pitch black sandy beaches

4/20
2:00pm we caught our bus for a 4hr bus ride to San Jose to spend the night before our journey to the turtle project. San Jose was nice but we were all mostly pretty tired and took the night to relax, eat, and catch up on our e-mails, facebook, blogs, etc. before enjoying our first all ladies dorm room hehe sorry timo and nico!
The next morning we woke up bright and early for an interesting journey involving transit from taxi-bus-taxi-boat. The boat was by far the best part. It was a 30 minute ride that led us on canals through a safari jungle. It was like we were on our way to Jurassic Park. Which, we later we found out was actually quite possible considering the movie had been filmed in that very same area of Costa Rica. With no previous experience in this realm of volunteer work we had very few/ little to no ideas about what time place was going to be like just that it was started by a man named Roberto Solano, a biologist and that it was located somewhere on the Carribean coast by the Pacuare River(wherever that is?). After the boat ride and a 15 minute walk through palms we had arrived and were warmly welcomed by the project coordinator Sherry. We all settled in to our rooms and then headed off to have some lunch and orientation. During orientation Sherry told us a little bit about the program and how most of our guides had previously been poachers but had come to work for her and also notified us that we would be walking that night! The shifts were four hours long and we were to go in pairs. Little after we were given this information it began to rain...and rain. Shifts started at 7,8,9,10,11,12. Luckily Rachel and I got the late night shift so we could nap a bit after dinner...or so we thought. After dinner everyone was pretty excited but still so completely unware of what it was exactly that we were going to be doing. We all went to bed awaiting our shift. Two by two every hour our group disappeared off into the unknown. When it came to be 11:30 Rachel and I awoke packed all of our stuff and headed off for Blue Skies Chris (meeting point before walks). Our guide was late so we sat and talked with a member from the other camp who had come to join us that night. The walk started off long cold monotonous with no sound other than the crashing of the waves to our right and the pouring of the rain from above. It was dark and it kept getting darker we stumbled around for 2 hours thinking to ourselves why would anyone want to do this?! We had encountered one turtle but she decided she wasn't going to lay eggs so we continued on. When we reached the point we turned around to return home. Our clothes were soaked our spirits were low and the constant questions of why am i doing this kept floating around. We walked on for about 20 mintues until we came across another turtle who was in the process of digging her nest. We all stood around hiding in the shadows our clothes stickign to us while Minor our guide yelled instructions at us in incomprehensible spanish. He helped the turtle dig and wrote away in on his clipboard yelling some more for us to help keep the sheets dry and safe from the rain as well as the turtle eggs as he put them in a plastic bag. After about 45min of birthing this turtle we were finally going to be able to go to hatchery and home! We came across to other turtles on our way back but we left them behind. We were later explained that we cannot simply pick up every nest of eggs and that their must be some natural nests in order to not throw off any other balance in nature. We made it to the hatchery and reburied the eggs and finally headed off for home!! When we arrived it was 5:20am we were soaked and starving but too tired to think about anything other than peeling off our soaked clothes and jumping into bed.

In the mornign after discussing our walks over breakfast we were able to tour the project a little bit more and were told that during the day we were to work as well. Aiding in all Camp maintinence duties which included: weeding, composting, beach sweep, tidying rooms, helping in the kitchen, making sure Chancho(the piggy) was well fed and comfortable, and my favorite! filling basins of water and bringing them to the kitchen and outside our dorms. Prior to our arrival the generator that provided the camp with water had decided to kill over and die so no electricity and no running water.The project had many great big ideas to bring them towards their main goal of sustainabiliy but for some reason were just not working. The ideas for the butterfly/frog garden, hydroponics, compost/trash management were all great big ideas but they involved much more planning and work and right now their plans due to disunion within management had caused all these ideas/plans to be poorly executed. It was clear that they had been struggling especially after having weathered a series of storms which had not only thrown off the rythym off the ocean making it unsage to swim but had taken out there flower, vegetable, butterfly&frog, gardens. Just as the "ocean needs time to heal" as Sherry said so did this place. And we had arrived in the middle of what seemed to be a slow long recovery. There was a lot of work to be done...

