Hello from Marino Ballena!

Talia’s Route along with Sami and Ben had an incredible week in Marino Ballena! We finished beach clean-up work that had been started by the last group in Piñuela and then moved to Colonia, which is another beautiful beach in the area. Cleaning the beach sounds easy, right? Not quite as easy as we thought! The work was challenging and both the AMIGOS volunteers and Ticos worked extremely hard in the heat leaving the beaches much prettier than when we found them. Luckily we were able to do some animal watching at the same time. We saw monkeys, purple and orange crabs, birds, and some kind of giant hamster.

During the afternoons, we never stopped moving! In addition to games of kickball and baseball, we had daily competitions for our rally. After a close finish, the team Swagachete won after building an almost indestructible nest made of coconuts for the egg-drop competition.

After four full days of work and activities, we spent the last day at the beach. Marino Ballena is known for having a whale tail shaped peninsula and we were able to explore the area before high tide. After the long walk on the beach, everyone swam and improved their body-surfing technique or played soccer in the sand.

I think it would be safe to say this campamento was a success…no one wanted to go to sleep on the last night!

Here is to a great last week in community!