The waves are calling

Two months have already passed since I arrived in Costa Rica and the past weeks have flown by me like a flock of parakeets, where the chirping takes a little longer than the swift green birds.

I also realize a little later how beautiful many days are here.

I have met some nice Americans who often invite me to their vacation home. Following the stereotype, they find everything 'awesome' or 'amazing', and when they find something really great, they call it 'absolutely insane'. Apparently, my free guided tour of the ara station was 'absolutely insane'. And for the next evening when we surfed beautiful smooth waves in the sunset and then went to a beach bar, they apparently had to come up with new adjectives.

At the moment, I go surfing every day. Sometimes five hours a day, but sometimes just one hour after I have given tourists a tour of the station. Recently, I even ran down for an hour and then jogged the two kilometers to the beach with the board under my arm because my bike was broken. And all because Duaro wrote to me that he would be a little late. For days, all the surfers had been talking only about the big swell that would come that day. This was probably caused by the hurricane in Nicaragua. Three meter high waves overflowed the entire beach, partly into the forest. It took me four tries to fight my way through the waves to the other surfers, but it was worth it. I paddled over real hills and felt the spray wash over me from behind. I surfed two waves and then ran all the way back to come back again after work, when the waves called me back.

I also met Carlos at the Americans' vacation home. He is one of the best surfers in Costa Rica and has won many surf contests. No matter how bad the waves are, he always gathers enough speed to make an 'air' at the end, which is a high jump with a 360-degree rotation. All the other surfers just shake their heads when they see that. Carlos is only 1.50 meters tall and I think his arms are almost as strong as his legs.

But the work is still fun. We always drive to different places with the quad, so I get to see a lot of the area here. This week, we built a new nesting box and took down an old one. It's quite difficult to get a one-meter high wooden-covered plastic barrel into a 40-meter high tree crown. But with combined forces, we were pretty quick and could enjoy the view from up there all the way to Panama (!).

Although it's raining more often now, I do so much every day that I don't have the energy to write it all down in the evening. I heard that some other volunteers before me only went down the mountain every two days to experience something. I think I've only spent the entire day at the station once in the past two months, even though I have quite a lot to do. But it would be a shame if I didn't make the most of my time here in the end. Even if that means surfing the best possible waves and eating the best possible fruits for me.