We had a shuttle bus to the airport; the driver seemed to suffer from road rage quite a bit! I was nervous about my bags being overweight, but thankfully with a bit of reshuffling I was okay. We flew to Atlanta first and had a bit of time there as our flight to New York was delayed; we’d now arrive at 1am instead of midnight. The flights were good although turbulence made us drop a few times and I ended up with Rachael’s Sprite over me! We got off in New York and had to wait quite a while for our bags as the conveyor belt had stopped suddenly. Rachael managed to pull my leg by saying that was the end of the bags, which I fell for! We got a taxi to the hostel and on the way we saw lots of workmen working on the road. We were in luck at the hostel as they’d had some flooding somewhere so we had to stay on mattresses on the floor which was enough for them not to charge us for the night! Any kind of mattress would be comfier than what we’d been used to for the previous 10 weeks! The following morning we had to check out of that room store our bags in the lockers on the ground floor and then in the afternoon check back in again. It was sod’s law that the lift was broken so we were dragging our 50kg of bags (each!) down a floor and then back up again 3 floors! We bought a week’s pass on the subway for only £12.50 which we would use for 4 days and then pass on to someone else in the hostel. My first stop was to buy a new camera in Times Square and then we walked down some of Central Park. It was so beautiful! Apparently it is designed based on the park in Birkenhead, where Rachael is from! We spent the rest of the day looking at all the really cool shops like the giant Toys R Us which has a Ferris wheel in it, M+M World which has so many different colours you wouldn’t believe it!, Hershey’s World – famous US chocolate, Disney World – with art shop upstairs, the Apple Store and Bloomingdales. I had my photo taken with someone dressed up as Elmo from Seasame Street too! We were so fascinated by all the lights and the huge signs outside and the fact that the shops didn’t shut until 9pm/midnight that we were out until quite late without realising it! The city never slept, and neither did we! We went to bed about 2am and got up before 8am! Another Raleigh venturer Jason was also in New York. He’d arrived and was leaving a day earlier than us so we thought it would be good to explore together. We started off walking over Brooklyn Bridge, so we could see the Statue of Liberty; then back over to Manhattan which was a pretty sight. We saw Ground Zero which was just a huge building site, and then to Wall Street. We signed our names on the metal supports that will be used for a World Trade Centre memorial. We passed lots of squirrels and people dressed as the Statue of Liberty on the way to it. Next up was the Staten Island Ferry, a free trip from which you can get a bit closer to the Statue of Liberty. We just went there and back and didn’t explore the Island as we were feeling pretty exhausted! We got some food and then went to the Rockefeller Centre where you can go to the Top of the Rock for a fantastic view of Manhattan. Central Park is probably the most spectacular thing you see, followed by the Empire State Building with the memorial lights for the WTCs shining upwards. In the evening when trying to get money out for the accommodation I realised my bank card wasn’t working so I was frantically calling my parents to ask if they could go into the bank etc. On the last couple of days Rachael wanted to do shopping and I wanted to see a bit more of the sights so we split up and met up every so often. I saw The Naked Cowboy (almost naked man with a guitar) in Times square, at Union Square there was a group of dramatists acting out little plays which were less than a minute long but quite entertaining. Next to Union Square was a shop selling vegan treats like chocolate cake, brownies, muffins and cookies! I went back to the hostel in the afternoon and met up with Rachael and then we headed out to find a Broadway show to go to. We enquired about Mamma Mia but we’d have had to stand for all of it! We went to Hairspray instead, which was amazing!! It was so funny and the actors were perfect, they got a well deserved standing ovation. We did a bit of shopping afterwards in the Virgin Megastore where we were lucky enough to see a Metallica tribute band perform.
On our final day I packed my bags so that my hand luggage was very heavy as I thought my checked-in luggage would be over the limit. We put them in the lockers in the basement. I tried sorting my bank card out again (parent had already ascertained from the bank that it hadn’t been blocked so I thought it was something wrong at my side). We spent quite a while in the morning looking for a Royal Bank of Scotland but with no luck, I also tried several banks to see if they could do anything. It had taken me a while but I had a brainwave to call the number on the back of the card! It only took me three days to work that out! It was a short 5 minute conversation and they told me my card had been blocked and would be reactivated within 15 minutes! I felt so relieved! I spent the rest of the day shopping but didn’t go overboard. Having to watch what I spent for the previous few days made me very conservative! I went back to Central Park to see the ‘Imagine’ memorial paving close to where John Lennon had been murdered. Rachael and I met up in the afternoon and we had to rush back on the subway and then run to the hostel! We were in a mad panic when on the subway, counting down until 5.40pm which was when we should have been getting into the shuttle bus. We arrived with one minute to spare and let people know we were there, we had to carry our bags up which was quite a struggle as we did it in one trip to save time! The shuttle bus only arrived at 6.10pm, it usually is late apparently! The traffic was very busy and we were dotting around Manhattan picking up a few more people, one of whom was catching a 9pm flight. She arrived at 8.20pm and we arrived 8.40pm. We checked our bags in and headed through security. We got a bit carried away looking in the shop and thankfully my ears were open so I heard “final call for flight... to Edinburgh”. I was in a bit of a panic, but said goodbye to Rachael who was flying on to Manchester at the same time although her flight hadn’t been called. I ran down along beside someone else who was late! We got on the plane but then had to wait for another flight to transfer their passengers over to us. Then we had to wait for our turn in the queue to use the runway (time which is accounted for in the flight time). The trip was good. I was sitting beside some girls of the same age, and the entertainment system worked for the first time!! I was met at the airport by Anna which was really great!
Monday 27 October 2008
San Jose 2 - September 2008
There were about 15 people going rafting. We arrived at the river by 7.30am and were given a very short health and safety talk and an overview of how to raft. I was amazed at how stable I felt despite having to sit on the edge of the boat and the only thing securing me to the boat was my feet tucked under an inflatable ‘seat’ in the middle of the boat. We were split up between 3 boats and I was with Rachael (travel buddy). Our boat capsized once which was kind of scary as we were all got chucked off the boat and were in rapids for a bit then floating downstream at quite a speed before we were rescued by another boat. It was pretty exciting too! At least we capsized on grade 4 rapids rather than the measly grade 3 ones as one of the other boats had! Ever so often we’d have a calm bit of river and just were able to relax and enjoy the scenery which included passing through a beautiful large canyon. Three hours later we were at the end of the rafting and were at a nice cafe where our lunch was provided for us. It was a rice and chicken dish, and then crisps and bananas, so I just ate my weight in bananas! We then had a couple of hours on the minibus before arriving in San Jose so we all slept, totally exhausted from not sleeping the previous night. Three of us were all staying in Hostel Toruma so got a taxi from the centre of town up to the hostel. We then went out shopping for more souvenirs at the market that Rachael and I had visited on our first San Jose trip.
Leaving Raleigh (September 2008)
Our last few days on Raleigh were filled with lots of fun! On our first day we did lots of tidying of group kit and a bit of personal packing. In the afternoon we met up with out group from Phase 1 to discuss what we’d learnt, what we would take from the experience etc. Then in the evening awards were given out to the biggest faffer, best cripple, most eligible male/female, best cook, best dancer and the man up award (people who’d been a total wuss and then learnt to not complain and just get on with it!). We did our final skits which involved trekking onto the stage in just our undergarments and rucksacks! The field base people had dressed up in superhero costumes this time! The following day was the Olympics so we had to come up with a National Anthem (Jingle Bells!), and make a flag. We also stripped off to become Alpha Naked again and did our faces up so we looked like The Joker out of the new Batman film! The games were very varied: welly wanging where you had to hit one of the PMs to get points, jeep pulling, jelly throwing (most times you could hit your PM with it!), longest slide down soaped up plastic sheeting, food race (eating watermelon, M+Ms out of porridge etc in fastest time) and sleeping bag wrestling. It was as fun to watch as it was taking part! I did a bit of shopping in the afternoon to find something tidy to wear for the black tie dinner we were having in the evening, and also for some souvenirs. Everyone was all dressed up and looking nice and the PMs were serving us ginger ale and pre-dinner nibbles. Then we sat down at the nicely candle-lit, dressed-up table and were served proper plastic plates!! The meal was delicious veggies in some sort of tasty sauce! For pudding the guys/girls that had hooked up had the guys presenting the girls with a slice of cake, everyone else had a sort of banoffee pie and I had a vegan version of the Energy Bombs that people had had on trek, but with bananas. We had another party starting off with some Scottish Dancing (Gay Gordons etc), then another party. We didn’t sleep much as buses were leaving at 3am, 5am, 6am and 9am. I was on the 6am with all the other white water rafters. We got up to say goodbye to everyone and there were a few tears shed and lots of hugs!
