Turtles, Monkeys and Children!

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Volunteering my way around Costa Rica by Markus Berres

My name is Markus and I’m from Zurich in Switzerland. After more than two months now in Costa Rica, I really don’t know where to start. Let’s try at the beginning ….

When I was back home looking for something different to do with my upcoming holidays, I knew it would probably involving volunteering at some point. Then I surfed the Internet a lot. Somehow, I can’t remember how I found out about Tropical Adventures , but when I found them - I knew right away that was the program I had been looking for.

It looked like a good mix of travel to places with some tours and adventure and, it had the volunteering component I was looking for. Because all my arrangements had to be kind of last minute, I was a little worried it wouldn’t work out. But after a couple emails and telephone calls, everything seemed to fall into place. Roberto from the office in Costa Rica answered all my questions promptly and clearly.

When I arrived in Costa Rica, I was met by their driver, Manuel, and was immediately taken very good care of. After spending a night in a hostel near the airport in Alajuela, I was escorted once again the next day by Manuel to the bus station to go to the town of Puerto Viejo. Everything was already taken care of, and Manuel helped me find an ATM and take care of any needs I had.

My Spanish is very limited, so I was a little worried what would happen but again, all for nothing. Just when I exited the bus, my coordinator, Mauro, was there to take me to my wonderful host family. The first week I kind of stayed in my own little paradise, teaching English to kids in the Cocles Elementary School, which I went to with the bicycle I rented for the week. First I thought, "Bicycles here? That’s crazy in this heat!" Yes, I sweat like never before, and the road conditions are everything else but bicycle-friendly, but soon I learned to love my bike and the freedom it afforded me.

The kids in the school where fantastic. Since I'm not good with Spanish, and English is not my first language, and I never been a teacher, again I was worried. But not only did the kids learn English from me, I learned lots and lots of Spanish from them. They even recognized me when I passed by the school 8 weeks later - that was a wonderful feeling - and for me it showed that my work meant something to them as well. That’s the experience I was looking for when I planned to volunteer.

I spent the next 2 weeks in Bambu, a little community on the Bribri Indigenous Reservation. There I worked with the kids from the Bratsi School and in the retirement home. It was completely heartwarming just to see how much both the young and the old people enjoyed our company. They got really attached to us in those 2 weeks while we were there.

This time we didn't stay with a host family, but instead we stayed at the Community Center with Danilo (our local host). The place is amazing. It’s really just like a tree house. The whole community there was wonderful, the traditional food, the way of living. Everyone got so attached to the place, I just couldn't believe it. But after the 2 weeks were over, all of us had tears in our eyes when we were leaving.

The tours we did together here are something I will never forget. The 2-day trip over to Panama, just mind-blowing… I thought I’m kind of fit to walk for a couple of hours. We have some pretty strenuous mountains back at home. Here the first part was easy. Hiking for 2 hours on a good path, sometimes in the shade from the trees, sometimes in the hot sun. And let me tell you, it gets hot. I had plenty of water, at least I thought so, for the first four hours. Then the path began more and more to disappear into the jungle, and walking got harder and harder, especially because most of the locals coming through here come on horses. So the path was super muddy from the horses’ tracks and the rain (it was the rainy season, but so far I had not seen too much of it, luckily).

At one point I had to sit down, and Isaac started feeding me with crackers, our guide told me our destination wasn't more than a 15-minutes walk from here. Then for me...luck! A man and his daughter on a horse came by. The girl, maybe 12 years young, must have noticed my condition and offered me her horse for the rest of the way. Usually I would have declined, but not this time. I was happy not to walk the rest of the way (which was 25 minutes on a horse.) The little girl walked the whole way, like it was nothing, practically flying from rock to rock. Later we found out what we just did in more than 4 hours, she does every day to get to school...in less than half an hour!!!How crazy is that? Now I know I have to do more sports, or working out. But all the hard work was absolutely worth what was waiting for us. The pristine, tropical and nearly undiscovered waterfall close to the very small cabin we stayed for the night -- that’s what you never find on your normal “all inclusive holiday.”

