10. Turtle Conservation in Costa Rica

Another thing I was going to do while I was in Costa Rica was participate in a volunteer program for the conservation of sea turtles.  Due to a very random meeting of someone that works at GVI, this became my starting point for the programs.  This random meeting took place during a Wednesday night twilight sail in Melbourne.  I went out on my favourite boat Portofino, with Stuart and Jane.  James jumped on board with us as he had missed his ride.  He heard me talking about Costa Rica with Jane and mentioned where he worked and that they did volunteer programs in Costa Rica.  Another confirmation that I should come here.

The program that best fitted into my plans was 2 weeks in Mexico, a hop, skip and jump from Costa Rica.  I applied for this and got accepted only to be advised later that the program was not running.  I decided to investigate other  programs.  There was one that appealed in Panama, perfect particularly as I had a aeroplane ticket to Boca del Toro anyway (my exit within 90 days, a requirement for my visa).  Unfortunately the way they run their program did not allow me to meet them in Bocas Del Toro.  Instead I had to go to San Jose in Costa Rica and then take a 10 hour bus ride from there!  Given the inflexibility I decided to keep looking. 

When I withdrew from the TEFL course I re-considered doing a volunteering internship that allows you to take up managing some of the programs.  This required a greater time commitment (at least 4 weeks) which I could now do.  I applied for one in Costa Rica but again was advised this was not available.

I searched through many organisations and their programs, but either the timing was wrong or it was too expensive (yes, you pay to volunteer!).  Finally I found another organisation that seemed reasonably priced, operated in Costa Rica and said that I would see turtles (as some programs run even outside turtle breeding season doing maintenance etc).    What they wouldn’t do was tell where the program was running until I had paid my non-refundable $350 deposit.  Hmmm....sounds a bit dodgy to me as all other programs talk about the location in their promotion.  As I was travelling around, I didn’t want to be about to travel a long way away immediately before or after my volunteer dates.  They explained that they allocated based on need.  As the program I was looking at was due to commence in 2 weeks I expected they would have an idea of where I may be needed but they did not agree. 

Frustrating as this was I decided that what the Universe was trying to tell me was to go to Greece in June and work for the volunteer program there!  I am also investigating Vanuatu and the Seychelles.  Whats a girl to do...she has to listen to the Universe, right?

9. Finding Accommodation

Sorry for the delay in posts, but this blogging business takes time and well sometimes I have been distracted, say by a trip to Bahia Drake and the Galapagos.  Currenty (28 March) I am in Bocas del Toro (Panama) for a week, having arrived yesterday.  This was my original trip out of the country to meet 90 day visa requirements.  Having been to the Galapagos I didnt really need to do this but the ticket was non-refundable so here I am!  More about these trips later.  I hope to get this blog up to date asap but am only posting once a day to keep the order.  If anyone knows a better way, let me know.

Sssoooo anyhow...back to the story, so it is the beginning of February, Ive dropped out of school and have nowhere to live...luckily I had been vaguely investigating renting an apartment since the yoga retreat at the beginning of January.   As time progressed and my doubts about study grew, the more I would ask the questions; do you know anyone with an apartment to rent, do you have any contacts in the real estate area.  I also used the Quepolandia which is the local monthly magazine that gives you the lowdown about what is going on in the Quepos-Manuel Antonio area, including rental accommodation. As I discovered fairly quickly ,where I wanted to live was a popular and therefore pricey area comparatively.  I looked at a few apartments to get a sense of what you got for your money.  Not a lot in some respects but in others...like the view and proximity to the beach....heaps!

In between all of this I decided it was far too long since I had been out on the water.  So I booked myself on a boat trip...Sunset Sail on Lorelei, a decent sized catarmaran.  It was an excellent trip where we actually sailed, got to snorkel, watch the sunset.  They also fed us, made us caiparinhias and played excellent music !  The bonus of this trip was meeting Holly and her friends, Bob and Verdella, from the States.  We chatted a lot and again the question of accommodation came up.  She gave me Tom Barrons name, the third person to do so, and I had already been in contact with him but he had nothing as it is a busy time of the year for rentals.

