Volunteering with Tropical Adventures was a great experience.  We had never done a volunteer vacation before. I wanted to find a company with projects that were making a difference in the world as well as a company that would take care of us.  Tropical Adventures did both. 

We had limited time, so we spent all of our time at the Monkey Park,  but so many of their projects look interesting.  Tropical Adventures picked us up at the airport, provided us appropriate expectations for our project, gave us as much freedom as we wanted to experience the Monkey Park and the Costa Rican culture, and helped us with anything we needed. 

Thanks Tropical Adventures; we’ll always remember our time with the Monkey Park.

Cheryl Bhence.

My name is Cassandra Dawn. I am 25 years old from Tucson, Arizona. I arrived to the project in Camaronal approximately two weeks ago. When I came here I brought along many expectations of what the people, the area and the experience would be like. All of those expectations went out the window very quickly but in such a positive, life changing way. I had no idea coming here that would I make so many new friends, people that I could easily call family and that I would have the opportunity to teach English to children and various people in the region.

I have never met such warm people who are beyond eager to learn English. I grew very close to  all of the students and very attached to having the honor of teaching them every day. I wasn’t simply their teacher, I was and always will be a friend and I can only hope that they will welcome me back in a few months to teach and spend more and more time with them. Every day I created lessons which incorporated a vast amount of vocabulary and verb usage. Aside from teaching the students, I spent my time assisting in improving the area so that Domenica and Julian (Directors of the Camaronal Project) will have a successful project that will continue to flourish. Furthermore, I assisted in cooking, cleaning, and helping with a large group of students that came to the project during my stay.

What I have learned through this experience is priceless. It has made me a better person, though it may sound cliché, it’s true. I have felt the sheer happiness that spawns from selflessness. I completely submerged  myself into the costarican culture, and I now have a new found respect for the people and the country, a place that is held together with peace, tranquility, and love. Here at Camaronal, that is all that there is.

On another note, my Spanish flourished quite rapidly. I learned of new foods and common cultural practices and most importantly, the mission of this project. Which is to educate the community protect the turtles, maintain their population and protect the environment. Domenica and Julian are two of the most inspiring people I have ever met, along with Jacqueline (the cooker) and many others. Upon returning home I will continue to help support this project and provide donation.

Thank you for everything, for touching my life, for helping me see the world in a different light. I love you guys.

Pura Vida.

Cassandra Dawn. Arizona, USA.

We are a family of 3: myself, my wife, Jen, and our 6 year old daughter, Alex.  My daughter is off from school for 2 months each summer and this year we wanted to take a trip together for the duration. Given the length of the trip, we were looking for something that would give us a chance to work and learn together instead of a traditional tourist-style vacation.  I thought we needed more stimulation than that to entertain a 6 year old for 2 full months. Before we had our daughter, I had enjoyed longer submersion-type vacations and I had been waiting eagerly for an opportunity to take one again. Now that she had reached the age of 6, we felt we were at a stage that she could contribute as much as she could learn and we were anxious to try to make it work. After months of coordinating the time off work and the prepayment of household bills, we set off on a trip that would last the length of our daughter’s summer vacation and would end up exceeding all of our expectations.

We flew into the country and were greeted by one of the Tropical Adventures drivers. This was the beginning of a major transition for our family and Manuel , the driver, provided just the kind of greeting we needed. He was warm, reliable, and sincere and would be our first indication of the careful screening done by Scott and Isaac, the founders of Tropical Adventures. Manuel drove us to our first volunteer activity in La Flor, a small agricultural community in the mountains in-between Paraiso and Cervantes. We were to stay in this town for a full month so I was very nervous about our homestay there. From the moment Manuel drove us by our family’s house the evening we arrived, we knew our concerns were unfounded. We had arrived late but our family had stayed up waiting to greet us and show us to our home. Since there were 3 of us, they had us stay in a detached home just down the street from their own in order to give us more space and privacy. Their son used to live in the home but has since moved on and this environment would prove to be perfect for us. It gave us space when needed but also allowed us all the interaction with our host family we had so been looking forward to.  