Phase 3 (Trekking - Guanacaste Trek) - August 2008
Thankfully I was in luck again! I was put on the Guanacaste trek with Aleks (my PM from 2nd Phase) and Jungle Mike (a mountain leader). We had a look at the map to show us where we’d be walking; the distance looked huge! 240km plus. We’d be arriving at the beach which I’d just been on for Phase 2. We had the mammoth task of sorting out our food, checking that logistics had given us enough, and then splitting it up so we had enough meals at each food drop. We had 5 days’ of food when we set off. We would then be given 3 live food drops (each with 4 days worth of food in it) and a dead one left at the beach to last us two days. We had to plan each meal out so that we weren’t left short any night. We left the tea and coffee as the cheapo instant stuff tastes disgusting! Most people had 65 litre rucksacks. Our rucksacks should be no more than a third full with our personal kit to leave room for group kit. Group kit was 3 trangia stoves, the three bowls (for the three bowl system of wash, bleach, rinse), 4 tents (with poles), 5 fuel cans, and all the food. We divided up the kit by weight between the 12 of us. We then had to pack our personal kit as minimally as possible. Jungle Mike told us what to take – two sets of clothes (a wet set for daytime, a dry set for evenings), sleeping bag, sleeping bag liner (optional), ground mat, mosquito net, camera (optional), penknife, headtorch, first aid kit (zinc oxide tape, drugs, gauze, savlon spray), washing kit (small soap, toothbrush, toothpaste), trekking poles and two water bottles. Our bags weighed 25kg with our two litres of water. Some of the other groups had bags up to 30kg of weight because they hadn’t been as strict with their personal kit as us. At 3am on the morning we were leaving we’d got our rucksacks and everything we’d been told to take and then Mike showed us how to fit everything into our bags efficiently. We put everything in dry bags so that if we fell in a river or when it rained our dry kit didn’t get wet. We then had to load our rucksacks on to the top of a minibus. That was quite a struggle lifting it above our heads! Jungle Mike had conjunctivitis so he wasn’t going to be with us for the first four days but was going to arrive with the first food drop. We had Nick, a paramedic and ex-marine, who is in charge of logistics. We were given a sandwich for breakfast and one for lunch but a dog ran off with Danny’s which was a bit comical! Everyone was really tired due to partying the night before so we decided to have a quick game of Two Truths and a Lie before going to sleep. For the game you have to say two facts about yourself and a lie and people have to guess which one the lie is. It’s a good way to get to know people.
We arrived at 9am at the place where we’d be starting our hike. We chatted a bit about the importance of hydration, foot care etc. We also worked out a rota with Health and Safety person, 2 cooks, 2 clean-up people, a day leader, 2 people on comms (radioing through to fieldbase to report our location etc). We only had 4km to walk today but with the heavy rucksacks it took us absolutely ages. It didn’t help that we got lost twice! We passed a really small, dead snake on the road. It started to rain so our boots and clothes were absolutely sodden when we arrived at the cow shed we were due to sleep in. Each evening we did a review of how the day went, things to improve on etc.
We set a routine of getting up at 3.20am and doing some stretches led by Aleks whilst still in our pyjamas. Then we had to have had breakfast, radioed through to fieldbase, repacked our bags to be ready to set off by 5am. We also had to zinc tape up our feet and chafing areas etc. This took quite a while! Usually it was 5.30am by the time we actually left, but it was still better than the other groups. Being on ‘comms’ is really annoying. It involves setting up an aerial by hoisting it over a tree branch, then holding out wire aerials at either side so it’s pointing in the right direction, and then attaching all the electronics. Then after all the faffing the chances are it doesn’t work so you have to take it all down again and just use a payphone or the sat. phone! We had pace setters who we weren’t allowed to overtake. They were usually the slowest people, to keep the group together.
On our second day we did our first river crossing. It took us two hours to learn what to do and to faff about changing into sandals and back again. Our second night was spent in the Indigenous Reserve of Tonjibe tribe. There were masks and arty artefacts on sale. For washing facilities there was a river where a few people bared all for a bath. I took the alternative hose pipe behind the toilet block option although that had no privacy either, lucky none of the locals were around!
We had a stop-off in a town for internet access on the third day. Then after leaving the town along a highway it was really sweltering heat and we missed a turning and had to walk a bit further than we should have so we didn’t have to backtrack. We passed a tree full of really cute monkeys, however, and then met a girl who cycled with us for quite a way and then when she passed her house she got some ice in a bag and gave it to us.
When passing Lake Nicaragua, shortly after seeing the stunning Arenal Volcano, we saw a black squirrel jumping from tree to tree with a dog running along underneath barking!
During the middle part of the trek we were fortunate to pass orange, guava, and grapefruit trees and a discarded pineapple that was still edible.
Across from the community centre in Bijagua on our 6th night some locals were practicing some local dancing, which was good entertainment.
We had quite a few river crossings and depending on the day leader and how efficient they were at assessing the river it could take between 15 minutes and an hour! Beside one river we saw a snake that was quite small but apparently very poisonous.
Our first food drop was in El Pilon where we spent two nights so we had a day off and we could explore the National Park by walking to hot springs, a blue lagoon and a waterfall. That first night in the ranger station someone had shouted “Quick come look!” – I’d thought someone was injured or something but we got a treat! It was a Tapir! Julian hadn’t ever seen one before and we were all really excited. The rangers had said that it was especially large for a Tapir. The following day was really relaxed and chilled out even though I was day leader. The hot springs were lovely – a hot bath at last!! We all just stripped off to underwear. Both the waterfall and the blue lagoon were so blue! It was really pretty; a good place for lots of group photos. We swapped Nick back for the original Mike here but were told that Mike had decided he wanted to be a doctor so he would be leaving us again at the next food drop! We weren’t sure who we were getting to replace him but we hoped it would be Nick again.
We got lost quite severely on a few occasions. The first was in the jungle where we turned left even though the pre-expedition report had told us to take a left if we saw one! Woops! We were faffing about going back and forth for quite a while. The paths were really deep mud and we had to tread quite carefully without being too slow. I lead for a while but ended up stuck in the mud with someone pulling me out by my arms. I ended up falling over and I heard a huge snap – one of my rucksack clip/adjusters had snapped on one of the shoulder supports. I had to just tie a knot in it, but it was impossible to adjust and that was not so comfortable. After traipsing about in a cow field in the dark trying to find a path heading to a town that we could see lights of we finally arrived on a road, which some venturers kissed! A local said the school was locked, but we could sleep outside on a balcony. It was about 5km from where we had originally planned to be staying. We were absolutely exhausted when we arrived and everyone slept very deeply that night. In the morning we woke to find that two rucksacks (from the people at the end), 12 portions of macaroni cheese, the radio and a pair of boots were missing! We found the boots chucked up a tree, and the rucksacks were in the school yard but had been raided and a first aid kit and two cameras had been taken from them. We got advice from a friendly local who contacted the police for us. We had planned to set off at our usual 5.30am as we had to do the extra 5km that day, but we spent all morning waiting for the police and making statements etc. During the morning whilse the police were working away, we just chilled out eating the coconuts, oranges and macadamia nuts that a local boy had brought for us! It was such a treat! We set off walking once the police had all the information they needed. They said they’d check out a few places where they thought the thieves might be. They caught us up in the town 5km away and returned our goods… unfortunately all 12 portions of macaroni cheese had been consumed by the 4 thieves that night!! It started raining really heavily and it was around mid afternoon so we decided to stay in the community centre there. We’d have to make up for our lost day later on.