They were very sweet and invited me along on a trip to Matapalo (treekiller) beach and also to Dos Locos, an expat weekly event, which Ill write more about later.  I went along as they were really nice people and it was a chance to experience some of these things with someone who lives here.  Holly bought a house in Manuel Antonio five years ago and has been slowly increasing the amount of time she spends here.  It will be 10 months this year.

In the meantime I had come across an apartment through David at the Amore Spanish School.  I came to learn that it didn’t matter what you went in to ask David about, you usually came out armed with info about a whole lot of other things you are interested in!  For example the first time I met him when enquiring about Spanish, I came out with an apartment to look at, a yoga class to go to and advice about setting up my mobile in Costa Rica.

Then, unexpectedly, Holly offered her spare bedroom for rent.  Then I was in a quandary.  This apartment through David I was going to look at had a million dollar view but was expensive.  Holly lived a little further from the beach than I wanted and it was a bit of a walk from the bus but a nice house, reasonable rent...concerns about the cat though (mostly as I am allergic sometimes to cats).     and whether I actually wanted to live with anybody.  So I looked at the apartment and to my surprise, despite the view, it didn’t feel right.  So Holly and I had lunch and talked through how we might make that work.  By the end of a delicious lunch and a couple of caiparinhas (yes Di, these are green drinks!) we decided to give it a go.

8. Life Gets Serious...well kinda...!

So with my friend appropriately farewelled on the morning of Saturday 22 January,  here I was in Costa Rica by myself.  Hmm how did that happen!  What now!

Some of you know my intention was to spend February doing an intensive Teaching English as a Second Language course (TESOL).  I had arranged with them to commence my stay at the school a week earlier as accommodation was cheap and er well, I didn’t really have anywhere else to go...:)!

We had dropped my bags off before I farewelled my friend and despite him feeling very positive about the place, the vibe was not the same for me.  It was a largish building with a communal kitchen/living space, two classrooms, 3 – 4 bedrooms, landlords residence and rooftop area, that admittedly was pretty good for yoga.  It was in a less desirable location than I had imagined by the description, the room was ordinary but my expectations weren’t too high given the cost and the look of the place just got me wondering.  I was prepared to keep an open mind and I had a week to sus the place out.

The school was located on the opposite side of Quepos than I had imagined, just outside of the town up a dirt track.  The description in my mind had put the place between Manuel Antonio and Quepos (so the other side of town) along the road to the beach and the national park.  I discovered after I left that the school had recently moved location but still described the old location on the website so my imagination was quite as bad as I thought!We had spent a little time in Quepos getting a rental car, having a meal, going to tour offices.  I explored Quepos further, but didnt feel overly enthused about the place.  I bought some food and prepared to settle into a more normal life than being on vacation.  Being a dog lover I thought nothing of the two dogs that resided at the premises.

That night the dogs barked most of the night, not in a protective way, but in an annoying aggressive way.  Apparently this happened most nights.  Chatting to the students, the hours for the course were long...10am until 7pm with plenty of work outside of these hours.  Most were happy but there was some discontent with the materials provided, support from the teachers and facilities to deliver expected outcomes (eg photocopier, computers etc).  Students were having to pay to have things printed, computers constantly not working etc.  So I spent the week observing and chatting to the current students.  I also caught the bus to the beach most days and spent time thinking about the vibe I was getting, what things I really wanted to be doing and how serious was I about the outcomes of this course for me.

I had a situation one night when I was the only person at the school, which noone had told me about.  The dogs were barking as usual but even more aggressively this night.  I thought I heard someone prowling around but thought I was being paranoid.  I found out the next day that the place had been robbed so I wasnt as paranoid as I thought.  I didnt feel safe any longer and didnt know if there would be anyone arriving Friday or Saturday so I stayed in a hotel for the next three nights in Manuel Antonio.  I felt so much better being in this area, not just from a safety perspective but because I was close to the beach.  Another sign I didnt want to stay out at the school.  I did consider moving elsewhere but continuing on with the course but was still uncomfortable about the time commitment required. 

So the safety issue didnt help improve my feeling about the place.  It was becoming more apparent that things like yoga, beach time and turtle conservation were more important to me and that I didn’t really want to commit that much time to a course with limited priority to me when the weather was beautiful outside.  We were advised in our pre-course start information that the hours would now be 12-7pm but I had already made up my mind by then that any significant time commitment was not on my agenda.

