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.