We were on our way to our next food drop when the Raleigh Bravo vehicle caught up with us. They’d dropped offour food and Nick (yay!) and were coming to collect Mike. They’d been driving along and a Jaguar had leapt across the road in front of them! Julian who runs Raleigh in Costa Rica, who has lived here for 7 years said he’d never seen one before so it was pretty exciting for him!
We had a particularly wet day with slippery slopes, rivers and rain. Quite a long day which got a few people down. I was in quite a good mood even when I ended up with mud up to almost my knees and really struggled to get out! Quite a few people kept on slipping, I think the record was about 14 falls in one day! I maxed at 4 in total over the trip although one was in a river.
On our second visit to hot springs where we had to continue walking to our final destination after our bath. We mistimed things and ended up having to sprint the last 3km in 30 minutes so we would arrive before dark (which is a Raleigh Rule). Some of the smaller girls couldn’t walk that fast and had to run the whole way! This is where the “1,2,3,4,1,2…” counting as you march was born. My rucksack was giving me trouble again and had started cutting off the blood to my head so I was feeling a little woozy. Nick made me lie down with my legs elevated over my bags for a minute and then for the last 0.5km he carried not only his 30kg bag but my 25kg over his shouters! We arrived at the holiday homes centre where we were allowed to discreetly have our tents hidden at the back of their house. This was the first time we were in tents and we got totally soaked while putting them up as it was raining! Morale was still high and no one was complaining which I was surprised about! Thankfully Nick had the foresight to dig a moat around our tents so we wouldn’t flood in the night. The cooks cooked the food and thankfully the kind property owners allowed us to eat it in their bar, which just looked like a dining room. They then were extremely kind by giving us coffee and a huge bowl of fresh vegetables and another huge bowl with rice and beans in it! It was absolutely heaven! The girls were sharing two lots of three to a tent. The guys had to squish all four of them in a tent which must have been a real squeeze!
Another time when we’d made a wrong turn we’d walked quite far from the wrong turning before realising. Another venturer and I were quite far ahead as those behind were counting steps “1,2,3,4,1,2…” which severely irritated us both, so we walked ahead whistling and entertaining ourselves. We had quite a good pace going and ended up quite far up a really steep hill and had to trek all the way back down again to get back to the group which was a pain! We were supposed to be at Quebrada Grande for a live food drop that night but hadn’t quite made it! So the following morning we walked and stopped at a payphone to give a sitrep and to find out where to meet the Bravo Vehicle when it drove up beside us! Because my bag had now broken in about 3 different places and was causing a lot of discomfort I managed to borrow one of the touring PMs rucksacks. It made such a difference! We had quite a lot of road to go along before starting an ascent up to the Cerro Cacao Ranger Station and I was so much speedier! I’d got some painkillers for my foot as well so all my problems were sorted!
We came across quite a lot of forks in the road but were very fortunate in that after we’d been staring at the map for about 10 minutes, scouted out the routes and were about to make a decision on which way to go that was quite often based on which route had the deeper tyre tracks, a local would pass us by, quite often the rangers and tell us which way to go! At this ranger station we had a beautiful view over mountains although it was really misty and very cold most of the time. We saw some wild hummingbirds and someone saw a toucan! There was a delicious orange tree in the yard too. This was a tourist hut which had 4 rooms of 6 bunk beds! So for the first time in ages we actually had something soft to sleep on! We had a day allocated for climbing this volcano but due to the bad weather (including a tropical storm because of Hurricane Hanna) there was a majority of 6:4 not to do the volcano. Surprisingly enough all girls wanted to do it! The guys all wanted to get to the beach a day early. We’d already had to miss out the first volcano because of bad weather and we planned to combine the last two days into a huge 32km one so we now had 4 days at the beach instead of 1.
Our next place of rest was Maritza Ranger Station which was quite a long trek through slippy slopes and we weren’t able to see where we were due to the dense forests and the not very helpful map. It was along here that I dropped my camera and it went from faulty to totally broken! Very annoying! We arrived and weren’t that bothered about where we were staying because we saw the most amazing view we’d seen yet… we could actually see the island that is just off the beach we were heading to!! For the first time we could see our final destination!! Scary thing was; it looked very far away!! 32km! Lots of photos and hugs at this point!! We were pleasantly surprised by some really nice showers (still cold though!).
On our last day of trekking I was day leader. We were up bright and early and set off along a very straight path for 18km to get us onto the highway. From here I could recognise where we were as we’d passed it on our way to the beach on Phase 2. We had a really flat bit for a while which hurt my left (but not right) calf! Then the road wound downwards for quite a while before getting to a town with the supermarket we’d walked to 4km from the beach. We stopped for a 30 minute break outside the supermarket which was closed unfortunately; as it was a Sunday. A worker from the restaurant had brought us out a bottle of cooled water which was nice although between 12 it didn’t go very far! When we stood up again to leave my calves were extremely painful and felt as if they were about to be pulled! Half the group seemed to be about to die whereas the other half seemed to want to run the last 4km! It was a nice walk though – we passed the rocks that we’d put down to repair the road which I was very proud of! Plus I knew when we were approaching a view point, and we also passed the signs we’d painted. It was all so exciting! It took us about an hour and a half and when we arrived we said a quick hello to the ranger we recognised before dropping our rucksacks and running into the sea! It felt so good to finally be in water with no pressure on our feet! All the zinc oxide tape came off too. We then assembled on the beach for a photo shoot of us doing the traditional Raleigh jumping on the beach shot! Our legs were so sore that a few of us struggled with the jumping! The sea was a lot rougher than it was on 2nd Phase but the sun was shining and it was nice and hot so we could wash and dry out clothes. We had a shower and set up our tents. Most people spent most of the time swimming but towards the end of our time on the beach the sea got much worse, so much so that it managed to move a gigantic piece of drift wood quite far up the beach so it was facing a different direction. Some crazy venturers walked to the supermarket, so another 8km! In addition, when people were swimming they came out with debris in their hair which put a few of us off going back in the water. We organised a Beach Olympics and held it on our 3rd day. There was the usual tug of war, gladiators, wheelbarrow race, three-legged race and water moving race. It wasn’t as fun as on Phase 2 and the weather wasn’t as good. The aim of gladiators is to have two people on another two people’s shoulders in the sea and the top people have to wrestle each other to get the other person to fall off. The sea won every time which made it a bit pointless!
On the minibus back to Liberia we gave an unknown Frenchman a lift in our trailer where we our luggage was he’d have had a pretty bumpy ride! We had to stop on the way to remove a huge rock that was in the middle of the road as the result of a landslide cause by all the rain. In Liberia we went to Burger King. Whilse Danny from near Liverpool, Rudo and I were outside looking after the bags, he met a lady from Liverpool! He was telling her about Raleigh and in mentioning lack of money and the food we were eating on Raleigh she insisted on buying him a burger. When she returned outside she had two for Danny, and one each for Rudo and I. Pretty cool of her! Danny got three burgers out of it as it was an animal burger. The groups from Nicaragua turned up and it was absolutely brilliant catching up with Allie the PM and others from Phase 2 and Rachael (travel buddy).
We arrived at 9am at the place where we’d be starting our hike. We chatted a bit about the importance of hydration, foot care etc. We also worked out a rota with Health and Safety person, 2 cooks, 2 clean-up people, a day leader, 2 people on comms (radioing through to fieldbase to report our location etc). We only had 4km to walk today but with the heavy rucksacks it took us absolutely ages. It didn’t help that we got lost twice! We passed a really small, dead snake on the road. It started to rain so our boots and clothes were absolutely sodden when we arrived at the cow shed we were due to sleep in. Each evening we did a review of how the day went, things to improve on etc.
We set a routine of getting up at 3.20am and doing some stretches led by Aleks whilst still in our pyjamas. Then we had to have had breakfast, radioed through to fieldbase, repacked our bags to be ready to set off by 5am. We also had to zinc tape up our feet and chafing areas etc. This took quite a while! Usually it was 5.30am by the time we actually left, but it was still better than the other groups. Being on ‘comms’ is really annoying. It involves setting up an aerial by hoisting it over a tree branch, then holding out wire aerials at either side so it’s pointing in the right direction, and then attaching all the electronics. Then after all the faffing the chances are it doesn’t work so you have to take it all down again and just use a payphone or the sat. phone! We had pace setters who we weren’t allowed to overtake. They were usually the slowest people, to keep the group together.
