Zulus Out

We’re back from the Zulu Adventure Challenge! This morning it was time to say goodbye to our fun and friendly Zulu venturers. There were tears, laughter and friendships parting but never to be forgotten as we waved goodbye to them at San Jose airport. But what a way to end! Saturday morning saw sixty venturers arrive at Puntarenas and fly over to San Lucas Island on a convoy of speed boats. As they arrived they enjoyed a chilled out day to recuperate after their tiresome, trekking escapades and of course, to mentally prepare for the unknown events ahead.

That evening the venturers were taken on an eerie tour around the prison in the dark to hear the horror stories and history (home for the next three days!). They were then left to relax for the evening ready for a lie-in and a slap-up Gallo Pinto breakfast at 7am the next morning - brilliant!

Unfortunately for the venturers, this was all just a big ploy to make the next day’s events even more of a surprise. Up bright eyed and bushy-tailed at 4am the next morning were the Raleigh PM’s as they got into costume, grass skirts, war paint, drums and all, and headed off to the prison cells where the venturers were sleeping, for an interesting wake up call.

“Ooohohohohohohohohohohoh!” (That is the PM’s running into the prison cells to wake up the venturers, red-Indian style, if you can imagine that). After a brutal awakening, including warrior dancing and chanting, the venturers finally dragged themselves out of bed. They were given a brief introduction from the King and Queen of the San Lucas Zulu warriors (Sabrina and PM Andy in head dresses and loin cloths), got into their groups, packed the bare essentials and once blindfolded, were taken to their first challenge where they were left alone to fend for themselves.

Slowly but surely as the PM’s departed the Zulu venturers removed their blindfolds and in front of them was a map, a grid reference, a bag of watermelon and Pineapple, two knives, and some bug spray. After some refreshing breakfast to fuel them up for the day (the fruit) they found their grid reference locations and began the fun and games. Each group had four challenges to complete that morning; raft building, Command, low ropes and fire building. For each challenge they were timed and scored. That evening was the real survival challenge however. Another grid reference! This time to four separate beaches within the island where each group had to set up their own jungle camp using two pieces of tarpaulin, 6 mosquito nets, and a sleeping bag each. They were then visited by the ‘fish man’ (Country Programme Manager, Ross) and had to signal to him in morse code from the shore. Once the message had been received our trusty fish man sped over to drop off some freshly caught red snapper, with instructions on how to slice, gut and cook it up for dinner as well as some instructions and ingredients for making damper bread. All this with no guidance whatsoever from our project managers – it is survival after all.

The next morning the venturers really were treated to a slap-up breakfast of Gallo Pinto and spent the rest of the day packing and relaxing on beautiful San Lucas. That night they enjoyed a tip top barbeque underneath a magnificent sunset, the final expedition slide show and of course a good old Raleigh party to close in expedition 11H.

Zulus, you’ve been incredible. Your work with Raleigh has been invaluable. We hope that you have left with memories that will last a lifetime and more. Pura vida amigos!

*Blog by Dawn Tennant, photos by Polly and Kat Mammone

The Deltas are Back in Town

The Deltas are back! After three challenging weeks working hard out in Costa Rica’s finest jungles, beaches and indigenous communities, the Deltas are back at base, albeit for less than 24 hours. They just about have time to wash a few clothes, head to Maxis for a top up of deodorant, toothpaste and Tang before they head off again to their mystery location for part two – the adventure challenge! And just as you thought that the blog was running dry we hit back with something as exciting as this. This blog is invincible.

Tomorrow morning just before they depart for phase two the venturers will be told where they are going and what they will be up to in the next couple of weeks. We will give them a couple of hours to adjust to the idea, mentally and physically prepare themselves and then we’ll be whisking them off again to said mystery location. Pretty - exciting - stuff!

