When I decided to embark in doing volunteer work in Costa Rica my main aims were to go on holidays but at the same time to live an experience and also to be by the beach.
The fact that the planned day of arrived, due to atmospheric reasons, the plane could not land in San Jose and we had to go to Panama instead did not help. Once in my hotel in Panama we were told that we were going to fly next day to Costa Rica. Then I got in touch with Nohelia who decided to wait for me and pick me up at the airport that was fantastic and made me feel much better. Once in the airport I found Nohelia very quickly in we went to San Ramon, there she took me for lunch and we went to see the Topes that night.
Next day we took the bus to go to the town near to the turtle camp, there a taxi took us to the Turtle Camp.
The beach full field all my expectations, almost 2 km of white sand beach, virgin, located between two mountains and with thick forest behind.
In the Camp site we met the members of staff and the group of volunteers that were very warm and enthusiast.
Falling sleep with the sound of the waves and wake up with the howling of the moon was something of another word. Next day of my arrival to the Turtle Camp my work started, we had to wake up to work around the Camp site when still the sun in not very strong, this work normally was cleaning the paths or cleaning the Camp site then, we would here our breakfast, also we had to work in the hatchery in turns all day and night. The swifts rotate, so you do not work on the same swifts all the time, each swift takes about 2hours and involve to go to the hatchery and check the nests and make sure there are not crabs around or other small animals. We would also do night patrols, but also in turns, so if you do a night patrol you do not do night swifts for the hatchery. For the night patrol you have to walk the beach without any light, you will be accompanied by more experienced volunteers or staff. The aim of the night patrol is to spot turtles laying the eggs so we can take the eggs to the hatchery deposit of being in low seasons, I was lucky enough to spot a turtle during my night patrol and I was allowed to take the eggs to the hatchery. That was amazing experience!!! We also witnessed how to baby turtles appeared in the hatchery, they are so cute!!! We measured and weighed them before returning them to the sea.
All in all the experience was amazing and I truly enjoyed, it was a pity that I could not travel a bit more because you work 6 days a week and the rules are very specific in this regard. A lot of my fellows volunteers were in a gap year so they travelled before joining the program.
I loved the experience, I would repeat again without doubts.
The other volunteer were very good fun and approachable, we did things together on our day off like Zip lining and snorkeling, shopping to prepare bananas with chocolate back in the camp.
I highly recommend this program to anybody who would like to live a unique experience in a place stunning beach. uVolunteer for me was the perfect organization to do this as they really care about your wellbeing and they are very helpful.
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