Our family in La Flor would prove to far exceed our expectations. They were unbelievable.  From the meals they cooked to their seemingly endless desire to include us in all of their family’s activities. We couldn’t have hand selected a better family to stay with and we would miss them dearly after we left for our next projects. They were a large family with only a single remaining 18 year daughter left living at home. To make things better, they had several grandchildren living close by with whom Alex would grow very close with over the 4 week period we spent there. Alex played with their children like they were siblings and this made our integration into their family and culture all that much easier. They genuinely enjoyed having us there and we enjoyed being a part of their lives, if even for a short while.

Our volunteer activities in La Flor were mainly focused around teaching English both in a nearby school in El Yaz as well as a late afternoon class to the children in La Flor. For a family of 3 with a 6 year old daughter, this proved to be a wonderful activity for us. Our schedule during the week consisted of waking around 7, making our way over to our family’s home for breakfast around 8 and then the 3 of us began our 20 minute walk down the mountain to El Yaz to teach 2 English classes there. The classes in El Yaz were sometimes a challenge as not  all of the children there were anxious to learn English. But this proved to simply be one of the many obstacles we would face and overcome as a family. By the end of our month in La Flor, we had worked with the director of the school to change the class from being compulsory to being voluntary. At that point, the only students who attended the class were ones that were willing and anxious to learn and the classes there would turn out to be ones we looked very forward to each morning.

After our classes in El Yaz we headed back up the mountain to La Flor. This usually proved to be too long of a hike for our 6-yr old daughter and she usually wound up riding on top of my shoulders. But I never minded because at least we were together. At home Id be working and she’d be at school but here we were together, all day, every day. 

The children from the classes lived all along the road up to La Flor and many of them would accompany us on our walk back. They were enamored with Alex and her with them. Our daughter has never been very shy and she engaged almost every child we encountered from  the day we arrived in La Flor, including the students. From the moment they met, the children played together like old friends even though they didn’t speak a common language. It was incredible to watch. And as the weeks went by, we could see the changes in her comprehension of the language. In the beginning she knew very little more than please and thank you and by the end, she was playing games with the children in Spanish and responding to questions asked by our host families. This is a wonderful foundation for an education in Spanish.

We arrived back into La Flor after the walk back from El Yaz by 1:00 or so and enjoyed a lunch with our host family. We would then often have some afternoon Spanish lessons before beginning our next English class in a building just down the street from where we were staying. This class was comprised of about 20 to 25 children ranging in age from 5 to 13. This class was always a lot of fun for us, as well as our daughter. Here we would often play games in English to help the children learn the sounds and Alex would sing them the alphabet or teach them English songs. She was our biggest asset with this class and when the children saw her speak, they responded to her. Like with many things, children learn most quickly from other children and they just loved having Alex in class. When the children saw Alex speaking English, it suddenly seemed more attainable to them. When the students did exercises on their own, Alex would go around with my wife and check on their progress. We were a team when we taught and everyone had a role. 

After our class in La Flor, we usually spent some time playing games outside the building for a  while which gave the kids a chance to run and play around. They had a lot of pent-up energy after sitting through the hour and a half English class. This also gave Alex more time to build friendships with the children in town. After only days in La Flor, we couldn’t walk up to the nearby Pulperia without the children recognizing us and running to greet us. It was an incredibly friendly town and we would miss this when we spent time in the larger cities.

Our time in La Flor was invaluable and even allowed us a few weekend getaways and a tour hosted by the Tropical Adventures staff to a nearby volcano. We were very well taken care of by the staff and were checked on frequently. At one point, our daughter had contracted a stomach infection and the Tropical Adventures Staff responded very quickly by coming to pick us up and taking us to a wonderful physician’s office in a nearby town. We were amazed by the care she received and always felt safe and secure, regardless of where we were in the country. We were always given the space we needed to grow from our experience but if we were ever in need, Tropical Adventures was very quick to respond.

After 4 weeks in La Flor, it was time to say goodbye to our host family and friends and transition to a new project. Argentina, the mother of the host family with which we stayed very much enjoyed painting. In the afternoons, she spent many days enjoying her hobby.  As it turned out, she had been making a painting for us and gave it to us just before we left. It was an incredible gift and will always remind us of the generosity this family had given us. We had developed strong relationships with our host family in La Flor. With Argentina, our host mother and her Husband, Jose-Annival. With their children and grandchildren as well. Saying goodbye would turn out to be very emotional and although our Spanish had come along well, finding the proper words to adequately express our feelings was difficult.  Our experiences with this family will change our lives for a long time to come.