Knowing this, the majority of the group seemed really respond to the call for help and accept the challenge. Even though after first having been under the impression that we were to walk all night and sleep all day. The majority got up out of their beds in the morning to help out with camp maintinence and were out there every other night into the dark abyss with high hopes of being able to rescue some of these magnificent creatures. I believe all of the questions we had been asking about this very peculiar labor were finally answered when a man named Glenn who was a coordinator of a different project gave us a mini lecture. Usually all of us tend to zone out, get bored and try sleep without anyone catching us, like a highschool math class. But, this was different. Glenn captivated us all and gave us the run down of basically all the other turtle projects, the migration routes of the turtles and the reasons of why they are so highly endangered and nearly extinct and gave us yet another call to action through his passionate presentation. Glenn at least for me gave me reason to continue my daily labors throughout the rest of my stay. Its a beautiful thing to see someone so passionate about their work. To believe so whole heartedly in what they do that you can feel it and want to be apart of that something. Maybe I am strange but it made the following days much easier for me.

Aside from all the labors we got the chance to meet a new group of people who were also volunteers and really just talk and understand where they were all coming from. A specific group made up of 3 kids from German all around 19 like us were towards the end of their travels. Not wanting to go home. Wanting to explore the rest of the world. Not wanting to worry about college, jobs, money, the realworld! It was nice knowing we weren't the only ones.

Our last night after dinner we had a pow wow pulled tarot cards and discussed our experiences over the past week of volunteer. It was nice because the previous nights walk had gone much better than we had expected(considering the lack of action on previous nights) for everyone was finally able to see turtles AND rescue a nest of eggs! The discussion was so interesting considering the range of different answers, view points, and stories. It was exciting because even though we are all here together and have been for the last almost 3 months as a little camfamily we each are so unique and experience, see, feel, and take things so differently.

It has been a real treat throughout this trip to hear what everyones thoughts are about our many experiences. We have journeyed for quite a bit and we have all come so far together. Even with our differences we have all managed to become this amazing, strong, and caring mix of friends. With only one more week and pull of tarot left before our return to all over the states.

Our meeting ended early and we all turned in for bed. We had to be awake and ready to go at 4:30am to catch our boat to take us back to the world outside of Jurassic Park.

Sorry i am bad at ze writing of ze blog.

LOVE hessica <3>

Swine Flu - Update from Carpe Diem HQ

The following is a post recently made to our FAQ page that we wanted to include to all of you who might be reading this blog.

Swine flu has recently been confirmed throughout Mexico and parts of the US. A few other countries have also reported possible infections. While we're in touch with the CDC and monitoring all of the international news we can put our hands on, we also feel we are uniquely placed to handle the situation given that all of our field staff are trained in Wilderness Medicine; two of our office staff are currently Emergency Room nurses; and the other is a Wilderness EMT. We also have contact with a variety of local doctors (including a few with advanced training in international and tropical medicines) that should needs require we can reach out to.

Our spring & fall 2009 programs will continue to run as scheduled although we plan on requiring flu shots for our fall programs as they have been proven (with Avian Flu for instance) to much reduce any severity of infection. We may also choose to outfit our medical kits with extra supplies such as extra hand sanitizer and the like.

Swine Flu is an offshoot of the 1918-19 flu: just as every flu since then has been. In that strain of flu as well as most that have followed including Swine, Pneumonia has been the actual concern and the one we're most on guard for. The good news is that once recognized there are very good treatments for Pneumonia and we are very familiar with good doctors in the areas our students travel. Of course we plan on continuing to take the proactive approach and deal with any medical potentialities quickly and professionally. Since that initial pandemic in 1918, the subsequent strains have historically been more and more benign. The Swine Flu is presenting thankfully as a low-mortality flu (currently, in the US as an example, there have been 50 suspected cases and only one took an overnight in the hospital before being discharged in good health). So, while this particular flu strain is stronger than the typical seasonal flu, we are hopeful that it will continue to be as easily treatable as it has been.

