Sarah's Costa Rica Experience

I traveled to Costa Rica to work with an organization that protects nesting sea turtles and their hatchlings. The experience was…interesting. It wasn’t what I expected and long story short, I had to leave much earlier than expected. There was a weird combination of stuff that came together in such a way that I had to leave after five days. I’ll only talk about two of the things, though: the guy with the beard and my stuff getting stolen. The trip wasn’t all bad! Here are some of the highlights:

The Flight
I flew from DC, had a layover in Houston, and then flew to San Jose. In all, I think it took six hours. On the plane I filled out customs forms and when I landed, I handed my passport over to a border security agent, got it stamped, had my luggage checked by guards, and was on my way. It was all pretty easy.
Leaving, I paid a $26 country tax, flew to Newark, and then to DC, and had my passport and luggage inspected and stamped and was on my way again. Nothing really interesting to report, but you know, this is a site for girls who may or may not have done international travel before! So it’s good stuff to know.

The Guy with the Beard
At one point, we stopped in Sixaola on the border with Panama. We were rushed off of the bus by “the guy with the beard;” I came to find that this man was notorious for weaseling money out of tourists and pretending he was the only person one could trust in the entire country of Costa Rica.
He yelled to me and the other girls, “Hey! Where are you going!” We told him Gandoca, which was down the road. He said “Ok! Come with me!” and he pushed us over to the border guards for Panama. They asked for our passports and we realized this guy was trying to send us to Panama. After talking with him for a few minutes, he said “Fine, go to Gandoca” and pointed us to a taxi.

Oliver
I’ll call this guy Oliver. That’s what his name sounded like when people said it, but it was with a Spanish accent so I’m not sure that’s actually what they were saying…anyway. So Oliver was my favorite person there. I think it was mainly because he reminded me of the Costa Rican version of my brother – they look, act, talk, and walk the same. And he treated me kind of like a little sister, especially when I was upset.
He gave me a tour around the area, introducing me to the locals and some of the volunteers. He showed me some of the animals and plants there, like a tiny nest with baby birds, and a fruit that I’ve never seen but that was pretty good…I want some but I have no idea what it is. I’ll figure it out.
So Oliver and some of the locals and a few volunteers and I hung out at a bar during our free time. We weren’t drinking the whole time, haha, we were watching TV and talking most of the time. When I got upset and had to call home, he let me use his home phone rather than having me use a pay phone, which was having a ton of trouble with since I speak no Spanish and the recordings on it all were in Spanish…
He also talked with the project director and arranged for my last-minute taxi ride over to San Jose the day I left. I don’t know, I can’t say enough about him. I’d have a crush on him if he wasn’t exactly like my brother with an accent.

The Turtles
Ok, I only got to work with one turtle while I was there, but it’s something I am not going to forget any time soon.
It was around 11:30pm when we encountered a leatherback turtle climbing up the beach to build a nest. Now, patrolling the beach was something I pictured differently than what it was. We were to use flashlights with red filters so that we didn’t attract too much attention if we needed to use them. The moon was our only light, because flashlights tended to scare away turtles that potentially would nest on the beach. We walked several miles per night, and there were three sections of the beach to patrol, each one being a couple miles long.
Anyway, so we came upon a leatherback turtle that began to build a nest. I knew sea turtles were big, but I had no idea exactly how big, because the only one I had ever seen up close was a green turtle, which was about two feet long. This leatherback’s carapace was five feet long. She was gigantic.
I was given the task of holding the egg bag. There were several of us working with the turtle – one monitored her progress, one took her measurements and other details like the time, place, date, etc, and one helped the turtle dig her nest. These turtles dig nests with their back flippers, scooping sand out and smoothing the sides of the hole. This turtle had a hurt(?) flipper, so she ended up scooping sand up and letting it fall back into the hole. We weren’t sure what was really going on with her flipper because it didn’t have any scarring or anything, but it wasn’t working quite right.
Once she was finished with her nest, she began to lay her eggs. I had to rush to put the bag under her tail to catch the eggs to transport to the hatchery…usually turtles will cover the nest with a flipper and lay the eggs so they gently roll into it. She didn’t do that. She just let them plop, so I had to shove the bag in there to catch them.
It was interesting. I was on my stomach, with my arms and chest hanging into a hole and my head nearly resting on this turtle’s carapace. She didn’t really care until the end, when she started slapping my face and hands with her flippers. She was trying to fill the hole with sand and I was trying to pull the bag out, but she slapped my hands away. Two people had to hold her flippers while I pulled the bag away. We brought the eggs to the hatchery, and the people monitoring that site dug a hole and marked it as a new nest, putting the turtle eggs into it.