On our second day we did our first river crossing. It took us two hours to learn what to do and to faff about changing into sandals and back again. Our second night was spent in the Indigenous Reserve of Tonjibe tribe. There were masks and arty artefacts on sale. For washing facilities there was a river where a few people bared all for a bath. I took the alternative hose pipe behind the toilet block option although that had no privacy either, lucky none of the locals were around!
We had a stop-off in a town for internet access on the third day. Then after leaving the town along a highway it was really sweltering heat and we missed a turning and had to walk a bit further than we should have so we didn’t have to backtrack. We passed a tree full of really cute monkeys, however, and then met a girl who cycled with us for quite a way and then when she passed her house she got some ice in a bag and gave it to us.
When passing Lake Nicaragua, shortly after seeing the stunning Arenal Volcano, we saw a black squirrel jumping from tree to tree with a dog running along underneath barking!
During the middle part of the trek we were fortunate to pass orange, guava, and grapefruit trees and a discarded pineapple that was still edible.
Across from the community centre in Bijagua on our 6th night some locals were practicing some local dancing, which was good entertainment.
We had quite a few river crossings and depending on the day leader and how efficient they were at assessing the river it could take between 15 minutes and an hour! Beside one river we saw a snake that was quite small but apparently very poisonous.
Our first food drop was in El Pilon where we spent two nights so we had a day off and we could explore the National Park by walking to hot springs, a blue lagoon and a waterfall. That first night in the ranger station someone had shouted “Quick come look!” – I’d thought someone was injured or something but we got a treat! It was a Tapir! Julian hadn’t ever seen one before and we were all really excited. The rangers had said that it was especially large for a Tapir. The following day was really relaxed and chilled out even though I was day leader. The hot springs were lovely – a hot bath at last!! We all just stripped off to underwear. Both the waterfall and the blue lagoon were so blue! It was really pretty; a good place for lots of group photos. We swapped Nick back for the original Mike here but were told that Mike had decided he wanted to be a doctor so he would be leaving us again at the next food drop! We weren’t sure who we were getting to replace him but we hoped it would be Nick again.
We got lost quite severely on a few occasions. The first was in the jungle where we turned left even though the pre-expedition report had told us to take a left if we saw one! Woops! We were faffing about going back and forth for quite a while. The paths were really deep mud and we had to tread quite carefully without being too slow. I lead for a while but ended up stuck in the mud with someone pulling me out by my arms. I ended up falling over and I heard a huge snap – one of my rucksack clip/adjusters had snapped on one of the shoulder supports. I had to just tie a knot in it, but it was impossible to adjust and that was not so comfortable. After traipsing about in a cow field in the dark trying to find a path heading to a town that we could see lights of we finally arrived on a road, which some venturers kissed! A local said the school was locked, but we could sleep outside on a balcony. It was about 5km from where we had originally planned to be staying. We were absolutely exhausted when we arrived and everyone slept very deeply that night. In the morning we woke to find that two rucksacks (from the people at the end), 12 portions of macaroni cheese, the radio and a pair of boots were missing! We found the boots chucked up a tree, and the rucksacks were in the school yard but had been raided and a first aid kit and two cameras had been taken from them. We got advice from a friendly local who contacted the police for us. We had planned to set off at our usual 5.30am as we had to do the extra 5km that day, but we spent all morning waiting for the police and making statements etc. During the morning whilse the police were working away, we just chilled out eating the coconuts, oranges and macadamia nuts that a local boy had brought for us! It was such a treat! We set off walking once the police had all the information they needed. They said they’d check out a few places where they thought the thieves might be. They caught us up in the town 5km away and returned our goods… unfortunately all 12 portions of macaroni cheese had been consumed by the 4 thieves that night!! It started raining really heavily and it was around mid afternoon so we decided to stay in the community centre there. We’d have to make up for our lost day later on.
We were on our way to our next food drop when the Raleigh Bravo vehicle caught up with us. They’d dropped offour food and Nick (yay!) and were coming to collect Mike. They’d been driving along and a Jaguar had leapt across the road in front of them! Julian who runs Raleigh in Costa Rica, who has lived here for 7 years said he’d never seen one before so it was pretty exciting for him!
We had a particularly wet day with slippery slopes, rivers and rain. Quite a long day which got a few people down. I was in quite a good mood even when I ended up with mud up to almost my knees and really struggled to get out! Quite a few people kept on slipping, I think the record was about 14 falls in one day! I maxed at 4 in total over the trip although one was in a river.
On our second visit to hot springs where we had to continue walking to our final destination after our bath. We mistimed things and ended up having to sprint the last 3km in 30 minutes so we would arrive before dark (which is a Raleigh Rule). Some of the smaller girls couldn’t walk that fast and had to run the whole way! This is where the “1,2,3,4,1,2…” counting as you march was born. My rucksack was giving me trouble again and had started cutting off the blood to my head so I was feeling a little woozy. Nick made me lie down with my legs elevated over my bags for a minute and then for the last 0.5km he carried not only his 30kg bag but my 25kg over his shouters! We arrived at the holiday homes centre where we were allowed to discreetly have our tents hidden at the back of their house. This was the first time we were in tents and we got totally soaked while putting them up as it was raining! Morale was still high and no one was complaining which I was surprised about! Thankfully Nick had the foresight to dig a moat around our tents so we wouldn’t flood in the night. The cooks cooked the food and thankfully the kind property owners allowed us to eat it in their bar, which just looked like a dining room. They then were extremely kind by giving us coffee and a huge bowl of fresh vegetables and another huge bowl with rice and beans in it! It was absolutely heaven! The girls were sharing two lots of three to a tent. The guys had to squish all four of them in a tent which must have been a real squeeze!
Another time when we’d made a wrong turn we’d walked quite far from the wrong turning before realising. Another venturer and I were quite far ahead as those behind were counting steps “1,2,3,4,1,2…” which severely irritated us both, so we walked ahead whistling and entertaining ourselves. We had quite a good pace going and ended up quite far up a really steep hill and had to trek all the way back down again to get back to the group which was a pain! We were supposed to be at Quebrada Grande for a live food drop that night but hadn’t quite made it! So the following morning we walked and stopped at a payphone to give a sitrep and to find out where to meet the Bravo Vehicle when it drove up beside us! Because my bag had now broken in about 3 different places and was causing a lot of discomfort I managed to borrow one of the touring PMs rucksacks. It made such a difference! We had quite a lot of road to go along before starting an ascent up to the Cerro Cacao Ranger Station and I was so much speedier! I’d got some painkillers for my foot as well so all my problems were sorted!
We came across quite a lot of forks in the road but were very fortunate in that after we’d been staring at the map for about 10 minutes, scouted out the routes and were about to make a decision on which way to go that was quite often based on which route had the deeper tyre tracks, a local would pass us by, quite often the rangers and tell us which way to go! At this ranger station we had a beautiful view over mountains although it was really misty and very cold most of the time. We saw some wild hummingbirds and someone saw a toucan! There was a delicious orange tree in the yard too. This was a tourist hut which had 4 rooms of 6 bunk beds! So for the first time in ages we actually had something soft to sleep on! We had a day allocated for climbing this volcano but due to the bad weather (including a tropical storm because of Hurricane Hanna) there was a majority of 6:4 not to do the volcano. Surprisingly enough all girls wanted to do it! The guys all wanted to get to the beach a day early. We’d already had to miss out the first volcano because of bad weather and we planned to combine the last two days into a huge 32km one so we now had 4 days at the beach instead of 1.
Our next place of rest was Maritza Ranger Station which was quite a long trek through slippy slopes and we weren’t able to see where we were due to the dense forests and the not very helpful map. It was along here that I dropped my camera and it went from faulty to totally broken! Very annoying! We arrived and weren’t that bothered about where we were staying because we saw the most amazing view we’d seen yet… we could actually see the island that is just off the beach we were heading to!! For the first time we could see our final destination!! Scary thing was; it looked very far away!! 32km! Lots of photos and hugs at this point!! We were pleasantly surprised by some really nice showers (still cold though!).