What were my options?  They have an online version of the course (okay so I don’t have to given up altogether – positive number 1.  Ive done two degrees online so how hard can it be.  Besides it was a third of the cost - positive number 2.  It frees me up to do all the things I want to do but still with the same outcome - positive number 3.  Decision made, email sent to the course administrator, await response!  Things not considered...hmmm where will I live now...oops..:)!

I have no photos to add for this post as this was the time I was in between drowning the camera I had brought with me and buying a new one for a reasonable price.  It seems that most items like cameras are double the price they should be.  I ended up with a not bad cheapish camera but probably paid too much for it...but hey, you have to have photos right.

7. Jaco

As these posts are somewhat behind for reference we arrived in Jaco on 14 January 2011. Given the time it took to get down to Puerta Jimenez and the fact that Jaco was another 2 hours further north from where we had come, we planned an early departure the next day.  This was delayed by the hotel manager being late but we finally got away about 9am.  The road trip didn’t seem so bad in broad daylight and the fact that the worst part was at the start rather than at the end of what had already been a 5 hour trip.  The major achievement of this trip was finding an aux cable to use in the truck so we could have some decent music (everything is 80s here at best!) through our ipods.  After being to many stores we finally found one and the store people couldn’t understand why I was so excited when they actually had one.  The trip from there to Jaco was filled with music and singing (sorry Bob) !  What a difference music makes...aahhh!



Mood Yoga



We arrived at our hotel Doce Lunas about 6pm and were delighted.  The staff were friendly, the room was great, the grounds were very pretty.  We even got upgraded unexpectedly...we were convinced that we were meant to be here earlier.  The other attraction of this place was that they had yoga every week day and a huge yoga studio that guests could use when they wanted.  So my yogi friend and I took to doing our own sessions each day and joined the yoga teacher when classes were on.  We even did one session down at the beach which was great to hear and see the ocean while practicing. 

Doce Lunas Yoga Studio

Days were spent doing yoga, walking to the beach, reading, watching movies, having happy hour.  I discovered after about the 4^th day of walking into town that this activity is not high on my friend’s list of fun...oops!  We had dinner with Chris one night and it was nice to see him.  We were having such a good time, Bob decided to extend his stay to catch a concert that was happening at the hotel.  The 40^th anniversary concert of Max Creek (whoever they are...I know there are people shrieking in outrage at this statement but I had never heard of the group before... but the guest drummer (so not in the photos below) was Bill Kruetzmann from the Grateful Dead, who I have heard of!).  This was a fun night and the best part of it was that it poured.  But unlike anywhere else I have been in pouring rain...it was warm and it was fun to let yourself get drenched and dance soaking wet with toes in the mud...I swear no drugs were involved...:), but maybe some tequila shots and a few glasses of wine!  Chris joined us for the concert and it was really great fun.



Jaco Beach



The concert crowd



The Concert



















6. Puerta Jimenez...Port Disappointment

As the trip had taken much longer than we expected, the staff at the cabinas we had booked had gone home when we arrived but had left  the key in our door.   As we rounded the corner and prepared to enter our room, our neighbours were sitting outside their room.  The man (who shall remain nameless) commenced telling us his life story.  Before we had even put our bags down we knew he had been married 4 times, owned a farm down the road, had been in the army, had travelled to Australia and was making iguana tail for dinner tomorrow night...phew, all we wanted was something to eat so asked for a recommendation!  Somewhere that didnt serve iguana tails preferably. Somehow we managed to extract ourselves and head out so my friend could have a well deserved beer and some dinner after that gruelling drive.  It wasn’t long before we were joined by our neighbour with yet more stories about himself and his girlfriend, whose name he never used and I wondered whether he could actually remember it...:)!

The plan for Puerta Jimenez was to organise a trip into the Corcovado National Park which was the main attraction to the town.  This apparently was more easily said than done.  We were horrified by the thought that it was a “2” hour drive (probably more than 2) to get to the entrance of the park, on worse roads than the ones we had just come on ...we could hike for a couple of hours then we would have to drive back.  This did not excite either of us very much, and I can only imagine how unexcited Bob was about the prospect of more driving in those conditions.  There had to be another way...okay, lets just fly into the park she says optimistically figuring it was worth the extra investment.    Well at $400 per plane trip each way, with just the two of us, the desire to go to the park was quickly fading! 

