England's rainy season?

Now I am back home, on the not-so-sunny shores of the UK, I've been comparing a lot of my life here to my life in Costa Rica. I've finally stopped trying to shake the scorpions out every time I put my shoes on, but I do occaisonally freeze when I see a snake-like shoelace somewhere in the urban undergrowth...

There are some home comforts that I never thought I'd miss, but I am now fully enjoying. These are mainly household applicances: a washing machine and a fridge being the big ones! However, my joy in gaining a freezer, cold drinks and ice-cream on demand, soon evaporated, due to England's over-extended winter. Other perks to home life include eating the food I'd missed, such as having a christmas dinner, and the fact I can get in to town and back in one day! I've promised myself not to take this for granted, therefore I've started walking the 40 minute journey in to town. Considering a trip to town was a 2 hour collectivo ride in Costa Rica, and I walked 3 1/2 hours back from visiting Carate, thinking little of it, I've decided that the journey from my house into town is not really worth catching the bus.

There are, however, plenty of things I do miss about Costa Rica. Firstly, the weather! I always thought it was easier to warm up in cold weather than to cool down in hot weather, but I don't think I've truly felt warm since being back! I also miss living an organic life in the jungle, with nature and part of nature - showers under the trees with birds flying past and monkeys swinging by, long walks through the forest and strolls along the beaches and tico sours at Las Palmas.

However, I've taken a lot away from the experience as well. The enthusiasm for nature and drive to learn of everyone on camp has inspired me to take more notice of what the UK has to offer. After all, it seems silly that I can probably identify more Costa Rican species of bird than British ones, so I'm now taking note of everything I see. I am taking far more notice of every plant, animal and fungus I come across, so that I can appreciate the beauty and diversity of my own country. We may not have anything as flamboyant as a scarlet macaw, but a goldfinch or blue tit comes surprisingly close.

One of the most humbling experiences of my trip, was the generosity of the local people. Costa Rica is wealthier than many of the surrounding countries, but the people still do not have all that we take for granted here. However, the amount of times someone brought special food to cook for us at camp, or lent us what we needed, or gave up their time to help us out, was extraordinary. The people seem to adopt the attitude that whatever they have, they have to share. On top of this, the everyone was extremely friendly. Everyone we met on the lonely road outside of camp would say hi, we met many people on the collectivo and we even made friends in the bars, shops and restaurants around town.

Galloping along beaches and making friends with monkeys

The new year is always a time for change and resolutions and it's no different in the jungle! We welcomed two new volunteers and set about developing a new research programme. I researched and set up a new butterfly canopy trap project, to explore different species of butterfly that live at different levels in the forest. We also decided to start trying to identify individual monkeys so we could track the behaviour and development of individual groups. Although we were going to focus on squirrel monkeys and spider monkeys, we started practising on all the groups we saw. We soon became familiar with a group of white-faced capuchin monkeys who liked to hang out in a palm tree near camp. In naming them, we soon got to know Scar-Face, Big-Ears and Friar Tuck! Unfortunately, squirrel monkeys and spider monkeys turned out to be much harder to identify. In the end, we decided the best identification methods would be to identify different groups by group size, male to female ratio and number of juveniles. This is easier for squirrel monkeys however, as spider monkey troops split up and reform over their range.

On Sundays, we get a break from work and surveys and can spend our free time as we choose. One Sunday morning, we went horse riding with a local friend, Miguel. Of course I have walked the forest trails many times and walked down the beach on turtle patrols, but it was a completely different experience horse riding there. We went through the river, and into part of the forest I hadn't been to before, then galloped down the beach to the Piro waterfall. We had a break and Miguel cut us open a coconut each to drink the water, then cut the flesh for us to eat. There is nothing quite as idyllic as horse riding down a tropical beach and stopping for a snack of freshly cut coconut. I have only been horse riding once before in my life, and that time I found that once you got into a rhythm, it was fairly comfortable. In Costa Rica, we tried 'American-style' riding, which involves holding the reins in one hand and swaying with the movement of the horse. Whilst this had the advantage of making me feel like a super-cool cowgirl, my behind did not enjoy it so much! Overall, and despite not being able to sit on our wooden benches at camp, it was an incredible experience.