On our last day of trekking I was day leader. We were up bright and early and set off along a very straight path for 18km to get us onto the highway. From here I could recognise where we were as we’d passed it on our way to the beach on Phase 2. We had a really flat bit for a while which hurt my left (but not right) calf! Then the road wound downwards for quite a while before getting to a town with the supermarket we’d walked to 4km from the beach. We stopped for a 30 minute break outside the supermarket which was closed unfortunately; as it was a Sunday. A worker from the restaurant had brought us out a bottle of cooled water which was nice although between 12 it didn’t go very far! When we stood up again to leave my calves were extremely painful and felt as if they were about to be pulled! Half the group seemed to be about to die whereas the other half seemed to want to run the last 4km! It was a nice walk though – we passed the rocks that we’d put down to repair the road which I was very proud of! Plus I knew when we were approaching a view point, and we also passed the signs we’d painted. It was all so exciting! It took us about an hour and a half and when we arrived we said a quick hello to the ranger we recognised before dropping our rucksacks and running into the sea! It felt so good to finally be in water with no pressure on our feet! All the zinc oxide tape came off too. We then assembled on the beach for a photo shoot of us doing the traditional Raleigh jumping on the beach shot! Our legs were so sore that a few of us struggled with the jumping! The sea was a lot rougher than it was on 2nd Phase but the sun was shining and it was nice and hot so we could wash and dry out clothes. We had a shower and set up our tents. Most people spent most of the time swimming but towards the end of our time on the beach the sea got much worse, so much so that it managed to move a gigantic piece of drift wood quite far up the beach so it was facing a different direction. Some crazy venturers walked to the supermarket, so another 8km! In addition, when people were swimming they came out with debris in their hair which put a few of us off going back in the water. We organised a Beach Olympics and held it on our 3rd day. There was the usual tug of war, gladiators, wheelbarrow race, three-legged race and water moving race. It wasn’t as fun as on Phase 2 and the weather wasn’t as good. The aim of gladiators is to have two people on another two people’s shoulders in the sea and the top people have to wrestle each other to get the other person to fall off. The sea won every time which made it a bit pointless!
On the minibus back to Liberia we gave an unknown Frenchman a lift in our trailer where we our luggage was he’d have had a pretty bumpy ride! We had to stop on the way to remove a huge rock that was in the middle of the road as the result of a landslide cause by all the rain. In Liberia we went to Burger King. Whilse Danny from near Liverpool, Rudo and I were outside looking after the bags, he met a lady from Liverpool! He was telling her about Raleigh and in mentioning lack of money and the food we were eating on Raleigh she insisted on buying him a burger. When she returned outside she had two for Danny, and one each for Rudo and I. Pretty cool of her! Danny got three burgers out of it as it was an animal burger. The groups from Nicaragua turned up and it was absolutely brilliant catching up with Allie the PM and others from Phase 2 and Rachael (travel buddy).
Changeover 2 (August 2008)
The judges of the skits, a few PMs, were dressed up as animals – Tony the Tiger (Frosties), a frog and a toucan. Our skit was Turtle Watch (in the style of Baywatch). We’d filmed it on a camera at our location, and then as a ‘commercial break’ we advertised Alpha Flex’s flexibility to do all jobs. At the end Dan sang his Turtle Sex song which he sings and plays on his ukulele whilst two people danced about on stage with a daysack on and a green poncho over each of them so they looked like turtles!
The minibus to take us to Liberia was an hour late, as usual in Costa Rica – Pure Vida! We then met the Community groups who had been up in Nicaragua and got on their bus. One venturer was in hospital accompanied by a PM as he’d had appendicitis and had to have it removed! Scary stuff! We got back quite late at around 7pm and we were greeted by all the other venturers who we’d been on our last phase with, so there was lots of hugging and finding out how they’d got on with the other environmental phase/trekking. Someone had a trapped nerve in their shoulder from a squint rucksack! Everyone seemed to have had an absolutely amazing 2nd Phase. Two of the PMs who had been with us in Monte Frio 2 in Phase 1 had gone back to the same village for Phase 2 where Carolyn had delivered a second baby! The other environmental group had been finishing off trails under Volcano Poas before moving to a project on San Lucas Island – famous for a prisoner killing a nurse and drawing with her blood on the walls, a book has been written about it. We didn’t seem to have much time this changeover, but I knew that I had only trekking to do, so I didn’t have to wait around for a day before I could start packing. We got allocated to a group and to the trek we would be on and our group the morning after we arrived. I didn’t really mind which one I went on; The Guanacaste, The Macho (it follows the Macho river) or the Coast to Coast (self-evident). The Coast to Coast was supposed to be most hilly/mountainous but the Guanacaste had better scenery, fruit etc. I was nervous about which group I was in as I’d been really lucky with amazing groups for the first two phases, unlike some groups on the first phase.
The minibus to take us to Liberia was an hour late, as usual in Costa Rica – Pure Vida! We then met the Community groups who had been up in Nicaragua and got on their bus. One venturer was in hospital accompanied by a PM as he’d had appendicitis and had to have it removed! Scary stuff! We got back quite late at around 7pm and we were greeted by all the other venturers who we’d been on our last phase with, so there was lots of hugging and finding out how they’d got on with the other environmental phase/trekking. Someone had a trapped nerve in their shoulder from a squint rucksack! Everyone seemed to have had an absolutely amazing 2nd Phase. Two of the PMs who had been with us in Monte Frio 2 in Phase 1 had gone back to the same village for Phase 2 where Carolyn had delivered a second baby! The other environmental group had been finishing off trails under Volcano Poas before moving to a project on San Lucas Island – famous for a prisoner killing a nurse and drawing with her blood on the walls, a book has been written about it. We didn’t seem to have much time this changeover, but I knew that I had only trekking to do, so I didn’t have to wait around for a day before I could start packing. We got allocated to a group and to the trek we would be on and our group the morning after we arrived. I didn’t really mind which one I went on; The Guanacaste, The Macho (it follows the Macho river) or the Coast to Coast (self-evident). The Coast to Coast was supposed to be most hilly/mountainous but the Guanacaste had better scenery, fruit etc. I was nervous about which group I was in as I’d been really lucky with amazing groups for the first two phases, unlike some groups on the first phase.
Phase 2 (Environmental - Bahia Junquillal) - July/August 2008
We had an early start the morning of our next phase as we started off on the bus that was going up to Nicaragua. We got off in Liberia, the capital of the Guanacaste region, to change to a minibus for the last leg of the journey. We were very lucky in that we were around for the Guanacaste region’s liberation day, so a parade of horses was going through Liberia! There must have been hundreds of horses there and brass bands on the back of trucks! Horses were following a strict dance (along to the music) led by the rider which shows how macho the rider is to be able to control the horse in such a way. It was really fun to watch and the music was brilliant. The leader of the celebrations was on a horse, singing the music whilst the horse danced. We had lunch in a very touristy bar along the main street so we could see the parade. Alpha 4 bought lots of balls, kites, Frisbees and lots of other fun things to do when we get to the beach! We loaded up the trailer and after an hour or so of travelling we arrived at Bahia Junquillal and set up our hammocks on to trees. We put Vaseline on the straps going from the tree to our hammock to stop ants invading our hammocks! We had our mosquito nets up and a tarpaulin over the top in case it rained. We saw the first of many magnificent sunsets. The sun sets behind the island in the bay and when there’s a bit of cloud the place just looks beautiful. It got dark and so people started cooking while the rest of us got to work putting up the army tent where the group would keep their rucksacks, food and group kit. We moved two large picnic tables for us to sit on into our area. Our food was stored in Racoon-proof containers… unfortunately people’s personal food items that had been left in their rucksacks, including four large multi-packs of Oreos were consumed by the racoons on the first night! I was the racoon paparazzi and spent quite a few hours at the start of each night peeping out of my hammock with camera in hand waiting for the racoons to come so I could get a photo of them! They were so adorable!! I had a wonderful meeting one night when I was on camp-watch whilst the others went to the sea for a night swim. I was writing my diary on one of the picnic tables with my head torch on. I head a noise and so looked up, and on the other side of the table sitting on the seat, peeking up at me, eye to eye was a racoon! He sat for a few seconds before running off! It was so exciting! Down at the beach at night was absolutely magical. In the water for only two months a year you can see phosphorescence. Broken-off particles of coral looking for a new place to live glow when you move in the water. In the sky there are millions of stars because of the lack of strong lightning in the surrounding area, plus I saw about 10 shooting stars in the space of just 10 minutes looking up!! My first of many shooting stars! Also there was a few lightening storms elsewhere, which had strikes shooting up in all directions from behind a cloud, which was pretty cool, plus directly horizontal strikes! The hammocks were really uncomfortable to sleep in. I had a roll mat underneath me but everything I moved it moved too and it was quite hard to manoeuvre it back into the hammock!
