In the jungle, the mighty jungle..

* Warning. Long blogpost*

Hola chicos y chicas.

I have a lot on my mind these days. Really missing my friends and my family and looking forwards to see them again..and at the same time trying to figure out what to do with myself and my life. Buuut that’s not what today’s blog will be about.

I’m going to tell you about a very unique experience I had about a week ago.

On Sunday the 16^th of may Bettina, Therese, Cristoph, Pelle (christoph’s friend from germany) and myself left san jose by bus and headed for bataan, a small town close to the carribean coast. After that bus ride, and the most uncomfortable taxi ride ever, and a quick beautiful boat trip we arrived on a small island where Cristoph’s project is located.

All I knew before coming was that they don’t have water or electricity, there are poisonous snakes, scorpions and tarantulas there, and they save sea-turtle eggs.

So we arrived Sunday after-noon and it was really hot but soo beautiful. We were staying in small cabinas (which by the way were not so appealing when we arrived. Full of sand and “left overs” in the toilet..) but they were like 10m from the beach, there were flowers around, trees with coconut, cashews and other exotic things, but it was a bit of a shock as well. Here is why.

When you don’t have electricity or water things are different.

1. Hygine becomes tricky. There are normal toilets inside each cabina. Want to flush? Go with the small bucket and get some sea\rain water and flush. Want to shower? Go to the well\shower, pull up a bucket of water from the well and pour over yourself, or have shower parties with your friends (and swim wear!) to make things easier. Picture of the shower\well. However, in the heat you kind of just have to get used to being sweat, smelly and sandy 24\7, except maybe 10min right after you shower.
2. Food. No fridge or freezer means that simple food is served. Breakfast was pancakes or empanadas. Lunch: Rice and Beans. Dinner: Rice and Beans. Yes, every day. But it was good rice and beans. There was a small kiosk at the project where you could buy cookies etc, so not too bad actually. Loved the little library that it included as well. Picture of the kitchen area.
3. Heat. It was hot. Very hot. The worst thing was sleeping in the heat. Especially when my mosquito net fell down and tried to strangle me a few times each night.
4. People. Lovely. We were a good group that went together so we had a lot of fun, and the people that worked there as well were really nice.
5. Work. Yes we did work, it was definitely not a holiday. They have a small farm, butterfly garden, pigs etc so there was enough to do. Plucking weeds out of the paths and gardens, getting water from the sea, getting firewood from the beach etc. At times I really felt like a cave woman and\or Tarzan’s woman Jane. We did have free time too during the day and it was soo nice to jump straight into the ocean after working and chille in hammocks.
6. Patrols. Every night there are voluteers patrolling the beaches to avoid local people steal eggs from the sea turtles. Each shift is 4 hour and we walk 14km every shift. I did 2 shifts and saw about 4 sea turtles this size (not my picture but a volunteer at a different project, but this is the size of the turtles we saw) the sad thing was that we didn’t manage to save any eggs on my shifts
7. Night activities. Usually we sat in the club house, Cristoph’s little tree house, and played cards, ate cookies, watched the starts and talk about a lot of funny things\people\plans. Also went out with the boat on the river one night to hunt for alligators.

I must admit I hated it a little the first days. Especially the heat. I like to be dry and clean. But when the time came to go back I really didn’t want to. I really liked the way of life there, in the nature with monkeys, turtles, other volunteers, it was a simple life but it was soo much fun too. It really sucked to be back to civilization. Maybe because I went straight to san jose. I was excited to go back to have a proper shower, get back to my computer etc. but all the cars, pollution, noises and people really took away my excitement of being back.

It really did not help that on the bus ride back there was some guys that came on to sell food, very normal here, but I all of a sudden hear “Huevos de Tortugas!” (turtle eggs) and see one guy with small plastic bags with eggs in them for sale. Disgusting. I wanted to talk to him, scream, cry and spit on him all at the same time. But mostly I just wanted to go back to the jungle.