Corcovado National Park

So the Christmas festivities are over, but before we got back to work we had one more little adventure... a trip to Corcovado National Park. The beginning of the Corcovado journey starts in Carate, which is about and hour and a half on the collectivo from camp. From Carate, it's just over an 18km hike to Sirena Biological Station, a base for visitors to the park. We walked down the beach to La Leona, the official entrance to the park, where visitors must sign in. From there we walked through forest, mostly similar to what we have in Piro, keeping our eyes peeled for wildlife. We saw a coati poking it's head out from a V in a tree and later we saw a whole group of about 17 coatis, foraging in the ground and not really taking any notice of us. I've seen coatis before, but none that allowed us to get so close!

There were a few more sections of walking in and out of forest then on to the beach. As we neared Sirena, we worried that we hadn't seen anyone else in a while, then reached a sign that said 'Rio Claro river crossing'. This would have seemed fairly reasonable, had it not been the widest river I've ever seen. We couldn't believe that it would be shallow all the way across, but once we got over our fear of sharks and crocodiles we found we could cross most of the way with the water below our thighs. After this it was only a couple more kilometers to Sirena, which we reached relieved and exhausted.

The next morning we headed to the beach early, following a tip that this was the time to see tapirs. Unfortunately, lots of other people had the same idea and the tapirs snuck by unnoticed. We did however, see bull sharks at the river mouth. Mostly, we only saw their ominous fins gliding through the water but one came a little too close to shore, so we saw him writhe back in to the water. We spent our day walking the trails around Sirena station. The scenery was beautiful and we found plenty of cat tracks, but we did get a little disheartened at not having seen anything we don't see at camp, especially as there was a known puma prowling the area. In the evening we went back to the beach, and stationed ourselves close to what we were told is the entrance to the tapirs' sleeping place. We gave up and decided to watch the sunset, then heard a cry of 'guys!' from Kate, who had wandered around the corner. We ran to her and saw a tapir crossing the stream, to join another who was bathing in the water! They we only about 20m away and so huge, beautiful and graceful.

The next day we left Sirena early to walk back out of the park. We thought leaving earlier would give us a better chance of spotting wildlife, as well as getting to the beach before high tide and avoiding the heat of the day. On the way back we spotted some pretty birds, including a very tame hummingbird with two long white feathers flowing from its tail. Although we reached the first beach 2 hours before high tide, we still had to scramble over rocks, rather than walking on the flat sand and stones. Unfortunately, we were still on a beach at half an hour to high tide, which resulted in some members of the group getting particularly soaked by a large wave! We got back to Carate nice and early, where we had a well deserved cold drink and a lot of time to relax before catching the collectivo.

Costa Rica - Feliz Navidad!

Over Christmas, we get 2 weeks off, with no volunteers, so we've been coming up with plenty to pass the time. It's very strange to be spending Christmas somewhere hot and sunny, seeing Christmas trees while you're wearing shorts and sun cream takes some getting used to!

The three of us left on camp have taken a couple of day trips. The first, we went to an area called Matapalo. Not much is there except a few ecolodges and a gorgeous stretch of beach. We walked for an hour or so down the beach, then sunbathed, read and enjoyed being able to go in the sea (it's too rough on our patrol beaches). We also visited Carate, again it consists mainly of ecolodges and a lovely beach, but it is best known for being the starting point of expeditions to Corcovado National Park, which I'll be doing in early January! The beach was beautiful, with a stunning view of Corcovado and we even found tapir tracks going along the beach!

On Christmas eve, we headed in to town and had dinner at our friends' house. His mum cooked us  lovely pork joint with vegetables inside, pinepple chutney and salad. We headed out for some yummy cocktails. Town was pretty quiet and the big countdown to Christmas we were expecting never happened. When we got back to the room though, Elle had made us stockings and Kate made mobiles from shells and wood and for them, I painted name signs on wood. On Christmas morning we opened our stockings, went for a walk and a quick trip to the beach. In the evening we watched The Help in our hostel room. On boxing day we returned to camp, to the nasty surprise of a wasp nest in my backpack. Unfortunately I didn't notice before I tried to put things away and got stung SEVEN times!

The next few days made up for it though. We wandered to the end of Piro beach and climbed into the forest, away from the beating sun of the beach. We followed a picturesque stream and clambered up a few rocks. Before I saw the waterfall I could feel the breeze from the force of it. There was a waterfall in a sort of cove, pretty high and with a small shallow pool so we could stand underneath it. The next day we visited another waterfall down Death Creek, which was a little smaller but the pool was deep enough to swim in.


We went back in to town for New Years Eve. After a couple of our favourite local cocktails, tico sours, we headed to an event ground out of town, where a rodeo competition has been taking place all week. There's a small fairground, a few beer tents and the rodeo ring. There was a good atmosphere and it looked like most of Puerto Jimenez was there. At midnight, we went into a dance area and counted down (backwards in Spanish!), then there was a firework display over the town. We wound down the evening with a few rounds of pool and spent New Years day just relaxing and wandering around town.