Phase Two was the start of porridge every morning for the next 6 weeks – I experimented quite a bit with jam, nuts and raisins, cocoa powder…
We worked a 6 day week from 7.30am-12pm with a 15 minute break, then 1pm-3pm.We were building barbeques in each of the camping plots as the old ones were ugly, old, ant ridden and cumbersome. The new ones were much neater and more attractive. We had to wheelbarrow all the bricks down from the ranger station and then dig holes for the foundation and cement the bottom brick into the ground. Then we cemented in more bricks for the base before putting a wooden box on so we could pour the layer of cement for the table top. Everything had metal wire supports in to hold it all together. On the top was a wind shield made out of red bricks and the bars to put the kebabs etc on were halfway up the wind shield. In the afternoons, after we finished work some people read, did yoga, exercised, swam, drew, walked along the beach… not much “Raleigh Organised Fun” on this phase. After doing quite a few barbeques, we were able to demolish some of the old ones… that was fun!! Sledge-hammers, wrecking bars… Ned whacked the barbeques with such force that he actually broke one of the sledge-hammers! We demolished and rebuilt 16 BBQs in total. We also repainted the signs to all the toilets/paths/entrance etc which was a really fun job! They looked really cool afterwards! We also had to sand down the paint from the shower block and repaint them. We used the broken up BBQ remains to take out to the roads where there was a collection of water/mud and broke up the huge chunks to make the roads better. I stupidly dropped a huge rock into a big muddy puddle… and ended up with mud all over me! I was quite a sight! On our day off some of us waded up to waist height through water as a short cut instead of walking the full 4km to the supermarket to buy some things for our barbeque for one of the Bermudan’s birthday for the following day. We got some pancake mixture, meat, soya mince, a pineapple, marshmallows and a plain t-shirt for a present which we all wrote little messages on. Everyone had pancakes for breakfast and then we had Beach Olympics! We all dressed up in crazy clothing, some as crazed sports people from the 60s in string vests and headbands etc, others in swimming kit, some in crazy Hawaiian shirts! We were in two teams – The Mosquitoes and The Racoons. We all posed for a group photo with sticks gaffer taped to our head as the mosquito’s sucker tube. The racoons just did a racoon pose… then the games began! Football, dodgeball, gladiators, tug of war, boules, swimming relay, wheelbarrow race, hammer wanging, human pyramid… it was a really fun day! Plus the Mosquitoes (the team I was in) won which made the day even better! In the evening we had a barbeque. The veggies had veggie kebabs and soya mince in a bun with tomato ketchup which was tasty. For dessert we had some pineapple and the birthday girl got the base of a pineapple with marshmallows and candles in. We gave her the t-shirt which she was really pleased with, and we had hooters to blow! On another day off we took a boat trip out to another beach and on the way we saw dolphins. At the beach we walked to a river where we were told we might see crocodiles. Unfortunately we didn’t, but we could see markings in the sand where a crocodile had come out of the water. We played Ultimate Netball in the sea and then continued on to a small island which we snorkelled around. There were lots of colourful fish all around; I could have watched them for hours! There were a couple of turtles there too. On the way back the sky darkened and it started to rain so we huddled together for warmth and were entertained by some of the group singing Grease, The Beatles, Bon Jovi etc. We saw all three types of monkeys – white-faced monkeys, howler monkeys and spider monkeys. There were white throated magpie-jays everywhere. They’re beautiful blue/white and black birds with funny tufts on the top of their head. There were a lot of iguanas around, some were huge, others were bright green, and others had a strange obsession with yellow Crocs (the funny sandal/shoes which are now in great fashion!). I saw a few rabbits! I never knew Costa Rica had them! Someone saw an anteater and another person spotted an armadillo. There was a big green caterpillar with what looked like small Christmas trees spiking off his back. We also saw lots of crabs that were blue/orange, around 40m from the beach. Nearer the beach were hermit crabs and less colourful ones. We also saw a tarantula and a few scorpions when we were sorting through the piles of demolished barbeques. There were jumping fish in the water, pelicans, oh and lots of turtles mating! Towards the end of the phase we had some Raleigh Organised Fun – Cereal Boxing, Darling I Love You, The Sun Shines On and a quiz… they were good fun! We did a couple of pre-work walks along the trails which was nice to see a bit more of the area, although we didn’t see anymore wildlife. One night there was a really bad thunderstorm that felt as if it was right on top of us. The lightning lit up the place really well, but it was a really terrifying experience! On one of our last nights the Rangers had organised a barbeque for us with a delicious salad, salsa and rice. We then played the Cereal box game with them, and Limbo! One of the venturers also gave one of the rangers a lesson in the Ukulele (small guitar-like instrument). The cereal box game is where you have to find a way to bend down quite low to the ground to enable you to pick up a cereal box in your mouth, without any part of your body other than your feet touch the ground, and arms aren’t allowed to touch legs. After each round an inch or so is removed off the top of the box to make the next round harder. Due to the flexibility of our work and bodies in the cereal boxing/limbo we renamed ourselves Alpha Flex! One of the rangers told us about the work that Santa Rosa National Park does – there is a cycle race and lots of school groups come to get educated about the environment and to do some tree planting and conservation work. We were told the story of William Wallace, a man who tried to invade Costa Rica but failed. Also they told us about the fishing regulations for the bay and which animals you can sometimes see in the bay including orcas, dolphins and hammerhead sharks. At the end of each phase we did “Rosie Glow” where everyone writes their name at the top of a piece of paper and then passes it around and everyone has to write something positive down about the person. It’s really nice when you get your bit of paper back!