In the meantime, the groups are getting organized before the traditional Raleigh BBQ and party tonight! Let the good times roll. Here are the final blog updates from our loyal project Comms’ Officers - putting their experience into words, and bringing it home. Take it away Deltas…

Delta 1
So after the road trip left us it was back to normal hard work! The weather brightened up which was a bit of a double-edged sword. More of a tan but hot work! We were digging trenches to stop animals from getting at our precious eggs - alleviated somewhat by a great swim in some surprisingly strong waves. Don’t worry – two lifeguards at all times!

Our precious Manual left on the 19th which left us in something of a limbo situation… we had nobody to direct our outstanding work efforts. Luckily, Ricardo stepped in and showed us his beloved trails. We set about clearing the pathways and the clearing where apparently some crocs came and laid their eggs. That night the night patrol team found an elusive black turtle. A meter long and some big-ass eggs! Our PM’s left us! We were abandoned to self organize while Megan and Andy had ice-cream in Jaco! I’m not going to lie, turns out they’re not really necessary. We basically continued as normal, clearing trails. Ricardo found a baby croc and brought it to camp. It was tiny and completely docile. Who would think it would grow to 3 times a man’s height!

The 22nd hosted the final of the ‘Come Dine With Me’ series. A Philadelphia and bacon carbonara sauce and noodles was made by Trino, Hannah, Nella and Harry. This was followed by some Mango and Lemon. This went down a treat and eventually won!

Our final day at Playa Hermosa – no work, just fun and games with Ricardo, beach Olympics, swimming and of course a BBQ. Some actual burgers and hot dogs with proper ketchup… couldn’t have been better. It was quite sad taking down the camp but I think everyone is getting ready to have a shower and get rid of the week old sand in various crevices!

Delta 2
Beach Olympics: such fun for Delta two; cheerleading, spectacles, star athletic performances and an indulgent peanut eating competition. Our trench was completed with a 4.30am start from some of the Delta two members. Trench digging, passion and dedication. Final turtle shift saw some wonderful and weird events; Siew seeing her first turtle – wahaay! Will and I seeing the groups first Hawksbill, and Em and Kevin had a bizarre poaching encounter. On our final day as a group in the sun we were able to set free 50+ baby turtles! Thanks for the visit from field base, lots of fun was had with Siew’s amazing treasure hunt and thank you from all of us to those friends and family for our lovely blog messages. Our final night finished on a high with an awards ceremony for Delta Dos’ very own turtles and seafood feast, and salsa dancing! Thanks for the teaching from Yali’s snake moving hips. Delta Dos are now in field base making our final preparations for tonight skit! We filmed a ‘Mockumentary’ skit, taking a Big Brother theme. Each clip goes through the jobs Delta 2 worked on and explain the turtle patrols!

Photo by Dawn Tennant

Delta 3
Delta three are happily back in civilization (field base) after an amazing 19 days in Pozo Azul. Saying goodbye to our Cabecan hosts was sad but we were so pleased with the progress we made with them. On the first day they barely made eye contact with us but by the end they had really opened up and one of last evenings was spent at one of their birthday parties being thanked for all our help and being described as their family. We’ve returned from project tanned, happy and keen Monopoly Deal players (or some may describe themselves as experts). We left the community centre almost complete and we’ve been promised photos of the finished product. We’d like to say a big thank you for all the messages from the blog that cheered us all up no end on a rainy afternoon.

Delta 4
The preparation of the site took far longer than anticipated and when we finally started building three days before we were due to leave – we felt we wouldn’t finish it! However, we put in longer hours, worked harder and got the school finished last minute! Hammering the last few nails in was such a satisfying experience! Looking at the complete project it was really overwhelming yet an extremely proud moment for us all. It was hard leaving the community behind as some of us got quite close to the locals. The community had become our home for nearly three weeks. It was an emotional day for all of us!

Delta's - out! All that's left to do now is enjoy a night of fieldbase festivities and skit performances before tomorrow's big, mystery adventure, ooooh! Pura vida todos.

*Blog written by Dawn Tennant and photos by Kat Mammone, unless otherwise stated.