We transitioned from La Flor to Monkey Park in Guanacaste late on a Sunday afternoon. The park was closed on Mondays so we had the day off and we took a quick public bus ride to the coast for a day at the beach. We began work on Tuesday in the park which was a shelter for injured and abandoned animals. Here we worked as a family to plant new gardens, trim trees and work on trails. Compared to the work in La Flor, this work was much more  physically demanding and was an enjoyable change from the teaching.  Isaac, from Tropical Adventures, checked on us frequently and always brought snacks. The sight of his car pulling in became a beacon to stop work for my daughter and she would always run to his car to greet him. She so much enjoyed his company and waited anxiously for him on days she knew he was to come.

When the physical demands of the work exceeded the abilities (or the attention span) of a 6 year old little girl, she would often roam the park checking on the animals or even retreat to our home there for some afternoon card games. It was a very accommodating environment for a family such as ours and at the end of the week, we really felt like we had accomplished something and were proud of what we had done. This was exactly the feeling we were looking for when we began this trip.

After transitioning out of Monkey Park, we headed south to Hojancha to work in the Monte  Alto National Park. Here we had another homestay with a wonderful family just outside the town center. They had a 2 year old daughter and this proved to be yet another fantastic experience for us and Alex. Here we would wake up at 6 each day, eat breakfast and be in the town center by 7 for a ride into the park.  In the park, Jen and Alex worked the week in the kitchen with the park cook helping to create the meals for the park guests and staff. They both seemed to really enjoy this time together and felt very useful. Cecilia, the park cook, worked very long days and seemed to genuinely enjoy the help. Jen would help cut up meats and vegetables and Alex would help make the bread and serve the meals. On the other side of the park, I worked on reconstructing and painting benches as well as building a new seating area under a gazebo below the park office. But with all the work, we still had an opportunity to take time for ourselves and tour the park. We hiked all of the park’s trails including the longest of the trails which took us up the side of the mountain to a beautiful lookout in a 4 hour loop. Our work volunteering has always been very well mixed with time enjoying ourselves and experiencing this beautiful country. 

Two months ago, before we left for this trip, I had many concerns. I had called references given to me from the staff and the words from these references comforted me enough to commit our entire summer vacation to doing volunteer work for Tropical Adventures. But this was an enormous obligation and I was still taking my family, complete with a young daughter to another country and I couldn’t help but feel responsible for the outcome. Two months later,  I’m proud of the outcome. We have been humbled more times than I can count and we have met and befriended more people than I could ever hope to be able correspond with. We are incredibly lucky to have had this opportunity together and the dedication of the Tropical Adventures staff made it possible. This has been a summer we will never forget and the things we have seen and done here will in many ways change the course of our lives. 

Michael Schell, Arizona US.

The two weeks I spent in Bambu rivaled the best two weeks I have experienced in my life.  I understand very little Spanish and speak even less but in spite of that, all of the people in the community were very kind and friendly to me.  Nothing had to be said; they just welcomed me into their families and homes. 

For two weeks we spent a few hours each week teaching English to the grade five and six classes

at the  school and a few hours in the retirement home doing crafts and painting pictures with some of the residents there.  It was all smiles and laughs as we spent time with the wonderful people there. 

In the evening we held English classes for one hour for people of all ages and varying levels of competency of the English language.  In the school the children really warmed up to us and were eager to learn English.  They were a really fun bunch of kids.

The evening English classes were the most fun of all.  We taught the same material that we had  introduced at the school during the day and then we would play games afterward.  We played tag and hide-and-go-seek with all of the young children there.  One night we made Smores for them.  All of the kids that came to our evening classes wanted to be best friends with every one of us.

The lodging was like a gigantic tree fort with tents set up to protect us from the bugs.  It was a great set up and worked very well.  The meals were fantastic.  Sometimes I felt like they were cooking something special for us.  It was a great chance to enjoy some of the traditional Costa Rican cuisine.  I was really sad to leave Bambu.  When we were traveling away from Bambu I had  already begun to plan my next visit.  But at the end of the day I had such a fantastic time and I will have that with me forever.  While we were there we went on some fun tours to waterfalls in Panama and on a river fishing tour as well.

