My workaway experience in the tropical jungle of Costa Rica

Have you ever heard someone talking about Workaway? And about a small country in the world named Costa Rica? Well, that’s what this article is about: My wild workaway experience in the lush and extraordinary Costa Rica.

So, first of all. Workaway is a website where anyone can subscribe as “workawayer” or as “host”, where the first, like me, is someone who offers themselves as help in any kind of job place (mostly farms, hostels, B&B, schools, non-profit organizations…) nearly everywhere in the world, where the person will work around 20-25 hours per week (timetables and work conditions are to be discussed with the host) in exchange of free food (not always) and accommodation. A host is usually a person, a family, or an association that is looking for someone to host in exchange for this work. There’s no intermediary between the host and the workawayer, so, in case of problems, you can’t refer to anyone such as an organization or an institution that mediates between the two. This is, in my opinion, quite risky because if the host or the workawayer is not as they told you to be and they do not do what they told you they would do, you have no one to complain to. At the same time, I think it is a great opportunity to meet new people in a new country, live with locals, and find out about the way of life, the culture, and the language of that country. Also, it is a way of slow and cheap traveling and spending little money since you can explore a new place for weeks having to work just a few hours daily.

I heard about this website a few times, but I was always a little worried about trying this experience since, as I said, you have no guarantees about the host, and when you are traveling alone on the other side of the world you don’t want to have bad surprises. But, as my adventurous spirit began to emerge, I decided to try it. Everything started one month before I arrived in Costa Rica when I was in Brazil working as an AIESEC volunteer for an NGO in Fortaleza (Volontariato in una Ong in Brasile: la mia esperienza). It was a 6 week period of working as a social media manager in an NGO that helps the kids and the teenagers of the city’s favelas, and I was hosted by a local family, who, together with the Ngo, provided me with all the food, the support and the accommodation. I realized there that I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of money on my upcoming trip to Costa Rica (my original plan, before leaving Italy for these 3 months in Brazil and Costa Rica, was to work in an animal sanctuary where not only I would have had to work 8 hours a day with only one free day without being paid, but I also would have had to pay $40 per day for the food and the accommodation), so I subscribed myself to the famous website (it is less than 50 euros per year for the subscription fee) and started examining all the job offers.

On the website of Workaway you can apply filters to help you find the best opportunities for you, for example you can choose the field of work and the country. I didn’t have a precise idea about what kind of experience I wanted to do, I mean, I wanted to be surrounded by animals and nature, that was for sure for me. Still, by then I had understood that all the animal sanctuaries in Costa Rica are tourist’s traps where they pretend to be paid very good money and at the same time to make you work like a slave. So, I renounced the idea of the animal sanctuary and God only knows how tremendous this idea was, cause what I ended up doing was eventually one of the greatest, craziest, and most unbelievable experiences of my life.

Scrolling through the job opportunities in Costa Rica I came across many jobs related to help needed in maintaining fincas (land properties), farm animals, houses, helping with kids, teaching English to kids, and, eventually… running hostels. I found many hostels, most of them in beautiful locations by the beach on the Caribbean coast, but only one really caught my attention: Bolita, the naked hostel in the tropical forest of Corcovado. Until the very last moment I was not sure if I wanted to go there or not. My other option was to go to the Caribbean side of the country and stay with a local family as an English teacher. Eventually, when I arrived at the airport of San José, the capital of the country, welcomed by a police officer who collected all of my sweet Brazilian mangoes, I decided I had to follow my gut and live the adventure to the fullest, I decided to choose the naked hostel in the jungle.

I didn’t even buy a sim card, I only changed some money (euros to colones) at the airport and took a taxi to the central bus station. Ron, the Canadian guy owning the hostel, gave me the contact of Fanny Lu, a local friend living in the small town of Puerto Jimenez, where I was heading, and where she could host me for only 8 dollars per night until the moment I’d decide to take the second bus to get closer to the famous hostel. Unbelievably I was able to catch the right bus that (in 8 long and incredibly hot hours) took me to Puerto Jimenez. The bus was without air conditioning and I felt suffocating the whole time for how extremely stifling it was. Next to me there was a guy from Nicaragua that told me his story about how he ended up moving to Costa Rica despite his love for his native country (better job and life opportunities). When we finally arrived it was already dark and I, without an internet connection, didn’t have a clue about where to go. Fortunately, Fanny Lu’s house was very near to the bus stop and I was able to find it by looking on Google Maps offline. The road was all a hole and a puddle and my 30 kilos of luggage was definitely not enthusiastic to be dragged on mud and sharp stones (I was not supposed to backpack when I decided to go to Costa Rica, my plans changed on the way and only now that I travel with a light 35 liters backpack I can call myself a true backpacker Vedevo le vette, i laghi e i colori – E dopo la laurea?), but eventually I reached the destination. 

So, not to indulge in the description of all of the bats, beetles, spiders and mosquitos with whom I had to share my room, I’ll just say that staying in that house had a strong impact on me and that, after a few crazy days camping in the jungle with a random local guy I had just met at Fanny Lu’s house, some walks by the seaside (home to many crocodiles), some night talks with Fanny about all the central and south american immigrants that (longing for a better life, trying to cross country borders) ended up swallowed by the unforgiving tropical forest, and, finally, the bus that took me from Puerto Jimenez (where I left my big luggage) to Dos Brazos del Tigre, the small town where I found Bolita’s office, and where I met Ron.

