Travel, Nature & Us

Whilst in Costa Rica, our priority was getting as much animal-time as possible – particularly with the Sloths as we expect this to be our only chance to work with them. But… we also wanted to see some of what Costa Rice had to offer and that meant being touristsist once in a while.

After working at The Rescue Centre for around 2 weeks, we realised that we had not taken a day off. Normally on the Sloth Team you would work a minimum of two weeks but should still have one day off each week either to relax or join one of the tours that were organised. There was a whiteboard in the main dinning area where we could see which tours were coming up and add our names to a list. One of these specifically took our interest, as it was only run once each month, so we would only have one opportunity during our stay – the Bioluminescence trip.

As this trip ran monthly, it was unsurprisingly very popular with approx 24 volunteers joining. The day started early for us as we worked the morning shift on the Sloth Team, after a quick lunch we set off in the minibus at 13:00. We drove for 1.5 hours to a small port on the west coast where we boarded two small(ish) boats, put on life vests, and “enjoyed” a rough 45 mins ride to a deserted beautiful beach on the opposite peninsula. Here we got to spend around an hour and half swimming in the warm sea and sunbathing, with snacks and drinks, and music on a massive portable speaker setting the party mood.

Towards the end of the day, we were then back on the boats and whisked up the peninsula (life vests on, music turned up) to a beach-side restaurant where we got to witness an amazing sunset, before eating a very tasty dinner of shrimp and rice… we may also have had a mojito each.

In Costa Rica the sunsets at around 18:30 and it begins to get dark very quickly so after dinner we once again headed onto the beach towards the boats – our head-torches were invaluable to not only avoid stepping on the little hermit crabs on the beach, but also just getting into the boat.

Once all aboard and accounted for, music on and loud (but this time without life vests required and seemingly unavailable) we were once again off across the water. Not really being able to see much other than the light pollution from the nearest cities, we were speeding off into the black with purpose. Until we stopped, music off, lights off. Unfortunately the only one of the trip hosts/guides who spoke English was on the other boat. So we just sat there, in the dark, bobbing, in near silence, waiting, looking for photo- luminescent stuff in the water beside us, without life vests, not knowing what to expect next……

Then someone remembered that one of the volunteers on our boat was Mexican, and could get some info from our “guides”. Apparently someone in the other boat had left their flip-flops at the restaurant and they had turned back to get them – so our boat was just waiting for them to catch up.

Later once the two boats had rejoined, we headed off (quietly and without any lights…) towards a pre-planned (and no-doubt entirely legitimate location) to see the bioluminescence. Once we arrived on a dark beach, we were ushered out of the boats and everyone was told to turn out all of the lights. A short walk along the beach (sorry little hermit crabs…) we were all told to get in the water.

Most people did and when swimming or moving the surface of the water, they could see what can only be described as a trail of turbulent pink fluorescent fireflies in the water. We decided that we were neither prepared to swim out into the blackness, both in terms of the clothing we had on, nor security of our things left somewhere on the pitch-black dark beach. There was also the matter of the (many!) other species floating, crawling or doing whatever they want in that same area. But we did get in up to our knees and splash about with a few other less-adventurous people, and the little ‘pink fireflies’ were amazing – really nothing like we had ever seen or experienced.

After about 45 minutes we were all back on the boat, very tired, and sped back across to the mainland port, onto the bus and another 1.5 hours back to The Rescue Centre.

Unfortunately it was far too dark for any meaningful photographs of the bioluminescence; the photos below show some impressions of the day until dark.