After my little last-minute decision and just about 57 hours since I left home – I arrived at my first stop: Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica.
My Worldpackers Host Sawyer picked me up from the bus station. He was my host for the next three weeks.
Sawyer was an older man from Canada, who has been in Costa Rica for the past 20 years. That was a very calming fact for me, not only that he could speak English, but also that he had been in the country for a while and must know a lot about it.
And so he did. The first few days he showed me around town or took me on scooter rides to other little towns around. He told me everything he knew and shared tips on how to save money in Costa Rica.
I started working for him the day after my arrival. My position was called “Social Media/Content Creation for AirBnb/Hostel”. Sometimes we took videos of his Land Rover or scooter rides but mostly I was editing Reels for him.
I liked the work in general, cause I am very interested in Social Media and like making Reels. But I also have to mention at this point that it wasn’t always as easy as you might think. The “huge age gap” between us made us disagree on some things.
For example, the first Reel I made was ready within my first shift, but for Sawyer it was “A good start”. Which meant that I had to edit that same Reel over and over and over again. And all the other ones I made as well. For 3 weeks. Which is fine since it was my job to make the content as he wanted it to be. But what I found pretty frustrating at times was that I just didn’t like the way he wanted the Reels to be. And also that it felt like a project would never be finished and never be good enough.
So my time volunteering in Puerto Viejo wasn’t always like I imagined it to be. Especially also because in the beginning the AirBnb was empty. There were no guests for more than a week. Which meant that I didn’t meet any new people and got really bored after some time. I knew I was going to travel solo, but usually I always meet people. But here I had moments when I was really bored and I just didn’t know what to do. I thought I didn’t come all the way to Costa Rica just to be bored here. So I think you can see my volunteering stay itself wasn’t the best at times.
To make something out of my time there, I started to occupy myself with yoga classes and salsa lessons every now and then.
Eventually, guests and other volunteers came and I got to hang out with some fellow travellers. However, both volunteers left early and stayed only for a few nights. And although I thought about leaving too – I finished my full stay and eventually sent Sawyer all of those Reels.
Overall, I got some great first impressions of Costa Rica. In my freetime, I explored some of the surrounding places like Cahuita National Park or the indigenious town Bribri.
I also saw lots of wildlife – monkeys, iguanas or sloths all in “random” spots right next to the beach. I loved it and was absolutely fascinated. Puerto Viejo is surrounded by the jungle. Every morning I could hear the howler monkeys screaming which added to my fascination.
And as everything happens for a reason, during my stay there I met Sofia, who had just been in Bocas del Toro. And that might not sound like much, but this little coincidence changed the course of the next few months to come – but more about that in another post 🙂
PS: Another thing I’d like to mention about Sawyer is the most interesting story he told me: A story about when he drove all the way from Canada to Costa Rica. My question on how long that took was answered by “Well you could do it in 2 weeks. But I took my time and made 9 months out of it”. And that for sure was quite the story to tell.