El horario

The tentative schedule
(Possibly give or take 1 or 2 days with each date)


November 7: Plane leaves Charlotte, NC en route to San Jose, Costa Rica.

November 9-20: Montana Linda Language School. This is also the hostel that I will be staying at during these two weeks.

November 21-February 4: Fundacion Santuario Silvestre de Osa (Osa Wildlife Sanctuary)
At some point around New Years, during my time at Osa, my parents are coming down for approximately 10 days to visit and in order for me to make a short trip to Panama. Why Panama, you might wonder? With only a passport, one can legally remain in the CR for up to 90 days. You must leave the country for at least 72 hours and then have your passport restamped. The coordinator at Osa said that there are people in Panama that will stamp your passport again in only 24 hours for a fee of about $50. It won't be terribly near the 90 day limit, but it will refresh the count enough to keep me legal until I leave.
This sanctuary seems as if it will be more work and less play. Still play, but just likely more work hours per day and more days a week.

February 5-March 30: Rainsong Wildlife Sanctuary
Less work and more play. Still work, but less hours and fewer work days.

March 31: Plane leaves San Jose, Costa Rica en route to Charlotte, NC.



The following image has no correlation to Costa Rica besides being taken in a Latin American country.

This is a picture from my trip to Ecuador a few years back. This was stenciled on a wall in Quito.
It is a bit hard to read. "Pequena sugerencia para hijos de puta. Sigan a su lider" "Small tip for sons of bitches. Follow your leader."
Just found it too intriguing to leave unphotographed.

Rainsong

No real huge new news, but a new blog needs to be broken in. It also feels satisfying to talk about my trip and release a bit of the anticipation building up.

I sent in my volunteer application to Rainsong Wildlife Sanctuary a couple days ago. Last night I received an e-mail back from them. Twas very exciting! This is the second of the two wildlife sanctuaries I will be at. There are two peninsulas on the pacific side of Costa Rica and Rainsong is located near the tip of the upper one (Peninsula de Nicoya). The first sanctuary is located on the lower peninsula (Peninsula de Osa). So back to the e-mail...For staying there for two months the donation I must make is only $160. But I must also take into consideration the cost of food and other opportunities that may arise. Groceries are approximately $3 a day for basics. Meat, eggs, cheese, etc. are a bit more. Thankfully working all summer should leave me comfortable financially. I now need to decide which lodging option I'd prefer. There are a few different ones. All sound like wonderful choices to me. Price-wise they are all fairly comparable. Mary, the volunteer coordinator, also asked me to bring down wildlife stickers and coloring books for the school children in the area.

I'll likely make a new post fairly soon with an updated schedule outline.

Date of Departure

I figure there is no better time to begin this blog than the moment my plane ticket is bought. I officially have a date with an aeroplane at the Charlotte airport on Saturday, November 7th, 2009.

To enter the country one must buy a roundtrip ticket so my return date to the states as of now is March 31st, 2010. Estoy alegre!

I'm devoting this blog to anything related to my trip. I plan on updating as my departure date closes in. Not sure exactly what topics, but I suspect there will be plenty of noteworthy things (at least in my mind).

My reasons for keeping this blog are numerous. It will be sort of like a journal to chronicle my trip and also a great way to keep all of you up to date while i'm many kilometers away in a foreign culture.

I have to go right now. I'm trying to get my first 8 hours of sleep in many weeks tonight. I'll update with more details tomorrow if I think of any. If not, I'll just post when I have a worthwhile update relating to Costa Rica.