The country: Costa Rica is a small and safe Central American country with a good infrastructure. A large portion of the population is of European descent. Costa Rica is a tropical holiday paradise with many national parks, beaches and mountainous regions in the inland. Also called "the Switzerland of Central America". The largest cities are San José, Alajuela, Cartago, Puntarena, Limon and Heredia.
The language course cities: San José, the capital of Costa Rica with almost 1 million inhabitants. This city has mild spring like weather all the year around, since it is situated so near to the Equator. Language courses in Spanish!
Arrival: Flight to San José, often over Miami/the USA. The participants are picked up from the airport and driven to their accommodation.
The Farmstay regions: national parks are part of the many protectorates in Costa Rica and are scattered all over the whole country, in the inland region and at the Pacific or Caribbean coast.
Type of Farmstays: Volunteering (volunteer work) in national parks. The national parks of Costa Rica en-compass tropical dry woods, rain forests, fog woods, volcanoes, beaches etc.
Suitable for this programme are young people between 18 and 30 years of age who like to work in the open nature and are interested in flora and fauna. Communicative abilities and empathy in dealing with natives and young international volunteers as well as adaptability are all prerequisites for successfully and positively experiencing this programme.
For example, everyday work that has to be done in national parks can be as follows: Repairing paths and routes, maintenance and care of the various park facilities, cleaning of beaches, park visitor support, keeping camping plants in working order, various administrate work etc.
The work and services are quite different from park to park, all depending on the season and the respective projects. This can neither be ascertained nor be ensured in detail upfront.
Time period: The volunteering work is possible in the national park throughout the whole year. The begin-ning of the Farmstay is therefore possible any time. Exceptions to this are December/January, since schools remain closed in the Costa Rican holiday period over Christmas time. The minimum duration of work at the national park is 4 weeks. An optimum stay, however, is 8 weeks volunteering, so the standard programme of 4 weeks language course plus 4 weeks work at the national park.
Sequence of operations: In the first four weeks the participant does an intensive Spanish course in San Jose. During this time he lives with a guest family in a single room and half-board. After concluding the language course, the participant then goes to a national park where he likewise receives accommodation and food. It is possible for the participant to do his work as a volunteer in two to three different national parks, so that he/she gets to know the different climatic zones and national parks. For the period of the volunteering stay the par-ticipant receives a small introduction and a list of possible national parks locally and selects a suitable na-tional park.
The volunteers in the national parks come from different countries, these are mostly young Americans, Euro-peans or also Latin Americans.
Lodging/board in the national park: the accommodation that the volunteers live in is the same as the local national park attendants and employees. Generally, the accommodation is in modest wood houses, so-called cabañas, are equipped with a shower, kitchen and partly with a common room. The volunteers live in double rooms or in rooms with three participants. In some few parks single rooms are also made available.
Volunteers receive the same meals as the other national park personal, i.e. simple Costa Rican food.
Booking code: CR national park