Keep your curiosity sacred: our recipe for travel: Volunteering at Cloudbridge, Costa Rica, Part 1

Crossing the border from Honduras into Costa Rica was sketchy, to say the least! Getting off the bus, there was no indication of where to go, so we just kept walking, past the buses waiting to exit the country, past various men standing or sitting in those marquee-type things you buy at the supermarket if you're having a barbecue in the British summer and know that you can't count on barbecue weather.... These men looked more as if they were going to a barbie, rather than inspecting official documents, dressed as they were in t-shirts, and sporting sunglasses. Finally, we reached an official-looking building and joined the queue. Reaching the counter we were asked in rapid Spanish to pay an exit fee at one of the machines....turns out it was the exit from Costa Rica, not the entry..... aaargh.... Eventually we found the right queue, in a different building, and were warned by some friendly gringos that, in order to enter the country, we needed a ticket out of the country, to prove that we would actually be leaving. The road outside was lined with tiny booths representing myriad travel companies. We bought the cheapest tickets we could find... back to Managua.... nooooo, we will certainly NOT be using those! It's a crazy system... the authorities are aware that almost everyone buys a ticket they will never use...and the travel companies rake it in. Pura vida, as they say in Costa Rica!

So, we boarded yet another bus, to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, and rolled along the Pan-American highway. 'This is Costa Rica?!' we thought.... 'land of the tree frog, sloth, amazing birdlife, rain- and cloudforest?' Surely shome mishtake! But it was a motorway, we told ourselves, and what motorway is attractive, even in paradise?

Arriving in a dark, Friday evening traffic-choked San Jose, noticing that all the houses and businesses had bars at the windows and razor wire above the gates and balconies, we left the seedy bus station and took a taxi to our hostel, where we spent the night and embarked early next morning on the long bus journey to Cloudbridge Nature Reserve, our home and workplace for the next 2 months.

...Another arrival in the dark, we joined several other gringos at a fundraising dinner in a cafe in the tiny town of San Gerardo, the nearest to Cloudbridge, including the other volunteers and manager and director of the Reserve. Everyone made us so welcome. Bellies full, standing in the back of the Cloudbridge truck (with which we would become extremely well acquainted!) we headed up the bone-rattling track to Cloudbridge. To our delight, we were shown to a little Hansel and Gretel-like casita, downstairs one room with kitchen and dining table, plus a shower-room, and a upstairs a bedroom with a big window at the top of a precarious step ladder-like staircase. Then, after a hasty piling on of the motley collection of bedding - our favourite was the Spider-Man pillowcase - Zzzzz...

View from bed in our casita at dawn

Next morning we awoke to the fantastic view of the jungle and sound of the river rushing way below us. THIS is the Costa Rica we were hoping for.... in spades!

Our jungle casita

Next day, Sunday, we hiked down the hill with Tom, the Director, and his wife, Linda, an arborist and amazing artist, to San Gerardo, where we enjoyed a hearty breakfast of huevos rancheros (ranch-style eggs) with the other volunteers, while marvelling at the hummingbirds taking their fill from the flowers around the cafe, before doing our weekly shop in the little pulperia (grocery store) in the town. What a location.....sure beats Sainsbury's!

Back to Cloudbridge and our orientation by Frank, the young British manager, who, it turns out, went to school with the brother of a friend of Anna's! Small world indeedy.

Working hours are 7am to roughly 12.30pm weekdays and can involve anything from planting up saplings, planting and maintaining the young trees in the reserve (as Tom says 'everywhere you go in Cloudbridge is either up or down'so this can be quite strenuous); updating first aid kits, compiling an inventory of bedding in the laundry etc etc. All of us volunteers assemble at 7am each day to receive our work detail from Tom. Our arrival, on 1st November, coincided with the start of construction of a new dormitory, which will accommodate 12 school students or volunteers. The first school group, from Kentucky, is due at the beginning of January 2016! The heat is on!

Cloudbridge (www.cloudbridge.org) is a private nature reserve. Cloudbridge stands for: education, reforestation and preservation. It's cloudforest, at a higher altitude than rainforest, and obtains much of its moisture from clouds, rather than rain deluges. The trees are covered with moss, bromeliads and epiphytes; our favourite is 'old man's beard', a beautiful moisture trap, hanging elegantly from the trees:

Old man's beard, across the river from the casita, elegantly trapping moisture

Unlike other nature reserves in Costa Rica, such as Monteverde and Manuel Antonio, there is no official charge to enter Cloudbridge; it relies solely on donations. The wildlife here is amazing; every day we spot something different: a luminous blue or bullion-gold bug, a feisty male violet sabrewing hummingbird, daring others with a flutter of his wings to feast on his nectar, a false coral snake, a hummingbird moth, and a huge array of fantastic moths and butterflies. A '2 for 1' butterfly, black with an iridescent blue pattern when its wings are open and white with a black and red pattern, the numbers 88 embellished on each wing (we kid you not) when the wings are closed, is considered lucky if it lands on you. Imagine my delight when I discovered that its common name is 'Anna's 88'!

Quick! Buy a lottery ticket!

Anna's 88, different colours and patterns on top and undersides of its wings

While we cut timbers to size with the table-saw, making one helluva racket, a pair of squirrel cuckoos carry out their courtship ritual in a nearby hibiscus bush, paying no mind to our cursing about the recently cut, still-wet and wonky wood, or glue which resolutely refuses to stick. A sudden screech alerts us to the presence of spider monkeys across the valley and a swaying branch to a juvenile cappucin monkey searching for sweet oranges in a nearby tree. Sweet oranges are rare around here, most of the oranges are bitter, but the little cappucin knows exactly where the sweet ones grow. And now so do we! Gracias, amigo!