The Good Stuff
Costa Rica has the best food I have ever eaten. Most of what I had consisted of beans and rice, with mixed vegetables and tortillas. I have no idea what they do to make it so amazing, because I make the same stuff at home and my cooking is nowhere near as good as any of the stuff I had in Costa Rica. There was not a single meal I didn’t wolf down…
The jungle and the beach are beautiful. There are little black monkeys that jumped around from tree to tree, and there were lots of chickens, cows, and horses. The plants were monstrous. I have never seen bigger bamboo, elephant ears, or palm trees. The beach had black sand and the water was warm. The sky was pretty clear most of the time, though when it rained it was an all day occurrence.
The people I met were all extremely nice and very accommodating to my lack of Spanish language skills. Oliver made fun of me quite a lot but it was all good. With the exception of the “guy with the beard,” I loved everyone I met.
The volunteers were from all different parts of the world. For the few days I was there, I met people from France, Canada, England, Scotland, New Zealand, and the USA. Most of us were younger, from 16 to 30ish.
The people who ran the organization were incredibly helpful and knowledgeable in their work. They trained us on how to work with the turtles and ensured that we all were confident with our tasks; if not, they helped us until we were. They interacted with all of the volunteers throughout the day and were available whenever one of us needed them. They definitely have a great organization that I feel can do a lot of good.
The work kicked my butt. Patrolling the beach at night consisted of four-hour shifts of walking down the beach and checking for turtles, digging nests, and collecting their eggs to go to the hatchery. During the day there were tasks like beach cleanup, which consisted of moving fallen trees and giant branches off to the jungle so the turtles would easily be able to nest. That kind of work isn’t for everybody, but I absolutely loved it, even if I did get a horrible sunburn.

The Not-So-Good Stuff
I’m gonna hate writing about this. Ok.
The “guy with the beard” was a complete jerk. Now, I was totally fine with it when there were troubles with communication with anyone in Costa Rica, because it usually was just funny for both of us. I pretty much went to the country with the assumption that I am a tiny person in a place I’ve never been and I just wanted to get where I was going, not tick anyone off, and do some work and have fun. It worked pretty well, I had a great time talking with locals and getting to know them, but this guy…oh man. Apparently he makes money by sending people to a pretty cool town in Panama, where they tip him for all his effort, blah blah blah. I wasn’t going to Panama, and he wasn’t listening when I said “No, no, I need a taxi to Gandoca!” which was right down the street. Arrggg. There were several volunteers who had bad experiences with this guy. Blah.
Some of my stuff got stolen by another volunteer (I think). I don’t know who it was, really, but I went out one night to work and when I came back, a good portion of my toiletries were missing. Almost all of my tampons, some shampoo and conditioner, soap, a razor, and some clothes went missing. The night I left, however, I gave my first aid kit and bug spray and some other smallish things to one of the volunteers. I felt kind of good about that because I wasn’t going to be using it anymore. It sure did tick me off that someone took stuff out of my bag though. The bright side? My passport, wallet, and laptop are still with me!
The bugs! I hate bugs! Every plant and animal is bigger in Costa Rica and that includes all the bugs there. That country has 4% of the world’s animals, right, but what you forget about is that bugs make up a good majority of the world’s animals. Monkeys? Yeah, they’re there too but you can’t see them through the giant man-eating bug that’s latched on to your face.
In the end, the experience was a learning one for me. I can’t say whether it was entirely good or bad, but I definitely learned a lot. Right now, it’s more frustrating than anything because I worked since January to go to Costa Rica for what I thought would be this awesome trip where I could work with turtles and meet new people, and it was cut short. Terribly short. As in, two months and twenty-five days short. I’ll give the volunteer vacation thing another go soon.