Panama - living in a postcard

As my Costa Rica visa is due to run out soon, Kate and I took a visa break to Panama. Basically we just have to leave the country then go back in to get a new visa stamp in our passports. As it is, of course, a very serious, practical and not at all fun affair, we headed to the Bocas del Toro archipelago, the backpackers party haven...

The journey was pretty heavy duty.... we went to Puerto Jimenez on Sunday and got a ferry across to Golfito the next morning. From there we got on a bus to Paso Canoas, the border between the two countries, which was VERY confusing. We had to sign out of Costa Rica at a window on one little building, then wander to another building (that wasn't signposted or anywhere near the first building) to sign in to Panama. From there we headed to the capital of Chiriqui province, David and navigated the bus station to get a ticket to Almirante, on the Carribean side of the country. We were on a sort of minibus that was so incredibly crammed it was nearly an art how they packed us in. I was getting to know the old lady next to me very well, and kate was facing backwards, snuggled between the driver and 2-person passenger seats! On arrival in Almirante, we decided to walk to the water taxi to the islands rather than get a taxi, and luckily William, from a water taxi company, rode up on his bike and led us all the way to the dock. I was relieved to have reached the islands in one day, and took in the beautiful and invigorating boat ride. Riding along the water (at a speed that made my cheeks flap about), was like looking at a postcard scene, or a cinematic nature documentary. The lush green islands break up a really clear, turquoise sea, with several mangrove patches and thatched wooden houses on stilts.

We'd decided to stay at Hostel Heike, because of good travel guide reviews and high praise from a previous member of staff, and we were not disappointed. The hostel is clean and functional, with a veranda and a really cool hangout, with computers and a balcony and all the people are really nice. There's drinking water and pancake mix in the kitchen in the morning that we can help ourselves to, and coffee available all day. The lady at reception is really friendly, although she was shocked to be handed English passports - she was convinced we were German!

Tuesday was our first full day, so we had a look around the town in the morning. Bocas is clearly and up and coming tourist spot but it's not been completely commercialised yet. Among the souvenir shops, bars and tour operators, are building sites and rickety wooden houses. It's very small with only a couple of main streets but nice. In the afternoon, we cycled to a beach called playa bluff. It was a nice 45 minute bike ride (some of it actually on a beach!) and a nice beach, although the sea was too rough to swim. In the evening we went for cocktails then for the most delicious pasta I've ever eaten, a crab fettuccine.

On Wednesday, we took a snorkeling boat trip around the islands. We stopped to look for dolphins, we didn't see any but we did see 5 sloths in the mangrove trees! we then snorkeled and saw lots of colourful corals, tropical fish and brittle stars. Then we went to red frog beach, had a swim in the sea and found some strawberry poison dart frogs, which were so bright. In the evening we had another delicious meal, then had a couple of drinks with lots of people from our hostel, who were all lovely. The group then went to a bar/club called Aqua Lounge, which was right over the sea and had little swimming pools outside. When we were there we met 3 guys we know from Osa Conservation too!



Thursday was our last full day, so this afternoon we headed to starfish beach at Boco del Drago, the other side of the island. The beach was very thin and grassy but the sea was lovely and calm, with lots of big starfish in the shallows. It's really awesome just paddling along and coming across a few starfish. There were also lots of fish in the shallows, swimming around our ankles. Although maybe an unusual holiday destination, Panama is beautiful and so idyllic it's ridiculous, but we're heading back to the equally beautiful Costa Rica tomorrow.

Turtles - Piro days and Peje nights

Hola!

Here in the Osa Peninsula, we do several types of surveys. We walk trails recording the primates we see (we have 4 types of monkey - squirrel, spider, howler and capuchin - all of which are threatened), we walk along the rivers looking for signs of otters (otter poo is bright orange and very smelly!), we sit at the lagoon recording all the birds, catch butterflies and we carry out turtle patrols.

We do the turtle patrols collaboratively with an organistation called Osa Convservation, who own the land we work on. We patrol one beach, called Playa Piro, in the mornings, looking for turtle tracks, new nests, predated nests and hatchling emergences. At night time, we patrol another beach called Playa Pejeperro (Peje), looking for all of the above and also for adult turtles themselves when they come up the beach to nest. Peje nights can be long - the first one I did we left camp at 7pm and didn´t return until 6am the next morning, but it all depends on how much you see. It´s nearly an hours walk to the start of the survey, then 4km up the beach and 4km back down. The main advantage of night patrols is that we can tag the turtles. We give them little metal flipper tags that have a unique number engraved on them, so that we (or other organisations) can record when they come to nest again, and where they nest again (although they usually come to almost the same spot on the same beach!).

