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Just in case you don’t fancy poring over my War & Peace-esque ramblings about my trip, here are the highlights and lowlights in an easily digestible format. **Highlights** >The turtles I was a sceptical at first about the idea of saving turtles – I mean, what good could I really do? It turns out that many a cute little tortuga was saved during my time at Buena Vista, mostly due to the efforts of volunteers...

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The last couple of days have been a mixture of highs and lows. As an incorrigible optimist I’ll start with the highs. I woke up this morning to the excitement of a whole nest of baby turtles hatching – crawling their little way up towards the surface to be quickly scooped into a bucket. All 86 of them were then carried down to the to of the beach to start their rush for the sea....

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Life at Buena Vista isn’t all surfing and lazing on the beach (although there is rather a lot of that). Oh no, there are turtles to save, which means work and, according to Robertu, one of the members of staff at the project, ‘No conbersations’! (He’s joking btw, or so we hope). We generally worked from 8am to 11am, with water breaks in between. Most work does invovlve machete wielding, clearing paths etc (which doesn’t...

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Yesterday was the first day of our surfing lessons. A good day in many ways. Firstly I stood up (well, shambled up) and caught a wave for the first time, which was very satisfying, if not totally bodacious yet. Secondly, we met Eric, our surfing instructor, who was given 5 very enthusiastic thumbs up by myself, Romilly, Josie, Olivia and Emily, four girls from Birmingham on their gap year who were also lucky enough to...

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The main advantage of my trip being postponed by ash cloud mayhem was the fact that I ended up seeing the start of the turtle season – a lot of volunteers had spent months at the project without once seeing a turtle. But on my very first patrol, on a rainy, thundery night, we suddenly stopped after coming across some tracks in the sand. Robertu, one of the members of staff at the project, followed...

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“You WILL get culture shock…” What did Bryan Bounds, co-founder of i-to-i, whose voice had boomed out at me during an orientation video know? I’d travelled before, I’d gone days without showing while staying on boats before, hell, I’d even survived toilets in both rural China and at the Reading Festival. I’d be finnnee. What became rapidly clear after arriving at the camp at Buena Vista though was that I hadn’t done it all in...

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It wasn’t the dreaded ash cloud in the end but technical failure that hampered my trip out to Costa Rica. So, due to a missed connection a fun night was spent in the luxurious confines of The Holiday Newark Airport.* But, after a quick hop, skip and a jump via Houston the next morning I was there – and in another queue. But after the monster immigration queue, I was definitely there. Carlos, one of...

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Number of sleeps to go: 16 Number of practice swims: 1 Number of essential items located: zero Ability to speak Spanish: in progress Yesterday, my copywriting partner-in-crime Rob turned to me and said ‘you’re going to Costa Rica in a couple of weeks aren’t you?’. Why yes, I replied. ‘God, you’re being a bit quiet about it. If I were you, I’d be insufferable by now.’ The man has a point. But here’s the deal:...

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Now, I’m no travel expert – in fact my attitude to personal safety could probably be described as cavalier at best (walking home tipsy, alone, anyone? Just me then…). However, an article I read yesterday about how not talking to strangers is awful advice for travellers (http://www.vagabondish.com/talk-to-strangers-travel-advice/ ) made me think that there’s a lot of just plain daft tips knocking about on t’interweb. Most of which seem designed to instil fear in travellers, rather...

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Some useful bits to stuff in your rucsack if you're heading off on an adventure (although I think whoever wrote it may have been scraping the bottom of the barrel with number ten, which features a four position wrench. I don't think I would even know what that was if it hit me in the face, let alone know what to do with it!) Anyway, check it out! http://matadorgoods.com/10-multi-use-items-you-should-consider-packing/

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