Hi there,
How are things over your way? I have been out of contact for a bit and although I have been back in Costa Rica for two weeks or so, I still haven't caught up on all my email. I had a virus or something last week and my computer wasn't cooperating too much until Sat I got it reformatted and working again.
So the question of late to me has been: How did the project in Nicaragua go? Or: What's next? These are big questions, so this could be a long (longer than my usual verbose self) email, so be forewarned. Or maybe I'll split this into several parts. We'll see. The quick answers for those who are looking for that is: (a) project went well and we all returned in one piece. (b) I finish at RJI on May 17 and am off to Nicaragua within a week or 2 to look for a job there.
On a superficial note, I did trim my hair 2 months ago (as I said I was thinking about), and I almost have a normal amount of Rob hair again. Am considering another trim, but we shall see.
So, I went to Nicaragua. Nice place really. What can I say? It is hard to sum up 2 months into a nicely encapsulated couple of paragraphs that people can digest and somehow understand all that has happened and that I/we have been through. (I am in a I will tell the stories in any case, maybe you will find it interesting.
Well, we started in Costa Rica for a week of orientation and the wilderness first aid (WAFA) course. Allison and I spent about half of our time there. Most of the rest of my time was spent trying to finalise details for the project. I remember we had two minor crises as we were leaving that meant I had not too much free time during that week and both had to do with the Easter week (Semana Santa) holiday.
First, our supplier of snake anti-venom ran out of anti-venom and couldn't get anymore until the end of April. Oops. So, I had to search like crazy and found out that officially it is impossible to get snake anti-venom anywhere but in that one place (the University of Costa Rica) but if you have contacts, in this country, everything is possible. After hanging out with some YCI old-timers one night, a couple of people mentioned a few places and doctors that I could call and finally one worked out and donated us two doses of the stuff. I was pretty happy.
The next crisis was the transport to Nicaragua. Even though I had been told the buses had a normal schedule on Holy Thursday, I decided to double-check. Good thing I did. Found out that the usual 5:30am bus we were going to take wasn't running until 10am, fouling up our plans and logistics for the following few days. So, after cursing a bit, our extremely flexible and competent WAFA instructors volunteered to finish the course a half day early and so we left the night before and slept in a hotel on the Nicaraguan border.
In this time, I hardly saw or got to know the participants. Some of them didn't even realise that I was going with them to Nicaragua.
It was quite a mature group (old foogies really) ranging in age from 21-29. There were problems - I'll get to that - but a lot of them stemmed from the participants' expectations that they came down with. Several of them weren't really looking for leadership learning, unfortunately, and so ended up being disappointed with the program, I think. (Although in the end, I think they all thought that they had benefited from the experience - at least I hope so)
When we arrived in San Carlos after the hotel, we anxiously went to the Amigos del Rio San Juan office to see how many Nicaraguan participants we had. In the end, I had coordinated with two, but only one showed up. Alejandra had been worried because we were so late - our transport from Los Chiles left later than anticipated, yet another fun effect of travelling on a holiday.
I was super happy to have her, since we had no Costa Ricans and no Australians. At least we had some cultural mix in the group! Also, without Nicaraguan participation, the program is much less rich and effective. Not to mention she turned out to be a superstar in our group. Flexible, fun and a fantastic translator, she made a huge difference to the group and the project. Also I guess I was happy because of all the work I put into getting someone involved and it happened! Mostly it happened because some friends offered to give some money to support her - thanks to those 2! The Expedition
Well, this didn't quite turn out as we expected, to put it mildly. Oops. Here was disaster number one. (we are beyond crisis here)
After a long second day of travel, arriving on Holy Thursday where everyone charged us insane amounts extra for every bus and cargo transport that we made use of, we arrived at 7pm in El Castillo. Did I mention that our boat from San Carlos left an hour or so late because the gas station ran out of gas? Anyway, I was lucky enough to make contact with Raphael who works in El Castillo for Amigos del Rio San Juan (with whom we worked in Papaturro) and he helped us arrange a boat from El Castillo to Bartola where we would supposedly start the hike.
We arrived in Bartola and asked the park rangers, who Allison had arranged the expedition with, were ready to start the expedition the next day, and they said, "What expedition?" Rob: "Well, you know, where we go hiking and camping in the jungle for 3-4 days." Park rangers: "That's impossible, no one is allowed to camp overnight, it's too dangerous."
So that turned into a long discussion trying to convince them (again, because Allison had already talked to them about this) to take us. Finally, they said, "Sure, we'll take you but we need to get a boat to take us further up river." Rob: "But, what about the 20km trail that you showed Allison that starts here." Park rangers: "Oh no, that trail starts 10km downstream from here. You need to hire a boat." Rob: "Hmmm... OK. How can we get a boat?" Rangers: "Well, it's too late now, we'll have to ask the people at the hotel tomorrow to take us the next day."
Thus we lost a day and a half of our already truncated hike. Jerks. But such is life in Nicaragua, nothing goes according to plan. But that is not all...
After waiting around one day, doing various activities that we needed to do anyway, but not exactly planned to go this way, we left the next morning on a boat to go 10km up river. We got to the trail head and started hiking. By lunch, after changing trails, we were nearly done. After a leisurely lunch, we walked another hour and arrived. Supposedly 10km (more like 5 or so) we walked in 2-3 hours in total. Yikes. So much for a challenging hike. We didn't even see much wildlife (we ended up seeing more in Papaturro). So we camped and went for a swim in the "river" - knee deep.
The next morning, it turned out to be even more fun, when Allison, Darcy and I discovered that we had scabies. Oh, that was fun. If you don't know scabies, it is a skin parasite, sometimes called mites - tiny things, that burrow in your skin, lay eggs and multiply all over your body, especially damp, dark places. Boy was I in good mood by this point. I had a picture of my legs, but unfortunately it didn't turn out. If you saw the picture of my legs in Guyana with scabies, then this was worse!
But, in the end, what can you do? We were in the middle of the jungle and could do nothing. So, we lived with it.
I think I'll call it a day on Nicaragua stories... (or a couple of days) and continue later. But, just so you aren't left with a bad impression of the trip, it does get better... :)
Today is my last day, should have more time to write this epic soon...
Take care,
Rob