We made our way yesterday to Maximo Nivel - the headquarters for the local volunteer organization. It's quite a cool place - it's an intercultural center which houses tons of different programs, in addition to the volunteer projects. Local people can come here to learn English, foreigners can come to take Spanish courses, and they also host a TEFL course (Teaching English as Foreign Language) so you can become certified to teach English worldwide.
A quick note on finding locations here in Costa Rica. There are really no addresses. If you're lucky, places are listed as "on Avenida Central between Calle 4 and 6", but mostly it's not even that explicit. For example, the address for Maximo Nivel is something like "on the street of the Bomb Pharmacy, 75 meters south, in the blue building". Combine this with the language gap between us and the taxi drivers and it's a miracle we get anywhere.
So we made it here and had a basic orientation yesterday, where they told us things like not to walk alone after dark, and not to flash tons of money around. They were nice enough to make copies of our passports so we could keep the originals safe some place. It was a really nice gesture, especially after mom pulled it out of her purse, handed it to the lady and a whole bunch of panty liners fell out of it.
This, of course, was not the first passport issue we've had. When I was at the bank this weekend changing money, they looked at my passport picture and passed it to Mom, saying she had to sign for the money. I was really confused until I realized it was because she thought the picture was of Mom, not me. How embarrasing!
Mom had an idea of a cute little Carribean/Rasta restaurant she wanted to eat at yesterday, so we got directions, walked two miles, to find that it was closed. And, since it was Sunday, everything around it was also closed - so, we walked back in the direction we came and got a pita.
Last night and tonight we are staying at a home stay here in San Pedro, and we'll catch our bus out to the boonies tomorrow morning. Our "mama" cooks amazing meals and packs our lunches for us during the day. There are about 10 volunteers at the house at a given time - mostly staying in a series of bunk beds across three different rooms built on the roof of the house. People are constantly coming and going and it's really cool to meet so many different people. As usual when I travel I feel like an ass for only speaking one language fluently, as so many others speak multiple languages - and I'm not even referring to just Spanish.
This afternoon we had the orientation specific to our turtle project at Drake Bay, which I'm really excited for. Maximo Nivel has only sent two groups to this site so far, and we're the only two traveling there tomorrow. It's supposed to be one of the most beautiful and remote places in Costa Rica and I'm really hoping that in addition to some great experiences at the site and with the turtles we'll get to see some things around the area. Drake Bay is near Corcovado National Park, which is consistently on lists of best places to see wildlife. In addition to turtles, I really want to see a sloth. Also a jaguar would be pretty cool.
A quick note on finding locations here in Costa Rica. There are really no addresses. If you're lucky, places are listed as "on Avenida Central between Calle 4 and 6", but mostly it's not even that explicit. For example, the address for Maximo Nivel is something like "on the street of the Bomb Pharmacy, 75 meters south, in the blue building". Combine this with the language gap between us and the taxi drivers and it's a miracle we get anywhere.
So we made it here and had a basic orientation yesterday, where they told us things like not to walk alone after dark, and not to flash tons of money around. They were nice enough to make copies of our passports so we could keep the originals safe some place. It was a really nice gesture, especially after mom pulled it out of her purse, handed it to the lady and a whole bunch of panty liners fell out of it.
This, of course, was not the first passport issue we've had. When I was at the bank this weekend changing money, they looked at my passport picture and passed it to Mom, saying she had to sign for the money. I was really confused until I realized it was because she thought the picture was of Mom, not me. How embarrasing!
Mom had an idea of a cute little Carribean/Rasta restaurant she wanted to eat at yesterday, so we got directions, walked two miles, to find that it was closed. And, since it was Sunday, everything around it was also closed - so, we walked back in the direction we came and got a pita.
Last night and tonight we are staying at a home stay here in San Pedro, and we'll catch our bus out to the boonies tomorrow morning. Our "mama" cooks amazing meals and packs our lunches for us during the day. There are about 10 volunteers at the house at a given time - mostly staying in a series of bunk beds across three different rooms built on the roof of the house. People are constantly coming and going and it's really cool to meet so many different people. As usual when I travel I feel like an ass for only speaking one language fluently, as so many others speak multiple languages - and I'm not even referring to just Spanish.
This afternoon we had the orientation specific to our turtle project at Drake Bay, which I'm really excited for. Maximo Nivel has only sent two groups to this site so far, and we're the only two traveling there tomorrow. It's supposed to be one of the most beautiful and remote places in Costa Rica and I'm really hoping that in addition to some great experiences at the site and with the turtles we'll get to see some things around the area. Drake Bay is near Corcovado National Park, which is consistently on lists of best places to see wildlife. In addition to turtles, I really want to see a sloth. Also a jaguar would be pretty cool.
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