We just finished a week in complete and total paradise, in the form of the ecological resort-in-progress Parque Maderas. Last Sunday we left Leon at 9 am for the four hour drive to San Juan Del Sur, arriving at Parque Maderas in the heat of the early afternoon. However, we pretty much forgot about being hot once we discovered where we were. Parque Maderas is run by Tyler, who grew up with Ethan and is right now, quite simply, building his dream: a center for art and ecology. His project is expected to take about seven years, and right now is at year three and a half. We all stared at him in disbelief when he asked us not to fight over the double beds in the spacious dorm room that he has set up for groups. The beach was a short but excrutiatingly steep walk away, and was the hangout for a pretty big surfing community. We walked a bit farther down past all the surfers and swam and sunbathed at this gorgeous empty beach, finally going back up after watching the first of many incredible sunsets. That night we discovered that we were also in for a huge treat food-wise, starting with our first dinner of grilled ginger chicken, corn and bean salad, lettuce salad and rice. We all went to sleep completely blissed out. The first full day we were there Tyler was busy fixing some broken generators, so we had another day of relaxation. Some of us braved the big waves and took surfing lessons from Tyler's friend, and others swam. After lunch it was so hot it pretty much called for a siesta, and then there was more beach time. The food continued to be some of the most delicous food of the trip. Tyler was trying to figure out how he wanted to run the hostel, and we were guinea pigs for some of his ideas, including trying to create the perfect brownies, which we were the lucky recipients of. Over the next few days we spent time having class with Tyler, where he taught us about sustainable developement, what goes into a project like his, and learned in more detail about his vision and the problems and successes he has had so far. He took us around his property and showed us the plants that he's been cultivating, many of which have medicinal properties. We spent one afternoon taking cuttings of lemongrass and replanting it along the paths. He also had us take a stab at designing the entrance to the resort, which was really fun. He was very chill about everything, explaining to us that he had had this vision, so he came down to Nicaragua and "built this resort or whatever." We were able to experience Nicaraguan emergency health care when Rachel was stung by a sting ray at the beach that Tyler had sent us to that was about an hour away from San Juan Del Sur, which was where the clinic was. We were blown away when the visit took all of about five minutes. The other patients in the waiting room ushered her through, where she gave her first name and age to the nurse, got a shot of local anesthesia and left without even needing to pay anything. On our last day Tyler packed us a picnic (cajun chicken pasta salad, peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches, banana bread, watermelon, and cookies) and we took a boat ride a little ways down the coast to yet another incredible beach, completely empty of any other people. By the end of the week none of us wanted to leave, but we all packed up our backpacks with promises to come back and visit some time in the next few years, when I'm sure it will be even more amazing than it is now, and headed off to cross the border into Costa Rica.
Hasta Luego,
Julia

Tim´s Second Edition

I really have no idea how I´m going to make this a satisfying report for all you out there, but I am certainly going to try...
This week was our last in language school, and everyone is starting to feel a little awed by the rapidly approaching end date, coming to destroy all our fun. Well, maybe not all so melodramatic as that, but still, it´s a mighty odd feeling.
School was enjoyable for some, less so for others, but I think that everyone this week not only recovered all the ground we lost speaking English to eachother since Xela, and then some, considerably. Anjali, for example, began this trip with not a word of Spanish, but now understands a very respectable amount of what is said around her.
Group ¨togetherness¨gained some new dimensions this week; we all paired up for our homestays in light of logistical problems in Xela, among other things, and I think everyone is now closer to the group then before.
After school every day has been a tad more boring then in Xela, though not because there is little do to. Rather, it is because it is hot as all hell down here, in this, the perportedly hottest city in Nicaragua. We found a supercheap movie theater, and hit it up two days in a row, for no small part because it has some seriously awesome air conditioning. We saw Monsters Vs. Aliens, a clever kids movie in that blobby animation that is so popular in kids movies these days, and it was in Spanish, to boot. The next day, we saw Bride Wars, with Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, and I personally would have disliked it more had it not been in the supercool theater.
This week also happens to be Semana Santa, an extremely important holiday week down here, culminating in Easter Sunday after many festivities and parades with Jesús and Mary floats. Being Good Friday today, there are several large parades in town at various parts of the day, and we are´ll going to a big parade tonight in the center of town, because we don´t have class tomorrow and don´t need to hit the sack early tonight, for a short change.
Tomorrow we may go to the beach, but it is supposed to be obscenely crowded this week,and as were are going to be on beaches essentially for the rest of the trip, I think tomorrow will more likely be a lazy day before we head off to church in the evening, those of us that want to, anyway, for an early Easter service, as we will be heading out early Sunday morning for Parque Maderas, our next stop.
Hoping I wrote enough,
Tim for the CAM Carpe Diem group