The first impression was to be landed into a Tim Burton movie (which I adore from the first to the last), where small magical creatures live in a magical forest with magical powers. Not by chance we (Ron, his noisy little chubby dog and I) ended up watching Edward Scissorhands in a room where the walls were made of mattresses, curtains, and books while waiting for the big downpour to stop. Yes, I am always so lucky… After weeks of shiny sun, on the day of my arrival the sky decided it was time to cry all of its tears all at once. Despite the heavy rain (or maybe exactly because of it), the nature I found on my arrival was absolutely lush, powerful, colorful, cheerful, and immense. I could not stop feeling like dreaming, astonished by the amount and variety of plants, flowers, and birds surrounding and overwhelming me. The feeling of deep gratitude inside me never stopped being present during all my stay there and even afterwards, every time I recollected some memories about these incredible 2 weeks.

To reach the hostel you have to hike for a good 30 minutes on a path that forces you to cross a huge river and many small streams, passing on steep trails next to canyons and enormous trees. Whatever you don’t need, it’s better to leave it at the office, because the climb is exhausting. I left some more stuff in there, followed the other two German volunteers and reached the hostel 30 minutes after, completely drenched in sweat, red like a beet, and breathless. But wow, the view appearing to my eyes was priceless. The hostel himself was such a bold, crazy, wild, hippie creation perfectly harmonized with the lush tropical forest around it. The hostel is an a-typical hostel: no doors, no windows, no walls, no pavement, no roof, only the essential structure, no electricity, no fridge, no washing machine. Sun-heated water in the showers, a dormitory just beside the jungle, everything you need for cooking in the kitchen, even a sofa, cards and board games, a small library, yoga mattresses, flower compositions and all of this with the company of colorful and joyful hummingbirds, toucans, aras, frogs, snakes, monkeys, butterflies, spiders, lizards and more. 

The hostel is located just beside the Corcovado National Park, the place on Earth with the highest biodiversity rate. All the animals, the plants and flowers you can see in the Park for outrageous prices you can see them there for free. 

For us, the volunteers, accommodation (it would have been 14 dollars for one bed in the dormitory and 35 for the double bed in the cabins), rice and beans and the access to the trails (with breathtaking viewpoints, river and waterfalls) was given in exchange of some daily hours of guest reception work and general maintenance of the hostel. 

I loved working there because everyday I would meet interesting people, mostly solo travelers, young adventurers that decided to leave their job, family, home and past life to embark on a journey of discovery, world’s discovery. It was there that I met some of the key people whose stories gave me the courage and the desire to do the same, leave everything behind me, take only the strict essential with me, and buy a one way ticket to somewhere and start backpacking with no intention of returning home. 

During my stay in Bolita there was one main drama emergency: a guest, a 34 year old French guy was walking one evening in his flip-flops with no torch around the toilet area and got bitten by a poisonous snake, the notorious Terciopelo. I called the emergency number, gave our coordinates to have an ambulance in Dos Brazos del Tigre and started the dangerous descent with the poor suffering guy to the nearest town. On our way there we came across Willie, a crazy man living there in terrible life conditions. He saw the picture of the snake and the bite on my friend’s ankle and without further explanation, he started praying to God and asking him to por favor save el chico. After this creepy encounter we reached the ambulance, I translated Spanish to French and viceversa for the guy and soon enough we were heading to Puerto Jimenez’s hospital. There the doctors didn’t want to visit the guy since he didn’t have his passport with him, so I made a scene and eventually managed to get a wifi connection for him to receive a copy of his passport from his parents. So, to cut it short, the doctors administered the antidote and the poor french guy spent the next 5 days in the hospital of Gulfito, where he was taken with the boat ambulance that same evening, and came out of all of this in a wheelchair and suffered from several health complications afterwards. So, please, everyone reading this, be careful with snakes: some of them are really poisonous, deadly even, and you can never predict how your body will react to the venom and the antidote. 

Apart from this high tension event, everything passed by in the best possible way. I was able to take my time off each day to practice some yoga before breakfast, read a book (that became one of my favorite novels, Limonov, by Emmanuel Carrère), go walking and hiking, spend time with the other volunteers and guests, play cards with them and cook together in the evening, go swimming in some beautiful waterfalls and rivers, get a chance to see and learn about an incredible amount of different species of birds, flowers, plants and many animals, detox from social media, Tv, traffic and city noises, make up and fancy clothes, watches, timetables and junk food. 

I didn’t stay longer because of many reasons: 1. I started to dream at night about the food I couldn’t have there, where my diet was mainly made of rice and beans, bananas, some oats and green tea; 2. I was eaten alive daily by the mosquitos despite all of my efforts to use long trousers and spray the repellent continuously (the constant and abundant sweating in every inch of my body due to the 100% humidity rate of the tropical forest made my efforts of putting repellent and antibiotic creams totally useless) and 3. The compelling urge to travel to other corners of Costa Rica and see with my own eyes the beauties and wonders that the travelers passing through the hostel had recommended to me. So I left to Quepos, and from there went to Manuel Antonio, and then the capital San José, Alajuela, then the northern fancy region of Guanacaste, Tamarindo. I was hosted by friends I met there and I lived many more unforgettable experiences that here it’s not the time and place to relate.

In summary, this workaway in the nudist hostel Bolita in the tropical forest of Corcovado was a once in a lifetime experience that I’d do and redo one thousand times if given the opportunity. The hostel is a hidden gem in the forest and the wild moments you can experience in this natural paradise are priceless, authentic, dream-like, and make you feel like born again to a new life and to a new world.