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 – eggs were collected, nests dugs and babies released back into the ocean. ‘Twas magical.

>Buena Vista Playa
Because the beach where the project is situated is a conservation area it’s literally deserted, with just beautiful swathes of sand, palm trees and sea. It’s the kind of exclusivity and tranquillity that I expect people pay a lot of money for.

>Living the simple life
While my day-to-day existence isn’t as hectic as Paris Hilton’s, it was great to have a break from modern life with all its computers, constant distractions, noise and processed sugar (actually, forget that, I massively missed the processed sugar). Spending loads of time outside, getting up and going to bed early, doing loads of exercise and just generally feeling rather invigorated was pretty ace.

>The food
Whenever anyone talked about the food in Costa Rica all they said was that you’ll get rice and beans three times a day and that’ll be it. You can imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when greeted by three delicious meals a day cooked by the project’s chef, Veronica. While they did revolve around the rice and beans theme, we also got cereal, pasta, lots of veggies, eggs and even pancakes. In fact that only things missing were cold drinks and ice-cream (both rather a challenge in sweltering heat with no electricity for a fridge).

>Surfing
I’m not about to enter into any championships or anything, but I have managed to achieve my two main aims of standing up on a surfboard and not drowning. I also had the added bonus of only hitting myself in the face with said surfboard once.

>The other volunteers at the project
As well as the 7 i-to-i volunteers at Buena Vista, there were loads more from all over the world (Germany, the US, Canada, Australia). While close confines and not much to do could have made for a disastrous recipe for friction, everyone just got on really well, with endless games of cards, chatting, pissing about and reading.

>Roy and all the staff at Buena Vista
When Fernando took our orientation he warned us that the guy who runs the show at Buena Vista, Roy, was someone who liked turtles more than people. Well he must like turtles a lot, as while he seemed a little stand-offish at first he got on with people fine (and did a surprisingly good line in pig and dog impressions). Then there was Walter, the new boy whose mispronunciation of the word ‘beach’ was like music to our immature ears (‘when you go down on the bitch’ etc). He was really nice though. Robertu, a mischievous 18 or 19 year-old made up the trio, with a good round of catchphrases like ‘no conberstations’.

>Nights out in Samara
One of the plus points of us having to leave our project early (see ‘lowlights’) was that we got an extra night in Samara (a nearby beach resort) to gorge ourselves on cocktails. On both nights a fun time was had by all. A few Tico guys and Trevor, a painfully stupid American who now lives in Samara, made sure five English girls weren’t led astray on the Thursday night. While Friday night was full of dancing and drinking until we had to catch our bus at 4.30am on Saturday morning.

**Lowlights**

>The rain
In the end it rained pretty much solidly from Sunday night to Thursday night on the second week. Apparently the camp at Buena Vista has only flooded twice – once 5 years ago and once during my trip. The constant rain meant that there wasn’t much to do all day apart from read, play cards and occasionally go out to get soaked while checked the hatchery. The rain also made it impossible to dry anything, leaving us all in a constant state of dampness, not helped by my very leaky bed.

>Having to leave our project early
Because Buena Vista is cut off from civilisation by a tidal river, the rain meant that even at low tide getting across was pretty dicey. what had been a calf-deep trickle on arrival was now a neck-deep torrent. As a result, Nikki, one of the in-country team, has to come and pick us up a day early, not knowing whether another day of rain would make everything totally impassable. In the end it rained solidly the day we were picked up too, so it wasn’t a massive loss.

>Not feeling clean, ever
What with the delightful combination of sweat, sea-water, sun-cream and stand-pipe showers, it was nigh-on impossible to ever get that fresh out the shower feeling.

>Lusting after unobtainable food
Part of Buena Vista’s beauty is that it’s cut off from everywhere. This also means that it’s cut off from shops and by extension wonderous things like cold drinks, ice-cream and chocolate biscuits. As a child of convenience culture with everything I want within reach almost 24-7, it was almost too much to bear. On the plus side, my 2-week hiatus from chocolate biscuits has meant my clothes were much looser on the flight home than the one out.

>Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes look at me like your fat uncle looks at a wedding buffet. Despite practically bathing in deet the little bastards still found me. in fact during the journey back to Samara, when my insect repellent was washed off by a mixture of rain and the river we had to wade through I was bitten no less than 20 times. The fun doesn’t stop there. Due to some weird allergic reaction type affair each bite has swollen up and my left leg (which is evidently tastier than my right) has swollen up like some kind of medieval, sore-encrusted beauty. Just the sexy effect I was going for.

And that’s about it – despite all the lows I genuinely had an amazing, amazing time – the experience was certainly worth everything the insect population of central America had to throw at me.
I’m no expert, but if anyone is thinking about surfing and saving turtles in Costa Rica, feel free to get in touch and I’ll do my best to answer any questions you might have!