Freedom in Nicaragua

Hello to all our faithful blog-followers!

CAM just wrapped up the first ever free travel in Nicaragua. After getting up at to leave Antigua at 4:30am, we arrived at the airport and were bumped onto an earlier direct flight to Managua. The plane was empty, but we all sat next to each other anyway because we don´t like being apart for very long. Upon arrival in Managua we were immediately thrown into the heart and heat of Nicaragua: public transportation. We packed onto an already full bus and sweated out the next 30 minutes barely hanging onto the bars attached to the ceiling. We changed buses and headed toward Rivas, getting to see a lot of beautiful Nicaraguan countryside in the ensuing three hours.
With another taxi ride, a ferry ride, and another taxi ride, we ended up at our destination on Isla de Ometepe at Hotel Playa Venecia. Ometepe is in the middle of Lake Nicaragua, the largest lake in Central America, and consists of two towering volcanoes, with beautiful beaches and forests in between. It was paradise. The most impressive part was that our group had planned the whole week; accomodations, transportation, and activities, all on our own. The first whole day we had on Ometepe some of us rented bikes and biked into Mayogolpa to go to the grocery store and see more of the island. That 13km excursion warranted a swim in the lake and refrigerated beverages afterward due to the extreme heat and humidity that we were not yet acclimated to (and still aren´t). Others of us spent the day journaling, making bracelets, reading, or jogging and doing yoga. Our lakeside location made even the most mundane tasks seem more exciting. A bunch of us spent a good three hours on the rocks of a slimy old dock until sunset, just because it seemed like a good idea. In the evenings we got to sit around in the restaurant and decide whether to eat pesto or eggs and gallo pinto (those weren´t actually the only options). As we have learned, gallo pinto is a mixture of rice and beans and a staple Nicaraguan food.
The next day was the day for conquering the volcano Conception. Everyone except Anjali and me got up to be at breakfast at 5:30am. After everyone fueled up they headed out with the two guides to catch a bus to the base of the volcano. The bus barely missed them, and apparently didn´t see them running to catch it, so the group had to secure alternative transportation to get to the beginning of the hike. In the beginning the trail wasn´t too bad, but the day quickly heated up and the volcano quickly became incredibly steep and by the 900m lookout half of the group decided they had had enough and posted up for naps. Jessica, Nick, Amanda, and the guide continued the ascent, partially on all fours because the grade increased ridiculously the closer they got to the crater of the volcano. The insect activity also increased ridiculously; bees and giant prehistoric insects swarmed around the crater, making for an unpleasant final ascent. The guide, Elmer, said that there was more activity than he´d ever seen and limited the time the group spent at the top to ¨a few minutes at most¨. He also mentioned that the evacuation plan for the whole island consists of two ferries and four launches. But regardless, the view from the top of Conception was wonderful. They alternated between walking, running, and sliding down the mountain, meeting up with the rest of the group halfway and hurrying down the rest of the way to get back before dark. Just as the sun was setting the group returned to Venecia and literally walked into the lake fully clothed. Anjali and I had a slightly more relaxing day walking around a protected forest and beach called Charco Verde, making bracelets, and kayaking on the lake. Friday we had to pack up and leave paradise for a slightly more inland location at Finca Magdalena, a cooperative farm and hostel near the other volcano on Ometepe. The van ride across the island gave us a firsthand experience of the state of the dirt roads, but we finally bumped up to the hostel and set up camp in the ¨psyche ward¨on our foldable cots with coded pillowcases. We sweated out the rest of the day in the shade, breaking our siesta only for meals. At Magdalena some of us again wrestled with illness, but it was a good time for recharging. The hostel was also a great place to meet Nicaraguan (or Barcelonian) students who were on vacation for Semana Santa (the week between Palm Sunday and Easter). Saturday morning Jessica, Anjali, Nick, and Amanda headed out to conquer volcano Maderas. This turned out to be a slightly less steep endeavor, with a forest protecting them from the sun most of the way and ending in a swim in the lake formed by the crater of the long-dormant volcano. The lake turned out to be a strange combination of mud the consistency of pudding and a layer of water on top of that. After the descent all were ready for more siestas, but we rallied after sunset to go to another finca for brick oven pizza. We got a ride from a guy who had driven his van down from Colorado and enjoyed hopping out for the potholes and speedbumps. We enjoyed our last night of free travel eating pizza, playing with an armless Obama doll, and trying to avoid mangos that were falling on us from the tree overhead.
The next morning we woke up and were glad that we had splurged on private transportation to get all the way across the island, onto the ferry to get across the lake, and back north to Leon. We arrived at Dariana Language School before lunch, where we were whisked away to our homestays to settle in to our week in Leon. Our week of free travel was a success and we are now enjoying Semana Santa festivities and our last week of language school in the hottest (climate wise) city in Nicaragua.
Hasta pronto,
Hannah