We mainly get two species of turtle on these beaches, olive ridley turtles and pacific green turtles. It´s just passed peak olive ridley season so we´re now seeing less of them and more of the greens. I´ve still only seen a couple of green turtles, but they´re much bigger and more easily disturbed when nesting. On Tuesday I tagged a pacific green for the first time! We tag them when they´re laying, as they go in to a haze where they´re not very aware of their surroundings. Even so, I was told pacific greens are likely to flinch when they´re tagged and heard stories about them pulling out their tags as they feel it going into their flipper. This made me nervous, and although the green I tagged was awkwardly positioned so I couldn´t reach one of her sides very easily, she was very well behaved and didn´t flinch at all! It´s exciting to think that out there in the ocean somewhere, are turtles that I have tagged.

Unbelievably, only 1 in 1000 hatchlings survive to adulthood. That´s not even 1 in 1000 eggs! It´s hard to imagine that at about 100 eggs per nest, only about 1 of those in maybe 40 nests actually becomes an adult turtle. It´s really hard to believe when I see so many hatched egg shells and I´ve watched so many adorable little hatchlings wiggle down to the sea. However, it´s easier to believe when you consider an experience I had on a Piro morning patrol. We´d found a hatching nest and there were about 8 hatchlings left in the nest, so we set them on the sand to make their way to the sea. One was particularly lively and was nearly at the sea, in fact, the sea had previously washed up to above where the little turtle was. Centimetres from the sea, right in front of us, a cheeky black hawk swooped down and grabbed the hatchling in it´s talons! It was fustrating as we were trying to help the little fella to the sea and he was nearly there, but pretty cool to see all the same.

The downside of turtle patrol is definately excavations - excavating hatched or predated nests. They can be pretty maggoty, we often find dead hatchlings or even just parts of hatchlings and the very worst? The smell! But it´s all in a day´s work and I often think I´d still rather be walking down a deserted, idyllic tropical beach in the morning than any other job...

Tico food - simple but delicious

Having been in Costa Rica nearly two months, I've had plenty of time to sample some local dishes, along with our excellent food cooked on camp.
The national dish of Costa Rica is pinto, which is, in its simplest form, rice and beans. The details of the dish vary, depending on the cook. For example, I had a plate of pinto in a little soda in town (a soda is a small local cafe), which was fairly simple in flavouring, but shamefully my favourite pinto is that cooked on camp! This version is made really great by good flavouring of the black beans, with vinegar, soy sauce, and most importantly, Lizano! Lizano is a strange vegetable-flavoured condiment which makes beans epic. Pinto is often served with egg or plantain. Patacones are the best things to make with plantain when it's green and therefore savoury. Plantain is fried, mashed down and refried.
Plantain can also be served up in other dishes - I've also had it in curry. When it turns yellow and goes sweeter, it's good just fried and when it's really past it it tastes like a banana!

We used yellow plantain to make an awesome ginger/banana bread the other day. Despite the fact we only have two hobs and no oven, there's been a fair amount of baking around camp recently. We've created an oven-like device, by putting cake mix in a mess tin and sealing with tin foil, then putting this in a covered pan of boiling water. Best of all the cakes have been coming out really moist. Elle has become camp baker and cooked us many yummy treats in the past couple of weeks, including coconut and peanut butter cake (above) and brownies with chocolate and caramel sauces.

Another more unusual ingredient we get a lot of here is yucca. Yucca has the texture of a dense potato, and tastes  bit potato-y as well. Again I've eaten it in sauces to go with rice etc, and also just by itself, cut into chunks as a side. Aparrently it's also good to make chips out of, so I'll be giving that a go soon!

The rest of our food on camp is good and surprisingly varied. There is always excitement on wrap day (usually the day we get resupply) as a good tomatoey tortilla is  win in the jungle! We usually have this with canned refried beans, which have been spiced and made into a delicious paste (also good in sauces!). Guacamole also usually makes an appearance. I sometimes make guacamole at home, but the Costa Ricans have their own twist on it. It doesn't involve any tomato here, but they do mash hard boiled egg into it, which is a tasty addition! We also use cilantro in it, which is a wid corriander which grows on and near camp.

