up with all the volunteers for our time working in Costa Rica.

Our meeting point for the induction would be the airport, and getting there proved to be a very entertaining task. I knew I could quite easily get a taxi, but a bus seemed a relatively simple and cheaper option. So I headed to the bus station and used my best Spanglish to ask the bus driver if the bus went to the airport, he never answered me and instead just held out his hand for the money... I should have seen this as a sign.

I hopped on the bus and sat intensely watching for the airport stop, as we got close rather than go the airprt the bus suddenly veered off towards Alajuela. I immediately jumped up and got off. So now I'm about a mile from the airport, I can even see the place... but I can't get to it. Standing in my path is a six lane motorway. It's now getting pretty close to the time I'm ment to be meeting everyone, so I decided to just go for it.

So I'm there with my two big backpacks running down the central reservation of this motorway in the blazing sunshine. By the time I arrived I looked like I'd been pulled through a hedge backwards. I turned up and our coordinator was like 'where the hell have you come from?', my reply was 'well, I just had to run down the central reservation of the motorway' as though it was the most normal thing in the world ;) fun times.

Once I arrived I found out it wasn't just the conservation volunteers who were in town but instead about 70 people doing various volunteer work, ranging from building house's to saving turtles, and before heading off to our various projects we would have a couple of days of induction together.

We were split across two hostels and with various people arriving across the course of the afternoon it was a good time to get to know everyone.

First night bonding session


Literally the first person I met was a guy called George, who by a crazy coincidence turned out to be from Ilkley. We quickly became thick as thieves and George would become the person who kept me sane whilst living in a cupboard in the jungle. As we were meeting everyone we were all discussing our various projects and I had to admit that because our projects had changed around so many times I actually had no clue where we were heading or what we would be doing... At which point George said 'thank god, I have no idea what we're doing either', I think that was the point we bonded.

Taking it real easy... with George breeeeeezzzyyy


George had managed to travel to Costa Rica in the rainy season with no form of waterproof clothing, so the next day we headed to a second hand store to try to pick one up. Whilst in there we couldn't resist trying on some entertaining atire. Moments after the below photo was taken we were politely asked to leave the store haha. And in hindsight it was a good job we did as our early departure from our shopping trip lead to a chance meeting with a certain someone*

Evening wear


As I say, on our return to the hostel we met a few volunteers from the other hostel who were going to go Bungee jumping at a place just outside of Alajuela. I had no intention of jumping myself but was quickly talked into going along to spectate.

The below photo shows the guy from the bungee jumping place climbing down the front of the bridge with no form of safety harness what so ever, to say health & safety doesn't exist in these places is a major understatement.

mental mental chicken oriental


This isn't me I'm quick to point out

Bungee jump spectators

In the evening we all got together for a meal and then headed to Casino for ladies night... this basically ment the girls got in for free and didn't pay for drinks... it's all very sexist in central america.

Grub

Casino entertainment

Like every good casino, no natural light or clocks on the walls

The next morning we all got up with not enough sleep, some people's wallets being significantly lighter, and headed to our various projects.

Heliconias bound

Manuel Antonio

So as I say, after the GAP tour ended there were four of us who were planning to stick around in Costa Rica for a few more days, me, the big Swede (Eric), Mel and Carla.


No one seemed to be getting anywhere close to making decisions over what they wanted to do, so on the walk to our final meal I decided we ought to head to Manuel Antonio. Manuel Antonio is a small town on the Pacific coast famous for its beautiful national park and beaches therein. The actual town of Manuel Antonio is quite touristy so we decided the small town of Quepos nearby was the best option. I had read about a hostel called the Wide Mouth Frog which was meant to be nicest in town and had a really good pool. As always, I was sold.


The Wide Mouth Frog, definitely recommended


The hangout zone




After eating out almost every night for the last couple of weeks on the GAP tour we decided the well stocked kitchen at the Wide Mouth Frog was the perfect place to unleash our culinary skills. We cooked a delicious meal of fajita's with fresh guacamole, which would have been fine, except the ingredients cost us almost as much as eating out would have haha. Backpacker budgeting.

Me and the big Swede cooking


The pool, confused

As I said the main reason to visit Manuel Antonio is the beautiful national park, which despite it's relatively small size is rated by many to be the best in Costa Rica. I would agree to a certain extent as there is literally an abundance of wildlife to be seen

The park entrance, moments after this picture was taken Eric hit his head on the sign (which was followed by a lot of Swedish words I'd never heard before)

And when I say there's an abundance of wildlife I'm not lying, we found this little critter literally 100m into the park.

A little white faced monkey

If it wasn't for their red legs it would've been almost impossible to see these little (and not to little) land crabs.

Land crabs... everywhere

A giant bamboo tree

Overawed by the scale of the forest

In the average park or reserve you generally have to go looking for the animals, keeping your eyes open at all times for any sign of movement... Manuel Antonio isn't quite like that, there are animals literally everywhere. The below lizard was sunning himself right in the middle of the path.

Sun bathing

And I literally almost stood on the Iguana in the picture below. Being the polite young chap that I am I stepped off the path to let some American tourists pass and got a shock when that fella hopped out of the way.

Camouflage

Manuel Antonio is famous for two things, it's wildlife and it's beaches. The beaches are some of the most beautiful in the world, with turquoise waters lapping against palm fringed golden sands.

Possibly due to the above the national park tends to get very busy at weekends (to the extent they close the park on Mondays to give the animals some time off!) however through the week tends to be a little quieter. We went on a wednesday and even managed to find a beautiful completely abandoned beach to sit and have our picnic lunch.

Paradise

Lunchtime

After we'd had lunch and enjoyed the beach for a little while we headed on a bit of a trek up to the look out point, the only problem being we had our flipflops on and it wasn't easy going underfoot.

Flipflop trekking

El Mirador

This is the main beach in the national park and was again almost abandoned when we turned up for a much needed swim after our viewpoint trek.

Beautiful

After two or three days Mel and Carla continued their trip and set off back up to Nicaragua, which left just me and the big Swede hanging out. The next day we headed to the public beach in Manuel Antonio and had a lazy day of sunbathing and eating delicious bbq.

bbq funtimes

The public beach, again beautiful

Then a day later it was time for the big Swede to depart and leave just me down in Manuel Antonio. It was sad to partways with Eric as we'd hungout a great deal... another traveling buddy departed.

Adios the big Swede

I left Manuel Antonio myself a day later and headed back to San Jose to meet up with my fellow workers for the volunteer project... as one chapter of the trip comes to an end, so another one begins...