arriving at my first project location

Wednesday August 27

It’s been about 2,5 days since I left Nijmegen en said goodbye to Welmoed. After a stay-over in Amsterdam to catch my flight in time, I flew to Costa Rica with a 6hours step over time in Toronto. After being on the way for about 24h I arrived in San Jose airport at midnight. I was planning to take an Uber to the hostel but without internet connection that was pretty difficult so eventually I had to take an official taxi. Luckily the taxidriver was very nice and put me off at the right place, even waiting for me to get inside the hostel safely. (San Jose is not very safe when it’s dark). The hostel looked closed but fortunately there was still someone at the reception. He told me there was no reservation under my name and the hostel was fully booked but after I showed my email conversation where I made the booking half a year ago, he suddenly found an room that was still free.

The next morning I woke up early, which eventually turned out to be quite convenient. First I had to find some breakfast, but most places had only either meatpies or sweet bread. Luckily I had some food left from the plane so I didn’t need to starve. Than I had to wait for the shops to open so I could buy a local SIM card. Again the people in the shops were very helpful so I started to relax and trust the Tico’s (the people from Costa Rica) a bit more every time.

With my local simcard installed I was ready to continue the trip to finally arrive at my first project. From the hostel area I had to take a bus into the centre. Without traffic that would take just 20 minutes but because the whole road seemed to be one traffic jam it took more than an hour. From the bus station I had to take a taxi again to arrive at an other bus station from where to buses to the Caribbean (East) side of the country leave. I took my changes to try Uber again and after 2 drivers had already gone, the 3th one finally stopped where I was. Then, once I arrived at the right busstation I could finally take the bus to Bataan. Once out of San Jose area I got the first sights of the rainforest with some small waterfalls along the road. Late afternoon I finally arrived at the destination. After a quick diner of rice and beans I did a little walk on the area with the other students and volunteers where we saw some cool frogs and even a tiny snake eating all the frog eggs from a big leave. Nature can be hard sometimes.

After this great first introduction into CostaRican wildlife I finally could go to bed at ease with the many sounds of nature including some really heavy rain during the night.

So far for now. Tomorrow I hope to write about everything I saw and did in the first 3 days I have been on this project.