Costa Rica - Part Two — What We Saw, What We Read

On January 30th, we caught an early bus out of Puerto Viejo and made it to Puerto Limon. After a fun few hours spent purchasing snacks and standing in a DMV-esque line to get a local SIM card, we finally caught another bus to Siquirres. We asked the bus to let us off at a bridge that crossed the Pacuare River and then walked up a hill to get to our hostel for the night. The family-run hostel was a welcome change from our Gilligan's Island-style "treehouse" in Puerto Viejo. We spent our evening chatting with the family about local politics (we had arrived just a few days before the presidential elections in Costa Rica), their kids, schools, and how our hosts met and fell in love, all in our broken Spanish. The hostel was cozy and the friendly conversations made it feel like home.

The next morning we woke up to the sound of tree roosters crowing (yes, actual roosters sitting in the trees outside our room). Our hosts kindly drove us to a local bus stop so that we could catch our next bus to Santa Marta. Our instructions were to "take a bus to Santa Marta and get off at Pacuare Bar where there are two kayaks cemented into the road". We made it to the bar and spent a few hours under an awning in the rain waiting for our host to pick us up. When he finally arrived we hopped into his truck and traveled down a bumpy road to the Pacuare River Lodge.

The Pacuare River, known around the world for its whitewater rafting, hosts swarms of tourists in the peak season, many of whom camp along the river during the night before continuing down the river the next day. We would be spending a month working at the lodge, helping clean and mantain cabins and restore trails. While rafters came and went, we would be permanent residents.

After we made it to the lodge we met the caretakers, a kind and generous Costa Rican couple, as well as the other Workawayers. We immediately began helping out and settled quickly into a routine that made the days fly by. We would wake up around 5am to the ever present sound of the river, study or read for a couple of hours until breakfast, and then start work after we had finished eating. We finished work at lunch time and then had the rest of the day to ourselves. Sometimes we would go down to the river to swim or take a short hike up-river to a more secluded spot and swim or relax in the sun.

We had an incredible experience staying at the lodge and enjoyed our time spent with the caretakers, river guides, tourists, and volunteers. We've found that the people you meet along the way and the friendships you make have an immense effect on how enjoyable a location can be. Our month at the lodge may not have been as perfect as the pictures make it out to be; it rained often, the work was hard, and there was a constant battle against bugs, but we also met some astoundingly kind and unselfish people. Without a doubt, making those friendships was worth all of those pesky mosquito bites.