We often do like a bit of a forage for our food. There's a couple of guava trees on camp that we have picked fruit from in the past, as well as a few wild herbs. During our week at Cerro Osa, Juan got some of the BEST oranges I've ever tasted off of a tree for us. They were almost lemony with really pale skin and flesh. Since being here, I don't know if I can ever bring myself to pay for a coconut again... they are EVERYWHERE! If we want one we just walk down the road and pick up a couple! The most incredible thing though, is the skills of the locals to de-husk and open them with a machette, they do it so delicately for such a scary, cumbersome-looking tool! One of my best moments was sitting on the beach, drinking from a freshley fallen and opened coconut - it was incredible!

Nevertheless, 80% of our conversations revolve around food, completely unintentionally of course! We talk about what we miss, which for most people is meat and cheese as we don't have a fridge. We have occaisonally had tico cheese however, as the bar down the road (actually it's about an hours walk away but it's the same difference in the jungle!), makes and sells it. The cheese is very pale, with a mozzarella-like consistency and it's best fried. It's quite a strong flavour, like farmhouse cheese back in the UK. Personally, I've missed cheese a little but not really misse meat much, I guess as our camp food is so good anyway! Although chocolatey treats are always welcome!

A month on, the jungle is still tree-mendous

Pura Vida! As we say in Costa Rica (it means `pure life`and can be used as a greeting and a reply to `how are you`?).
I can hardly believe I´ve been in Costa Rica 5 weeks now - although time has flown I´m already feel totally used to it! Unfortunately, there has been so much rain some days the last few weeks that we couldn´t do surveys and were stuck on our deck (our kitchen/dining room /living area) for a few days. The last week has been pretty sunny (except one thunderstorm so loud we all jumped!) so we`ve got back into the swing of things. I´ve started to lead a few surveys now I know where I´m going, although the older staff and volunteers are there to correct me if I get confused! Most of the time it`s fine, except on night walks, which are just plain disorientating in the jungle.
This last 3 weeks I`ve got to know some of the local people. It seems they`re all related on the Osa Peninsula, with everyone I meet somehow being linked to Miguel`s house down the road! They`ve all been taking good care of us - this week Juan came round, sang to us again and cooked us dinner with his friend, another Juan, who wants us to teach him English. Christian, a local guy, invited us to his bar (the jungle `local`, only 30 mins drive away!), cooked for us and made us cocktails, although he only charged us for 1 beer each! We`re all trying to learn Spanish and them all being around a lot makes me want to learn even more so that I can understand them properly!
Last Friday, we had a competition day, where, in teams, we had to find and photograph as many species as possible, with each species having a different number of points! It was great to explore the forest and we saw so much, including firey-billed aracaris (look them up!), and all 4 Costa Rican monkey species. A troop of squirrel monkeys came right up to the trees next to us, it was incredible to see them so close. Not that we don´t get a lot of close-ups, I was in the shower the other day when a troop of spider monkeys came over my head! We`ve had agoutis (like little capybaras) on camp a couple of mornings and now have a resident black hawk (who seems to have scared off the resident vultures). The Thursday before competition day, Sarah, the principle investigator, turned up with a load of stranded surfer dudes who`d driven into (and got stuck in) the river near camp. We took them in for the night but they were kind of crazy, and I don´t think they appreciated being woken up at 4am when we were getting ready to leave for competition day!
Hasta Luego xxx

In the jungle, the mighty jungle...

Hola amigos!
My first 2 weeks in Costa Rica have been jam packed, that´s for sure! The flight to Puerto Jimenez was incredible, as the mini plane flew low so I got a bird´s eye view of Costa Rica! When we landed however, there was just a runway and not really an airport! We were lucky that Kate was on the same flight as one of the new volunteers, as camp had not been told we were arriving that day.
We took the VERY bumpy 2 hour collectivo ride to camp, where we were welcomed by staff and volunteers. Camp is really nice and I´m settling into my hammock well! there´s a deck with the kitchen and general living area, a flushing toilet (!) and showers, enclosed by plastic sheeting so you can see the river while you wash! Everyone at camp is friendly, and even the volunteers have been helping us get to know the place.
Our first night we went to the swamp to help a volunteer with his BTEC on frogs. We saw lots of frogs, an opossum, and there was even a caiman lingering at a safe distance (although I kept a constant eye on it!). My first turtle patrol however, was mildly distressing. I was told they usually take about 4 hours on the Pejeperro beach... we left camp arouind 7pm and didn´t return until 6am the next morning! It was a busy night with a few turles coming up to nest, lots of tracks to record and even a couple of hatched nests to excavate. The turtles were beautiful up close though, and the sunrise along the beach was amazing. I also went on a primate walk, and saw 2 groups of howler monkeys, and a river otter walk to record scat and tracks.
The last week we spent at a forest replantation project at Cerro Osa, with a lovely Costa Rican named Juan who taught us lots of Spanish. One afternoon he took us to a secret waterfall which we had to abseil down to and we swam in it. He and his brother also sang to us with the sun setting behind them, which was incredible.
I´ve also helped to build a turtle hatchery, where breaks consisted of sipping milk out of coconuts on the beach. There´s so much more to say but i must log off.
Hasta Luego!

