Wednesday March 3, 2010

With my alarm going off and a simultaneous knock at my door from Kevin, the founder and president of EPS, at 5:00 a.m. I knew my long day of travel lay ahead of me. Taking the 5:30 a.m. bus from our small, mountain, coffee village of Santa Barbara to the neighboring town of San Joaquin Del FLores, we had to transfer and get in a short taxi ride to bring us to the highway in order to catch our bus to downtown San Jose. Realizing that we showed up an hour early to the bus station, we had a chance to recoup in our groggy state of morning public transportation travel and also grab a fresh cup of Costa Rican coffee and a pastry. In the San Jose station, Kevin and I met our other team member Oren, Director of Conservation. We took the 8:00 a.m. bus from San Jose to Puntarenas, which is a two and a half hour bus ride. I had the great fortune of sitting next to a young lady from Morocco, who was on Spring break with her sister, and had a wonderful discussion about the mission of the Eco Preservation Society and what we planned on accomplishing in our upcoming staff retreat. Ironically, she is also very active in environmentalism and showed a great deal of interest in our environmental social media internship and volunteer programs. It was a conversation that lasted the entire bus ride and hopefully a contact that EPS will have the pleasure of keeping.

Upon our arrival to Puntarenas, I was greeted by the next leg of our trip, which was an hour and a half ferry ride to the Eastern Coast of the Nicoya Peninsula. Sleep deprived, extensive travel and an awaiting afternoon schedule of heavy meetings left me with excitement to get to Playa Blanca.

My wishes did not arrive when we came to the port in the ferry because we then had a forty-minute truck ride to our final destination. With Oren and I sitting in the bed of the truck and Kevin and David, the property manager, sitting in the cockpit, we were on our way to staying put for the next few days.

We finally arrived to the gorgeous landscape, hot sun, and ocean breezes of Playa Blanca. With Julio, Director of Operations, already there with his wife, Sarah Joy, and son, EPS had five out of six members together in one spot. Waiting for the sixth, we decided to relax after our half a day’s travel and have some lunch, which consisted of a fresh batch of Kevin’s infamous chili and David’s smoked fish dip that came fresh from the waters that was no more than thirty-five meters from where we ate it.  

Anxious to start the discussions of progress and organization, we had to wash off the memories that started at 5:30 a.m. by jumping into the ocean for a refreshing quick swim. After we dried off it was time for work.
Sitting around a large wooden conference table that had its legs and our feet in the sand, due to it being stationed on the beach, I became very comfortable with the idea that our environmental meetings over the next couple of days were going to be literally in the environment.

The rest of the afternoon’s topics consisted of the mangrove symposium that EPS will be helping to coordinate over the summer, the study based of the carrying capacity for the Manuel Antonio National Park, the computer lab for monitoring the Costa Rica reforestation project and the networking available to pursue these endeavors.
Overwhelmed with enthusiasm and excitement for EPS and the beneficial severity of these projects I lost track of time and realized that it was already dark. I was on the itinerary for making dinner for all of us. Knowing the dish that I was going to make, which was a vegetable pasta dish consisting of a heavy garlic influence, I knew that it would be some time before it was ready if I did not interrupt the meeting to ask if we could continue the meeting with everyone peeling a whole clove of garlic. So, we sat there as a team talking about how we are going to change the environmental world one step at a time with a clove of garlic in our hands.

Preparing dinner for six people in an industrial wooden kitchen on the beach did not seem like a chore but rather a pleasure when everyone was graciously stuffed and relaxed after  traveling and lengthy discussion. It was right before everyone was ready to go to their rooms that our sixth member, Rayna, EPS's Travel Coordinator, arrived.  After a quick briefing of the afternoon’s meeting and fixing her a plate of dinner it was now time to retire to our cabinas that were stationed deep in the jungle.

Walking from the beach down the narrow dirt path that was encased in cascading jungle foliage with Oren and a flashlight, we arrived to our rooms. I opened my windows that were right next to my pillows and felt like a little boy on Christmas, due to my excitement for a well deserved night sleep. Or so I thought. After the first couple hours of unconsciousness I was awoken by the ambiguous deep screams coming from the jungle through my window. Being exhausted and in a half conscious state I did not know what to think. I quickly remembered that I was in a wooden cabina in the middle of a jungle and totally vulnerable. My excitement for sleep was quickly turned into paranoia and fear from the daunting sounds. Not knowing what to do I forced myself back to sleep with the continuation of my fears of the unknown. The perpetual howls literally induced nightmares and several times I viciously woke up to check if there was something in my room because the sounds seemed like they were inches from my bed. I had no luck of finding anything and before I knew it I cracked one eye open to see Kevin standing in front of me telling me that he was going to the beach to make a fresh pot of coffee. It was morning already.

• Part 3