Felicitas

I’ve had the plan to go abroad after graduating from high school for a long time. In the Spanish lessons at school we dealt with the Spanish-speaking countries in Central and South America and since then I have been fascinated by Costa Rica, this small country with its incredible diversity. At an education fair last summer, the organization CAS appealed to me because it specialized only in this country. However, a few months passed before I made my final decision. But even at short notice I was able to plan different projects and only one month after booking the flight I left for Costa Rica at the end of February.

I was picked up directly from the airport in San José by the CAS employee and accompanied to the hostel „Casa del Parque“. CAS gave me a briefing on the country and its people and explained the most important things for my first project and how to get there. I also received a SIM card for my mobile phone and was accompanied by my CAS supervisor while shopping and withdrawing money. The next morning I had to walk alone from the hostel to the bus station and the trip to the bus station, the purchase of the ticket and the trip to Puerto Viejo worked without problems.

The first two weeks I spent in the language school „Pura Vida“ directly in the center of Puerto Viejo. I was able to start my lessons right away and even had private lessons, because there was no other student there this week. My teachers were both very nice and the lessons were very well organized. Nevertheless, I felt quite alone in these first two weeks, as I had no one to do anything with in the language school or in the afternoons. So I was really looking forward to my project in the „Jaguar Rescue Center“, which started in my third week. The work there was always a bit long (8 hours a day) and sometimes physically exhausting. For example, we had to help with the work on the premises, clean the enclosures and the outdoor facilities, and of course feed the animals and take care of them. The experience with the animals, especially how close you could get to the monkeys, sloths and other exotic animals, was really great and unique. You probably won’t be able to experience something like this anywhere else. I also met a lot of nice people there, especially Germans, with whom I could make trips to the nearby national park Cahuita and to Manzanillo, did a canopy tour or spent shopping and beach days in Puerto Viejo. There was even a weekend trip to Bocas del Toro in Panama.

I enjoyed the time in Puerto Viejo very much and met many nice people there. Also the hostel was very nice, but unfortunately a bit remote, which is why I couldn’t do anything after nightfall, which is in Costa Rica already at 6 pm.

After 6 weeks I said goodbye to Puerto Viejo and went on to my next project at the Pacific coast. Since the way would have been too long in a piece, I had again a night stopover in the hostel in San José. Since originally two days stay were planned, I had decided, however, relatively at short notice to stay still another night longer in Puerto Viejo, it came unfortunately to no meeting in San José and thus I started then somewhat unprepared the way to my next project. The most important thing, however, was communicated to me shortly before departure still by telephone by the CAS employee.

After slight difficulties to find the right counter in the big bus terminal „7-10“, I bought a ticket to Samara. Since Semana was Santa, the buses unfortunately only went to the center of Samara and not to the entrance of the Camaronal National Park, where my project took place. Fortunately, I met a boy from Belgium in the bus, who also worked in my project, who could describe our problem to the bus driver, and then we could go on with the next bus. At the entrance of the national park our taxi driver was already waiting to take us to the volunteer camp on the loading area of his car.

I really liked the time in Camaronal. It was sunny and very hot every day and we could spend our free lunches at the beach or in the pool of a neighbouring hotel. Only the work in the morning and afternoon, as well as the night shifts were sometimes a bit exhausting. But we were lucky to see turtle babies hatch several times and bring them safely into the sea. We could even watch a big turtle laying eggs during a night patrol, even though it was not a season at that time. The food there was prepared three times a day by a cook, it was quite varied and tasted good. The mood between the volunteers was usually good, only with those responsible for our project there were sometimes a few problems, especially because one of the volunteers did not want to do the night shift alone. But since we were only about 10 people in total, this was sometimes unavoidable. On my day off I could make a trip to Samara and spend a nice day in a beach club.

The almost two weeks in Camaronal went by like a flash. On Friday I took the bus back to San José, the last stop of my stay in Costa Rica. There I was picked up from the bus station by the CAS employee and taken by taxi to my host family, where I was to live for four weeks. The family was very nice and friendly, but there were some communication problems and sometimes even misunderstandings due to my poor knowledge of Spanish. The food was typical Costa Rican and consisted mainly of rice and beans. It tasted not bad, although I have to honestly say that I found the food in Camaronal somewhat better and above all more varied. The house of the family was very nice and my room was relatively big. Also the location was good, as the bus stop was right around the corner and I only needed 15-20 minutes to get to my project by bus, then only a few more minutes to the center.

On my first day I was accompanied by CAS to the „Hogar Fe Viva“ and got a briefing. The 15 children, all 0-5 years old, were very sweet and approached me immediately. So I quickly learned some important Spanish words for the children, like „swing“ or „catch me“. The time with the children was often very nice, but sometimes a bit exhausting, for example when the children got cheeky or didn’t want to listen. What I found great was that I was allowed to go to the little babies right away, take them in my arms and feed them. Unfortunately, I was alone for the first week and also had to spend the two-hour lunch break alone, because the other two volunteers who were also in the project (both German) were unfortunately ill exactly in this week. But from the second week on it was very nice. I got along well with the other volunteers and from then on we always spent the lunch breaks together and went ice cream eating in the San Pedro Mall or ate our lunch in the CAS office. There I got to know the nice CAS staff personally. In the third week the children were unfortunately ill, and we were not allowed to go to work. But we had a lot of time to travel during the week and also on the weekends, so that I still had the possibility to visit the national parks Tortuguero, Monteverde and the volcano Arenal. And also a few nice days at the beach in Montezuma I could enjoy. There was also time for some shopping in the center of San José. In the fourth week there was a bit of trouble with the employees in the project, because they didn’t want us volunteers to talk to each other in a language other than Spanish. But we were able to resolve this quickly.

Then my time in Costa Rica was already over and after three months in this beautiful country I got back on the plane to Germany.

In summary, I can say that I really enjoyed my time in Costa Rica. And even though I sometimes had a few problems, I always managed to master them. I have always experienced a lot of helpfulness from the locals, the volunteers as well as from other tourists. I have had many great experiences, seen a beautiful and varied landscape and nature, met nice people and experienced unforgettable things. I would like to thank the team from CAS who have accompanied me through this eventful time and have put me in touch with such great projects. I will always remember Costa Rica.