Hola Costa Rica

Yesterday, after a 22 hour journey, I arrived in Costa Rica! I was expecting to meet a driver from the hostel on arrival in San Jose, but I was pleasantly surprised to see my friend and fellow assistant research officer (ARO), Kate! Having discovered the bus was only $1 rather than the $24 cost of getting the hostel's transfer service, she'd cancelled my lift and come to collect me :) She came with Gilbert, who she'd met at the hostel who'd taken it upon himself to look after her (and all the other hostel guests).

The other guests told us about a nearby volcano you could go and see so we ventured there today. We caught a bus to Alajuela then another to the volcano, Poas. The volcano was in a national park in cloud forest. It was a beautiful place but cooler than the town. I was surprised at how quiet the forest was, we only heard a few birds and saw a couple of birds and squirrels (one without a tail!). The main crater of the volcano was very impressive. We smelt the sulphur before we saw it. I didn;t know what to expect, but what we saw was a large stony crater, with a pool of water in part of it. A plume of steam was rising from the water. You could also see where the larva had flowed in the past as it had left a scar on the landscape. The volcano is still active and it last erupted in the 1950's but it's believed to be safe for a while! As well as the main crater, there was a large lake (in another crater), that was a beautiful blue-green and surrounded by lush vegetation. We also walked a trail through the forest, which consisted of densely tangled buttress roots and blackened vines. There were also many bryophytes growing on the trees and roots hanging down from above. We arrived back to the hostel just before it began to rain heavily for a few hours. It's supposed to be getting drier in San Jose now, but rains are still frequent (and incredibly regular) in the afternoon.
I am flying to Puerto Jimenez tomorrow, from where I'll make y way to camp. It sounds like the rainforest has its own climate and seasons, so I expect it'll be very different!
From then I won't be able to access the internet for a while, and also my phone doesn't appear to want to work here. The phone shop was closed when I tried to get a SIM today so unfortunately I'm fairly uncontactable for the moment!

...see the jungle when it's wet with rain

Finally, I am able to write about the namesake of this blog. The lines "Fly the ocean in a silver plane, see the jungle when it's wet with rain" are from the song You Belong to Me, and those were the first words that came into my head when I found out I was going to Costa Rica.In a week's time, I will actually be in the jungle! It's something I've always wanted to experience and once I knew I was going I set up this blog to keep in touch while I'm going to be away.

I will be spending 6 months in Costa Rica, staying in a remote camp on the Osa Peninsula. I will be working as an assistant research officer with Frontier, training volunteers and participating in biodiversity surveys, a forest replanting project and turtle patrols along the beach. There's no signal on camp and I can only access the internet when I can get into the town so communication will be limited. But everyone please feel free to comment on here, whether its related to my posts or just to say hi!

In the past week I've started my packing and saying goodbye to people, but it still doesn't quite feel real. Packing for 6 months is a challenge, especially when I have to consider clothes as pretty much unessential (I guess its more important to have a sleeping bag, mosquito net, first aid kit...). I tried to weigh my bag yesterday but couldn't actually fit everything in!!! Although I feel like I'll want to look nice sometimes and don't want to spend 6 months in the same 3 t-shirts, I'm sure I'll grow used to it. I have to admit I'm expecting to come home and not know how to cope with all the STUFF I own! My friends say I'm going to come back a hippie who doesn't know how to sleep in a bed or wash anywhere other than a stream.

The excitement is beginning to build for me. I'm fortunate so have met a fellow ARO going at the same time as me who I will meet as soon as I get to San Jose. We'll spend a day in the capital together then head off to camp. I'm most excited about seeing the rainforest and all the amazing wildlife I get to be surrounded by 24/7. I will blog as often as I can, but who knows how much that will actually be!

Wish me luck x