Before going to Guanacaste we went on a 3 hour white water rafting tour through class 3-4+ rapids and had a tour of the Arenal Volcano.  Both of those tours were so much fun.  There are not very many people here in Guanacaste to keep the turtle conservation project going so they really need volunteers.  I was happy to help out in doing the daily chores during the day and to patrol the beach at night.

From the beginning of my adventure everything was planned out and worked out exceptionally well.  I  never once worried about where I was going, who was going to meet me at the airport or where I would be staying.  I really look forward to returning to this wonderful country and the wonderful people in the near future.

Ryan Kilberg, Canada.

Click on the pics to enlarge

Sitting here on my last day in Costa Rica it’s incredible to think back to the beginning of my trip. After two plane rides and a five-hour bus ride, I found myself in the pitch dark being greeted by four strangers, climbing in an Xterra and taking a half an hour drive down a bumpy, potholed road. Exhausted and nervous I spent the ride thinking about all the reasons why this trip could go terribly wrong. There I was, a seventeen-year-old girl stuffed in a car with four men whose names I had already forgotten, heading towards an indigenous reservation where I would be spending the next two weeks. As I soon found out, my worrying was for nothing. My time spent in Bambu was some of the best I’ve ever had.                                                                                                                                               

The four strange men turned out to be Isaac, one of the cofounders of Tropical  Adventures, Mauro  our project coordinator, Ryan a 23 year old from Canada, and Markus a 35 year old from Switzerland, all of whom were great and extremely easy to be around. Together, we spent the next two weeks teaching English, working at a retirement home, and being immersed in the beautiful culture of the Bribri people.

  We would start out our mornings working at the retirement home, where the residents were sweet, hilarious, and ecstatic to have our company. After spending time with the residents painting, talking and just enjoying each other’s company, we headed over to the elementary school where we were teaching English.

We would spend an hour or more working with the fifth and sixth graders helping them to broaden   their understanding of English through writing, reading, talking, and arts & crafts. As with any class, in any country, there were a few students who seemed completely uninterested in what we had to offer, but the majority of the students loved the opportunity to learn.

Our afternoons were spent eating the delicious food Fulbia had prepared, sleeping in hammocks, and playing with the kids from the family. In the evening, the entire community was invited over to learn English. By the end of the two weeks we had a regular group of about ten that would come every night to learn. These lessons went great because they were small and very personal. Also, everyone who was there chose to be there and so they were very receptive and willing to learn.

Along with our work, we spent a great deal of time enjoying the incredible tours Bambu had to offer.  The most memorable was a six-hour hike into the mountains where we played in a nearby waterfall, learned about the life of farmers in Costa Rica, and slept in an open air room, staring at a sky filled with stars.

When we weren’t enjoying the incredible scenery, we would spend time with Danilo, the man who built the community center where we slept, as well as with his entire family, who I found to be some of the warmest, most loving people I have ever met. Even with the language barrier (I knew only a handful of Spanish words when I arrived in Costa Rica) we all bonded instantly. Taking long walks with Danilo at night, playing with Fulbia’s son Lucas, and laughing as we struggled to speak each other’s languages, the family made me feel as if I was just another member of their family who had stopped into town for a visit.

As hard as leaving Bambu was, I was excited to explore other parts of Costa Rica. When our two  weeks were up I said a very tearful goodbye and headed into Puerto Viejo for a night of relaxation and enjoying the nightlife. We then traveled to La Fortuna, where I spent two more nights relaxing and enjoying the Arenal Volcano. From Bambu we had traveled across the country, through the central valley and then headed over to the Pacific coast for our next project.

On the Pacific coast I spent one week working at the Camaronal sea turtle conservation project. Helping to build paths, tearing down the decrepit nursery, and walking the 3 km of beach in search of garbage, I was able to get a bit of physical labor in. Julian, Domenica, and German, the three rangers who work at the beach, were incredible hosts. Again, I enjoyed struggling to speak Spanish with them and loved the lessons they gave us about turtles as we did our daily beach patrol.