We talked about how we were feeling about the whole thing and decided that things were mounting up against our desire to stay here.  There was the bad vibe around the town, nothing specific but we both felt it.   I suspected that our hotel manager had some serious crack issues. Add to that the thought of our neighbour’s never ending list of stories to tell us...eek! and the difficulties in getting to the park and enthusiasm quickly faded.  There was no real opposition from either of us...lets get out of here! 

From here we had planned to go to Jaco to visit our friend Chris from Herradurra Divers.  Everything seemed simple from then on, the hotel in Jaco could accommodate us early, we could return the truck early and drop it off in Jaco rather than Quepos where we picked it up, we were able to leave the hotel we were at without having to pay for the nights we didn’t stay...everything started going our way, we were comfortable we had done the right thing.  Ive included some photos of where we stayed and it looks pretty.  I think everyone has to go see for themselves, but it was not for us at this particular time.  Hence we nicknamed the place Port Disappointment..:)!



Cabinas Jimenez



Puerta Jimenez



5. Trip to Puerta Jimenez

After an excellent morning ziplining we went to the rental car place to pick up our “Jimny” Jeep for the trip down south to Puerta Jimenez. This place is on the east side of the Osa Peninsula overlooking Golfo Dulce.  What we thought was a bad start to the trip, the jeep we booked was not being available due to us changing our booking, turned out to be a bonus.  We ended up with a 4x4 Toyota truckie thing (Bob may be able to give a more technical description) which in the end turned out to be just what we needed...eek!  By the end of the trip the truck was affectionately named the Tortuga (turtle) truck by me (not because it was slow but because I like turtles). We bought snacks and water in readiness for the 5 hour trip.  Armed with the rental car map it looked like we would have a variety of road standards on the way down;  highway, standard roads, local roads. 

I had the role of navigator, mainly as I couldn’t get my head around driving on the opposite side of the road.  Well that was my story anyway and Im sticking to it, nothing to do with the female driver thing!  This always makes me nervous both about getting us lost and the state of our friendship by the time we get to the other end...:)!  Kilometre after kilometre rolled by, as did hour after hour.  It was hard to tell the difference between highway, standard and local roads and we had no idea what was ahead!



Road fallen away



The turn off to Puerta Jimenez that was meant to be 10kms after the major service station didn’t eventuate so after 25 kilometres we decided to stop and ask.  Not an easy task with only the Spanish from a week (15 hours) of intensive travel Spanish lessons, but managed to confirm it was just a bit further down the road!  When we finally turned off, with 70 kilometres still to go and 5 hours already having passed, we discovered the worst was yet to come.  It was now dark, the road became dirt and then they appeared...pothole after pothole...not just little ones that any car could get through...ones that seriously needed to be avoided.  Not to be avoided so widely though that the truck went too far off the side of the road that had often dropped away and we could not see what lay below...eek! 

Along this road we saw a sight that made us laugh out loud.  Coming around a bend, there in the headlights on the side of the road were two horses without saddles, only reins, grazing in the grass.  Their riders, two teenage boys, were sitting on logs beside the horses...both texting on their mobile phones..:)!  A priceless representation of a culture in transition from the old to the new.

One of the scary bridges

At one point the road turned into a brand new highway, flat, paved complete with reflectors.  Spurred on by this luxurious road we were speeding along when suddenly we were confronted with a road construction site,  a bridge that didn’t look passable and no signs to be found.  We thought we had both fallen asleep and taken a wrong turn!  It turned out to be a break in the highway and yes we were meant to cross that bridge (now that we had come to it..sorry, had to be done!)  It was actually the first of 3 seemingly impassable bridges that we crossed that night.  We got a photo of one on the way back which I have included here.

Thankfully the right person out of the two of us was behind the wheel. His driving was outstanding and it almost became kinda fun (for me anyway)...which of course I was only brave enough to admit to him when we had arrived safe and sound without blowing out a tire or breaking an axle (trucks have axles, right?).   In total I think the trip took 7 hours rather than 5 and we arrived tired and hungry.  Happy to say though we still had our sense of humour and the friendship was still intact!