Spiritual Retreat?

Posting a bit late, but we just finished a week in the beautiful town of San Marcos.

We finished the trek in what we thought was San Pedro, only to realize we were in Epcot. The perfectly colorfully painted houses, wooden benches and trash cans, cobblestone streets and cleaning crews were there and everything. But we made our way to the launch and arrived in San Marcos, a spiritual community on Lake Atitlan. Wide eyed and covered in mud, we made our way through the narrow winding paths to La Paz where we were staying. La Paz was absolutely beautiful. The grounds were covered in grass and vibrant follows and nobody complained about the hot water. We spent the day relaxing, making ourselves decently presentable, and trying to decide how we would spend the next week focusing on spiritual growth.

Meandering the two and half paths we found a variety of different things, some within our price ranges and some that we could reconsider when we have an annual salary. The group seemed to gravitate towards different healing related activities including massage, medicinal healing, and reiki, along with the yoga, meditation and metaphysics classes that Las Piramidas had to offer.

The week didn´t end up being as much of a spiritual retreat as we had hoped, but it was a growth experience nonetheless. Four of the eight made our way on a chicken boat (yes they also have chicken boats) to a chicken bus, to a lab to find out what other living things were enjoying the weather in San Marcos. Meanwhile throughout the week the group was overwhelmed with a feeling of superficiallity and had a hard time connecting to the majority of other Gringos in San Marcos. However, this disconnect brought us to a new level of awareness as tourists. We began a team ¨survey¨ with as many people as we could find about how the spiritual tourism affected the locals in San Marcos. We tried to establish a level of trust so that people would feel free to express negative aspects of it. We heard a good amount from a variety of people mostly that it brought money and money was good. With what we had left from struggling against parasites, we struggled to portray the idea that development isn´t necessarily ideal. It got pretty heavy.

AFter a busride that involved walking up the hills we got to Antigua, the oldest city in Central America for two days of free exploration. I think the highlight for most people was seeing the mostly floral displays lining all of the streets for the pre-Semana Santa Parade.

We´re in Leon as you´ll hear more about soon, but it is too hot to stay near the computer any longer.

Raquel