Phase Two was the start of porridge every morning for the next 6 weeks – I experimented quite a bit with jam, nuts and raisins, cocoa powder…
We worked a 6 day week from 7.30am-12pm with a 15 minute break, then 1pm-3pm.We were building barbeques in each of the camping plots as the old ones were ugly, old, ant ridden and cumbersome. The new ones were much neater and more attractive. We had to wheelbarrow all the bricks down from the ranger station and then dig holes for the foundation and cement the bottom brick into the ground. Then we cemented in more bricks for the base before putting a wooden box on so we could pour the layer of cement for the table top. Everything had metal wire supports in to hold it all together. On the top was a wind shield made out of red bricks and the bars to put the kebabs etc on were halfway up the wind shield. In the afternoons, after we finished work some people read, did yoga, exercised, swam, drew, walked along the beach… not much “Raleigh Organised Fun” on this phase. After doing quite a few barbeques, we were able to demolish some of the old ones… that was fun!! Sledge-hammers, wrecking bars… Ned whacked the barbeques with such force that he actually broke one of the sledge-hammers! We demolished and rebuilt 16 BBQs in total. We also repainted the signs to all the toilets/paths/entrance etc which was a really fun job! They looked really cool afterwards! We also had to sand down the paint from the shower block and repaint them. We used the broken up BBQ remains to take out to the roads where there was a collection of water/mud and broke up the huge chunks to make the roads better. I stupidly dropped a huge rock into a big muddy puddle… and ended up with mud all over me! I was quite a sight! On our day off some of us waded up to waist height through water as a short cut instead of walking the full 4km to the supermarket to buy some things for our barbeque for one of the Bermudan’s birthday for the following day. We got some pancake mixture, meat, soya mince, a pineapple, marshmallows and a plain t-shirt for a present which we all wrote little messages on. Everyone had pancakes for breakfast and then we had Beach Olympics! We all dressed up in crazy clothing, some as crazed sports people from the 60s in string vests and headbands etc, others in swimming kit, some in crazy Hawaiian shirts! We were in two teams – The Mosquitoes and The Racoons. We all posed for a group photo with sticks gaffer taped to our head as the mosquito’s sucker tube. The racoons just did a racoon pose… then the games began! Football, dodgeball, gladiators, tug of war, boules, swimming relay, wheelbarrow race, hammer wanging, human pyramid… it was a really fun day! Plus the Mosquitoes (the team I was in) won which made the day even better! In the evening we had a barbeque. The veggies had veggie kebabs and soya mince in a bun with tomato ketchup which was tasty. For dessert we had some pineapple and the birthday girl got the base of a pineapple with marshmallows and candles in. We gave her the t-shirt which she was really pleased with, and we had hooters to blow! On another day off we took a boat trip out to another beach and on the way we saw dolphins. At the beach we walked to a river where we were told we might see crocodiles. Unfortunately we didn’t, but we could see markings in the sand where a crocodile had come out of the water. We played Ultimate Netball in the sea and then continued on to a small island which we snorkelled around. There were lots of colourful fish all around; I could have watched them for hours! There were a couple of turtles there too. On the way back the sky darkened and it started to rain so we huddled together for warmth and were entertained by some of the group singing Grease, The Beatles, Bon Jovi etc. We saw all three types of monkeys – white-faced monkeys, howler monkeys and spider monkeys. There were white throated magpie-jays everywhere. They’re beautiful blue/white and black birds with funny tufts on the top of their head. There were a lot of iguanas around, some were huge, others were bright green, and others had a strange obsession with yellow Crocs (the funny sandal/shoes which are now in great fashion!). I saw a few rabbits! I never knew Costa Rica had them! Someone saw an anteater and another person spotted an armadillo. There was a big green caterpillar with what looked like small Christmas trees spiking off his back. We also saw lots of crabs that were blue/orange, around 40m from the beach. Nearer the beach were hermit crabs and less colourful ones. We also saw a tarantula and a few scorpions when we were sorting through the piles of demolished barbeques. There were jumping fish in the water, pelicans, oh and lots of turtles mating! Towards the end of the phase we had some Raleigh Organised Fun – Cereal Boxing, Darling I Love You, The Sun Shines On and a quiz… they were good fun! We did a couple of pre-work walks along the trails which was nice to see a bit more of the area, although we didn’t see anymore wildlife. One night there was a really bad thunderstorm that felt as if it was right on top of us. The lightning lit up the place really well, but it was a really terrifying experience! On one of our last nights the Rangers had organised a barbeque for us with a delicious salad, salsa and rice. We then played the Cereal box game with them, and Limbo! One of the venturers also gave one of the rangers a lesson in the Ukulele (small guitar-like instrument). The cereal box game is where you have to find a way to bend down quite low to the ground to enable you to pick up a cereal box in your mouth, without any part of your body other than your feet touch the ground, and arms aren’t allowed to touch legs. After each round an inch or so is removed off the top of the box to make the next round harder. Due to the flexibility of our work and bodies in the cereal boxing/limbo we renamed ourselves Alpha Flex! One of the rangers told us about the work that Santa Rosa National Park does – there is a cycle race and lots of school groups come to get educated about the environment and to do some tree planting and conservation work. We were told the story of William Wallace, a man who tried to invade Costa Rica but failed. Also they told us about the fishing regulations for the bay and which animals you can sometimes see in the bay including orcas, dolphins and hammerhead sharks. At the end of each phase we did “Rosie Glow” where everyone writes their name at the top of a piece of paper and then passes it around and everyone has to write something positive down about the person. It’s really nice when you get your bit of paper back!
First Changeover - July 2008
Back at Fieldbase where we stayed for a few nights before the next phase started we got the gossip from the other groups about their last phase. The other community group who had been building a community centre had got a bad case of D+V (diahorrea and vomiting) from eating a chicken they’d killed (serves them right!). One of the really fit trekkers had got a really bad infection in a cut in his leg and it had swollen up and he was in hospital for quite a while and had to be sent home. Someone had an abscess on their hip from the chafing of the rucksack. We got a nice surprise finding that there was a laundry service in Turrialba, so we could start our next phase in sweet smelling clothes! The group had a review of the last phase with Julian the organiser for Costa Rican Raleigh so we could say what we thought of the PMs and the project. We were taught how to salsa (by Costa Rican venturers), got a slideshow of photos taken by the official photographer on each phase (I was Alpha 5’s), watched the Lost Property show by the PMs – they put on all the items of lost property between three of them of which there was a lot! And then stripped seeing if any items had an owner! On one of the evenings we performed our skit. The judges who were dressed up in boxing outfits announced the winning group who won a tub of ice cream. We got a chance to look around Turrialba and do a bit of shopping! Internet access was a treat plus it was really cheap! We had another party which was fun, the Bermudans put some of their hip-hop music on and were dancing along which looked pretty crazy! We were placed into our new groups for the following phase; Environmental and I was part of Alpha 4 in the National Park of Bahia (Beach) Junquillal. We did some ‘getting to know each other’ games and then sorted out the food, checking we’d been given enough to last the whole phase. I had to go through all the foods that we would be eating to check that everything was suitable for me and if it wasn’t then choose something as an alternative.
Phase 1 (Community in Monte Frio 2)- (July 2008)
We set off in a huge, comfortable TransNica bus and, then for the final day’s journey we were in one of the old yellow American school buses which was sold on cheap to Nicaragua. The yellow bus drive was rather bumpy and uncomfortable, but was made enjoyable by the pumping music that was blasted out! On the way we dropped off an Environmental group in Santa Rosa National Park. Unfortunately the bus got stuck in the mud there and we spent a couple of hours trying to push it out but to no avail! Eventually a JCB came and managed to pull it out! We spent a night in a local school in Costa Rica before crossing over the Nicaraguan border. We stopped off in Achuapa where the Co-operative who had partially funded the water project was based. We were shown around and learnt about them being the business behind the fair-trade supply of sesame oil to The Body shop, and about funding families to grow Flower of Jamaica plants in their back gardens to make tea with, giving them a fair price. The following night we stayed in a Nicaraguan community centre that a Raleigh group had built in a previous year. The next morning we were up early ready to be lead the 4 hour walk to Monte Frio 2 through a hilly road by a man on a horse. A jeep took our rucksacks for us, so we only had to carry our day sacks. When we arrived everybody brought out chairs for us to sit on and then just stared at us for ages! Eventually we were presented in pairs of venturers to our new mums for the next two weeks! We went back to our new homes. Jon (the other venturer) and I were very fortunate in that we had a bed each in a separate room from the rest of the family! Some venturers had to share a bed between three and some slept in the same room as the rest of the family! There were chickens and pigs everywhere, and quite a few dogs; usually providing us with a lively wake-up call in the morning. One morning a tarantula ran across Jon’s foot, then hid behind my rucksack. We used my mess tin and a book to take him out of the house! The family were quite amused at how scared I was of spiders! Our family consisted of our “mum” (age 21), her husband, her two slightly younger sisters (15 and 18) and younger brother (Jimmy, 9), her mother and grandmother (or aunt?), and her daughter (Tamara, 4) and son (David, 3). The husband worked away from home as we didn’t see him much until the end when he was home for a few days. We were fed separately to the rest from the family and anything we didn’t eat the children ate. The coffee we were given was super sweet but absolutely delicious! Most meals were rice, beans and plantain, with the occasional vegetable on the side. Sometimes we had soup. We got up around 5.30am ready to go to work for 7.30am. We dug 1.2km of trenches 15cm wide and knee-deep. We dug out two huge holes over 5ft deep which you could fit 20 odd people into, to reach the water sources. We collected rocks and collected and sieved sand to make a filtering system to put in the holes, which we then covered over with concrete. We worked for 4-5 hours in the morning and then had a long lunch break before doing another 1-2 hours in the afternoon. The locals helped out and were like muscle men compared to us! Even the 10 year old boys could carry heavy buckets of sand which were too heavy for us! Shows what being brought up in a physically labour intensive environment does to you! We avoided working in the heat of the day especially when we were walking in the direct sunlight on the sides of a hill. Trench digging on the side of a hill is really tricky as you have to balance along one side of a trench without falling in it or down the side of the hill! In the afternoons when it rained we got the afternoon off to do some “Raleigh Organised Fun” which included games like Mafia, prepared our ‘skit’ – a short play/musical, about our time on Phase 1. We played cards with our family and games with the locals. One night Jon and I played the same card game with our family for 3.5 hours!! We had a really late night that night going to sleep at 10.30pm rather than the usual 7/8pm. We spent a lovely relaxing day beside the river for our day off. We had a water fight which was refreshing! One day at work a local had found a snake and picked it up to show us! Another day we found the shed skin of a rattle snake, that had apparently been shed about 10 minutes prior to us finding it so the snake was probably quite close by! Over the space of a few days we took it in turns to go in pairs to the school to teach the local kids some English. We did the parts of the body (‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’), the animals, basic phrases and finished off with the very popular ‘Hokey Cokey’! Carolyn the PM delivered a baby to one of the villagers one night which was pretty exciting as she’d never done it before and so had quickly read the Emergency Medicine in the Wilderness’s section on childbirth on the way to visiting the lady! (On the 2nd Phase when she returned to Monte Frio 2, the baby was named after her, and she delivered another baby!!) One of the venturers suffered from severe dehydration so had to be put on a drip and was off work for the last couple of days and missed the goodbye party which was a shame. At the party we played ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’, sang our National Anthems, listened to a band playing (guitars, singer and a classical bass guitar), listened/gave speeches and then publicly thanked our family with a wee card. Our family had given us a letter as a thank you. The following morning we had the 4 hour walk back to our yellow bus and the TransNica again. On crossing over the border there were lots of people selling hammocks and pens with “Nicaragua” on.
