My highlights of the Costa Rica Wildlife Sanctuary

(middle/endMARCH2009) For three weeks in March, my travel companion and I went to Rainsong Wildlife Sanctuary, located on the very tip of the northern peninsula in Costa Rica. While there, I met a people from various places in the USA, Europe, and New Zealand, as well as a variety of animals from the surrounding rainforest.

And it was here when I really began to embrace my inner hippie...

I became comfortable sleeping on the jungle floor with only the thin layer of tent protecting me from the bumpy ground, and sharing what was now the one sleeping bag my friend and I had between the two of us, because the airport had lost mine. It was here that I embraced waking up at 4AM to the insanely loud Cicada calls and monkey howling, and the rising sun that would have our tent too hot to enter in a matter of another hour.

It was here that I shed my previous girly tendencies, showering in the shower stall, set up with boards and plants covering 3 sides, with gravel as the floor and a bucket bringing water over my head in a tube, and with chickens that quite enjoyed never leaving the shower; they especially liked to sit right where the water came out of the tube, so it was imperative to get as close to the chickens as possible if you wanted to get clean. And shoes were always a must, as you never wanted to step on chicken poop and ruin your clean feet. Which was also impossible, because, the roads were all dirt really, and one could never get too clean around animals and dusty roads.

It was here that bananas, which I can never eat again, became the staple of my diet, as well as rice and beans and potatoes and oats. Which, I can tell you, are never all that tasty or filling. And, I had to learn the hard way that beans need to soak for many days before they can become soft, because, frankly, crunchy rice and beans is almost worse than plain rice and beans, but it does add a bit of an unexpected and sometimes welcome surprise from the usual soft rice and beans.

It was here that I carried a baby monkey and fed her milk out of the bottle; here that I cleaned baby turtle's shells; here that I played with a baby anteater and fed her yogurt; here that I cuddled with a kinkajou and fed her bananas while she lazily lay on her back soaking up every minute of her royalty; here where I pet porcupines and had them climb onto my shoulder; here that I fed toucans and parrots and peacocks; here that I nursed to health baby squirrels; here that I fed angry raccoons and gentle pigs; here that I took care of guinea pigs, and margay cats; here that I watched out for the angry outbursts of an unkindly skunk; and here where I learned that spiders as big as your hand aren't really so dangerous. 

But, most importantly, it was here that I began to learn that the simple things in life aren't the luxuries of a nice bed, a chicken-less shower, good food, or staying clean and free from animal wastes. I came to learn that it is about the experiences and the company. I learned many things from the animals at the sanctuary, many of who were so previously harmed that they could never be released into the wild again. Here where I learned to make the most out of the little food I could afford, where our big group of volunteers would all share the little we had to make giant meals sometimes, so as to collectively have a delicious meal once in a while. It was here where we taught foreigners what s'mores were, splurging on this simple luxury. And here where I learned to meditate and become one with nature and my surroundings.

Sometimes living with only a few pairs of never-clean clothes and just enough food to get by, can leave one with having a sense of worth, happiness, and satisfaction that the world's richest man could never obtain.