Hola! Volcán Irazú

Welcome again to Expedition 11C where the advance team is in situ and ready for action. After a bonza barbie from barbeque kings Tom (pictured) and Pete last night (they're both in the logistics team so it was super organised)...

... our treat this morning was an early jaunt up a volcano.  At 3432m above sea level, Volcan Irazu (pronounced a bit like 'Oovavu' from Shooting Stars') is pretty high. So we hopped in the landys, which we parked in reverse when we arrived. This was just in case the volcano decided to get active on us (in fact our deputy programme manager Ivan's safety brief included the immortal lines 'if anyone spots an eruption please let everyone else know'). Gulp.

With that we set off for an hour to meander round the beautiful turquoise crater lake of an active volcano, a first for many of us:

The guys decided a boyband shot was in order along the way:

Left to right: Keiner - our host venturer co-ordinator; Tom, Mark and Pete -all logistics; Ben our newest arrival - a medic project manager, and Ivan - our deputy programme manager.

Move over Take That! 

As we walked up to the lookout point we had a totally awesome view of the smoke plume coming from Volcan Turrialba which we can also see from fieldbase on a good day:

And here's the obligatory group shot but with the added twist of us trying to kill each other (not really):

With that we headed down to say hello to a friendly furry thing which had bounded up to us on arrival. However, the adorable creature known as a Koatimundi in English ('Pizote' in Spanish) displayed its Jekyll and Hyde nature when it ran off with Tom and Julie's cake. They weren't happy.

After so much excitement, most of us headed back to fieldbase. But a small number took a detour to visit a project site from the last expedition, 10L, in Volcan Irazu national park. One of last year's teams helped to develop a trail system with paths and drainage. Here's Laura our logistics manager returning rakes to a happy Horacio, one of the park rangers:

And Keiner was chuffed because he was able to run up and down the path at top speed which his little brother had helped to build last year:

Laura and me (Gerry, the comms officer) huffed and puffed our way up before realising that altitude sickness was potentially kicking in. So Mark from logistics and our driver for the day, did a sterling job of negotiating hairpin bends, giant potholes, crazy cars overtaking, cows in the road, and hills so steep they would be black runs if they had snow on them, to get us back in one piece. Phew!

Buenas días!

Buenas días! from the 11C advance team in Costa Rica.

A sense of ordered chaos prevails here at fieldbase as we gear up for everyone else’s arrival. Word is, this week is the calm before the storm, but given we’re busier than geckos catching mosquitoes at a stagnant pool, next week looks set to be mental.

Talking of pools, we all took our swim test recently at a pool located in the grounds of beautiful botanical gardens nearby, which are owned by an agricultural research institute called CATIE.  Raleigh leases its buildings from CATIE so we consider ourselves truly lucky to be living in such spectacular rural surroundings. A few of us have already been for early morning runs, passing fields of coffee and macadamia nuts. Sweet.

Of course the commute to work is really taking its toll...

This is our five minute walk from the house to fieldbase. Jealous? I’ll stop there (for now).

Some of our other preparations include Tom, one of our logistics co-ordinators, diligently making an inventory of our expedition equipment:

And here’s Jess, our team coach, offering her organisational skills to Dr Sheila, our advance medic, to make up the project medical kits. 

Volunteer drivers have spent most days learning how to negotiate the Costa Rican roads so we’re all safe when we’re en route to project sites (towing and winching training thrown in as an added bonus). Here are Bob and Mark, two of our drivers, lovingly cleaning a landy. 

Don’t think it needs to be spotless boys as they won’t stay pristine for long!

After all this hard work, we've still made time for fun. Last night saw the first themed evening of the expedition which was Spanish night. We cooked Spanish beans with chicken and chorizo, raided the fancy dress boxes and later watched a film.

  

Although not strictly Spanish, we still managed to make ourselves look ridiculous, er, I mean interesting. 

A Spanish language quiz got us into the spirit especially when Team Uno translated ‘¿Qué tipo de libros lees?’ as ‘How much do you weigh?’ Charming! Certainly wouldn’t want to be asked that at a party (it actually means ‘What kind of books do you read?’). 

Other dodgy translations of Spanish sentences included ‘Would you like to bring a friend?’ for '¿Te casarías conmigo?' (means ‘Will you marry me?’) and ‘Cheers’ for the Costa Rican saying ‘Salado!’ (actually means ‘Bad luck’). Which is what poor Team Uno ended up with, losing to Team Dos in a spectacular, but highly entertaining, fashion. Rematch!

So it’s hasta luego (‘see you later’) from us until tomorrow.                

Welcome to Expedition 11C

¡Hola! from a hot and sunny Turrialba in Costa Rica!  Twelve of the volunteer manager advance team arrived here three days ago to join our permanent in-country staff, director Julian and programme manager Ross.

After a day of bleary-eyed jetlag we've been busy getting up to speed on our roles here at Raleigh country HQ, known as fieldbase, and starting to prepare for the arrival of the other volunteer managers next week. Although we're busy that doesn't mean we're not having fun and we'll tell you more about that in our next post.

Meanwhile, if a picture speaks a thousand words, then a video speaks at least a few pictures. So what better way for you to get a feel for fieldbase if you're coming out here soon, or if you know someone who is, than by watching our short welcome film. Turn on your speakers and click on to (virtually) meet our friendly advance team.

As they say in Costa Rica in response to everything good and happy, ¡Pura vida!