The next week I spent at the Camaronal Sea Turtle Project. It was completely far away from civilization, as you might imagine. When we arrived there my first thought was: "Oh my god....noooo!" Now in retrospect, I think I would absolutely want to stay at that place for 1 or even 2 months. Domenica, Julian and German -- the project staff from MINAE (Ministry of the Environment) are the most welcoming people one person could possibly imagine. My Spanish improved a lot in the first couple of weeks, but here I really had to practice it, and it was easy to speak to them after opening myself up to the idea. And it was not only the little small-talk that tourists usually have with the locals; we could speak about anything. But especially everything about the project interested me - and the knowledge they have about all of the projects and the animals and the surrounding area is just astonishing.

My next week of volunteering took me to the Monte Alto Natural Reserve, another great project managed by MINAE, and in serious need of volunteer help. Here we helped build paths, plant trees and flowers, as well as helped in the kitchen. One thing I did here one day that I did not expect to do was helping to fix toilets. No, no. Not the nasty kind. The kind where I could show off all my plumbing skills. (No...I don’t really have any. Back in my real life I’m a chef in a hotel!) And yes, by the way, the toilets work again.

My sixth week in Costa Rica was spent in another national park, Barra Honda. That would be the week where I definitely got my wish for physical labor fulfilled. Besides taking wonderful tours and walks in the area, the number one project for the park was to make it nice and to prepare everything for the big celebration in August (National Parks Day). That meant we had to dig a lot. Since they were expecting lots of rain -- and rainwater in masses destroys the street and especially the sides of the street -- we had to place 70 centimeter cement pipes on the side of the road near the main building to keep the water from eroding the street.

In that week, I must have sweat out my own weight a couple of times. This all sounds probably like too much work. But it wasn't at all. The work hours were usually only in the morning from 9 to 12, and the rest of the day we were free to do whatever we wanted. For example, the town of Nicoya is only a 400 colones bus ride away (less than 50 cents), and it provides all that I wanted and needed. And then there was enough time to spend at the pool from the nearby Barra Honda Hotel and to enjoy a good book.

Monkey Park was originally going to be my last project. It is an animal rescue center. It's a nice place to see animals that live here in Costa Rica which would usually be hard to see in the wild. The stay in the park was nice. They provided a very good home, and the food there is delicious. I got "gordo" (fat)!

Like at all the projects, nearly at all times a project coordinator or Isaac (one of the directors) himself was present, or came on a regular basis, if for nothing else than just to see that we we’re all okay and to bring us some snacks. The women (the number of them seemed to change on a daily basis) who were responsible for the project at Monkey Park really work hard to make the place what it is. And having been part of that is a nice memory.

One of my jobs was to transfer the caterpillars out of the Butterfly Garden every morning so that they could not feed on all the plants faster than the plants could grow in there. So for that purpose there is an assigned place called, “the feeding house.” And then I had to check if there were some larvae hatched and then bring them back as "butterflies" to the "Mariposarium." This is one place where someone like me goes literally photo crazy!

The next 2 weeks I went to travel on my own to Panama. I needed to be in Panama City at a certain time. And that’s where the team of Tropical Adventures really helped more than I could have expected. They helped me with my hotel, and even delivered my bus tickets to me. The many small things they did for me made my trip easy and enjoyable and were just examples of how dedicated these people are to the work they do. It also made me feel really appreciated. I felt like I was in the best hands possible here, so I decided to come back for six days after my Panama-trip to do some more volunteering.

So now as I write this, these last six days here in the La Flor Project are nearly over. I’m super happy about my decision to teach English in a tiny agricultural community. I feel completely welcome and like I'm doing something worthwhile. After a few days here, I get recognized on the street from everyone; I’m not at all a stranger.

I can’t possibly fit all my experiences and feelings in these few words, but to everyone who enjoys traveling, some adventure and meeting endless amounts of friendly people, I say, "come and experience it for yourself!"

In the end, it was all the small things that made my trip with Tropical Adventures so priceless. (Geesh, I hope not to sound too much like the MasterCard commercial!)

Find out more about volunteering with Tropical Adventures

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