First few days with Raleigh (July 2008)
We went to the airport and met up with other Raleigh people and were bussed out to a nearby English school for the night to wait for all the delayed flights. Many people had been diverted to Nicaragua, Panama and Liberia because of the bad weather in San Jose! There was a flight full of about 15 Bermudan’s who were pretty loud but quite friendly. One had brought pictures of home which looked stunning! We then went out to our Fieldbase in Turrialba that we would return to at changeovers. We stayed in “Hotels”, ironic as they are actually army tents to fit 8, with wooden crates on the bottom to sleep on, in a very muddy field. You end up with mud halfway up your leg which is a real faff to get cleaned up before you can get in your sleeping bag! We spent the next few days there completing admin such as medical check ups, swimming tests, being trained how to use the radio, river-crossings and how to respond to a Casevac (Casualty Evacuation) situation. We got talks on foot care, hydration, prevention of D+V (Diarrhoea and Vomiting), snake bites etc. We spent a night in the Jungle for “Jungle Camp”. We learnt how to put up bashers (self supported hammocks), hammocks and tents; and how to cook with trangia stoves. There were millions of spiders around which freaked me out a bit! On the way back from Jungle camp one of the PMs (Project Manager – person who is over 24 who is responsible for looking after our health and safety etc) pretended to fall and hurt her ankle, so we had to practice what we would do in a Casevac situation. We had to set up the radio and radio Fieldbase, get wood to make the hammock into a stretcher, look after the ‘patient’ and then carry her back to Fieldbase! It was good fun! We were allocated where we would be and with whom for our first phase. For the following 3 weeks I would be with 13 others in “Alpha 5” up in Monte Frio 2 (near Achuapa) in Nicaragua, digging trenches and preparing water sources to provide our village with tap water. On our last night we had a party with a huge foam machine attached to the ceiling which was really good fun. The following morning we set off really early for the start of a 2.5 day bus journey.
San Jose (1) July 2008
We were then in San Jose (Capital of Costa Rica) for a few days. Along the highway from the airport to the hostel there were a few people on crutches hobbling along the middle of the road! The hostel itself was really nice – free internet access, a restaurant, and clean, comfortable rooms! In the centre of town there were painted fibreglass cows everywhere! My favourite two were a pole dancing cow! and one with animals of Costa Rica painted on. We spent a day looking around the centre, mainly shopping. We went to the National Theatre on a tour. It was created when Costa Rica was particularly well off due to a boom in banana and coffee sales. We saw the most famous painting of Costa Rica done by an Italian, which appeared on one of their monetary notes. It isn’t a particularly accurate image of Costa Rica as it has a man carrying a whole bunch of bananas which isn’t physically possible, and both coffee and banana plantations are portrayed as beside the ocean, when they are actually away from the coast. We took a 12 hour tour visiting 4 different locations on our final day before we joined Raleigh. Firstly we were taken to a coffee plantation for a tour and then breakfast. We were served their national dish – basically a rice and beans mix – which was delicious. Then we were taken up Volcano Poas. It was pretty cool; you could see the layers at the side of the crater from each eruption, plus the sulphurous pool in the middle of the crater. The La Paz waterfalls were pretty cool too! There was a butterfly garden, hummingbird centre and a bird sanctuary that was full of really beautiful animals! Hummingbirds are pretty cool – they can fly in all directions but cannot stand still! We had lunch there, which was a buffet full of pineapples, salad… We then continued on a boat trip along the Sarapiqui River. Boats go up along this river to Nicaragua carrying food deliveries. We saw lots of wildlife – howler monkeys, a snake duck, a crocodile, an iguana, a kingfisher… Shortly after seeing the crocodile we saw some local kids playing in an inflatable dingy further down the river!! We spent our last night in our hostel’s sister hostel, as they’d overbooked. There were paintings all over the walls of Costa Rican Jungle, which was cool, although there was a dead cockroach in our room, which wasn’t so cool!
Atlanta July 2008
I then travelled down to Manchester where I met Rachael, another Raleigh venturer who I was travelling around Atlanta, San Jose and New York with before/after Raleigh. We flew to Atlanta where we were staying at a hostel that used to be a brothel. We met some really funny people there and went out to the cinema one night with them. On another night we went to the Centennial Olympic Park to “Screen on the Green”, a giant cinema screen on the grass and watched ‘Footloose’. Everyone was really friendly; someone lent us a sleeping bag to lie on and others were giving us food! We visited the Coca-Cola factory which was interesting, mainly from an artistic point of view. There was a pop-art gallery, lots of huge coca-cola bottles with different designs on, movie advertisements from all over the world and a 4D movie on The Magic of Coca-Cola. I found some vegan hot dogs and vegan cookie-dough ice-cream which was a real treat! We visited the Martin Luther King centre. On getting to it, the area looked like a hurricane had passed through because of ruined houses and graffiti around. I thought it was because of thugs and vandals, but it turned out that a hurricane had actually passed through a couple of weeks previously! The centre contained stories of their fight for freedom which was fascinating. We saw where he was buried and the water feature for a memorial. We went to the Fox Theatre to see Oklahoma. A man was playing the organ before the show started. The theatre itself was spectacular, on the ceiling it looked as if we were looking at the sky, with stars and moving clouds! I had to double take to check we weren’t in an open air theatre! Above the top of the stage was a bridge design with lanterns hanging down on to the stage, lampposts going up into the “sky” with a castle like design around the sides. The musical was brilliant; it took a bit of time to get used to the accents but it was very funny when I understood what they were saying!
France with Caithness Schools Windband 2008
I had an absolutely fantastic summer, starting with the Caithness Schools Windband Tour of France around the Bordeaux area in June. All the concerts were really well attended, something we’re not used to at our usual Thurso concerts. We got a hoodie, polo shirt and t-shirt as our uniform which are rather snazzy! We spent the day time travelling to our concert destination, setting up and rehearsing and in the evening we performed. Time off was spent looking around towns and on one day we climbed some quite steep steps up the largest sand dune in Europe. Climbing to the top was really tiring but well worth it for the spectacular view – on one side was sea, the other forest, and looking along it looked like a huge desert!
I met Dad in Inverness to switch, reorganise and repack my bags which took until the early hours of the next morning. I had a bit of a scare thinking I’d lost my passport so had to unpack and repack all my bags again!
I met Dad in Inverness to switch, reorganise and repack my bags which took until the early hours of the next morning. I had a bit of a scare thinking I’d lost my passport so had to unpack and repack all my bags again!
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