We spent 2 hours everyday during the morning, from 4 a.m. until 6 a.m., or in the evening, walking  along the beach in search of turtles that had come up on shore to lay their eggs. On our last night we had the honor of witnessing the entire process of egg laying; it was completely awe inspiring and certainly an event I will never forget. Camaronal was extremely isolated and was exactly what I needed to learn how to relax. Once again, when our time was up I was sad to leave Camaronal and the incredible people who work there.

For my last few nights in Costa Rica, I have been sleeping in the Monte Alto nature reserve, in a cabin placed literally in the middle of the rainforest. The park is gorgeous and the people who work there are extremely dedicated to their jobs. Monte Alto gave me a chance to truly enjoy nature, waking up to howler monkeys in the morning and falling asleep to the tapping of rain against our tin roof, and to once again get some physical labor in, digging up paths and moving stones to line the path we had created.

Overall, my trip has been life changing. The places I have visited and the people I have met along the way will stay with me forever. I’m going home with a greater knowledge of Spanish, incredible pictures, an obsession with travel, the ability to relax and enjoy my own company, and a complete admiration for Costa Rica and the amazing people who live here.

More and more families are volunteering with Tropical Adventures lately. Pretty soon they are going to outnumber our individual volunteers. For example, over the last week we've had a family of four from Massachusetts working at the sea turtle project in Cahuita. They had a rough day arriving there (they decided to rent a car) but, when they had the chance that first night to observe baby turtles hatching that same night, it just made them realize that traveling all the way there was more than worthwhile. For those volunteers who have had the honor to witness this miraculous event, you know what I'm talking about.  Now the family is off on a trip we planned for them to visit the Arenal Volcano area.

Besides this family, we've had another dedicated, hard-working family for the last six weeks: Michael, Jennifer and Alexandra, a family from Arizona who were volunteering in the La Flor Project for a month. Needless to say, they miss their host family so much. Now they're in the Monkey Park, and tomorrow will be traveling to our Monte Alto project where they are going to be welcomed with a big lunch party at the nature reserve where they will meet our other volunteers, Michelle from Scotland, and Marcus from Switzerland.

On Monday, we'll be welcoming another family of four (grandparents with their grandkids) who will be volunteering at Monkey Park and taking amazing tours during their off-time (enjoying the advantages of our voluntourism option).

Both families are going to be working side-by-side at Monkey Park and our other volunteer, Marcus, who has been here for almost two months visiting all of our projects. These two families and Marcus will be planting trees that were donated by Tropical Adventures in the park.

We are very committed to our projects. We believe in all of them and trust in the work we’re doing and the goals of our projects. Thank you very much in advance for deciding to volunteer with Tropical Adventures and to become part of our family.

Our Summer Adventure program is working out wonderfully. I have no words to describe the amazing legacy our volunteers are leaving whatever they are, in Tropical Adventures we feel very honored to host this beautiful people. Right now, our volunteers are working in the Sea Turtle project in Camaronal, where they're helping out the three coordinators there to preserve the turtles. They've already been in Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean Coast working with iguanas and on the Talamanca Indigenous Reservation working with a retirement home and teaching English at an elementary school and cultural center.

Next week, we're going to be in the Monte Alto project. There, we're going to be helping out Miguel and Alcides in creating trails, general maintenance of the orquid garden and two wildlife management workshops. Our volunteers have been taking excellent tours at the same time, such as white water rafting, canopy (zip-line), visiting some Panama waterfalls, fishing, hot springs, volcanoes, kayaking, organic farms and many more to come. It has been a great summer adventure for them and for all of us at Tropical Adventures.

At the same time, we're receiving new volunteers almost every day in all of our projects. Three families are coming next week to do what we call Voluntouring, which is a combo of volunteering and touring around Costa Rica. These are customized programs we put together for families, groups or individuals to support our projects and take some tours around the country. This way of traveling is becoming more and more popular every day. It's a vacation with a purpose.

At Tropical Adventures we take care of our volunteers. We want them to have a great time in their projects, their tours, with their host families or hotels, we provide them with an excellent personalized attention while they're in Costa Rica, good medical insurance, cell phone rental, orientation / training, 24-hour emergency support, transportation, great food and most important...we make them feel like they're family. It's not just volunteering, it's a Tropical Adventure!