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!
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