As a supporter of the “Let’s stop wearing shoes” movement that seems to be taking over the mentality of both young adults and shoe manufacturers alike (that is a later story, though), I often find myself lamenting the amount of shoes I am required to pack when going on vacation with my mother. As a supporter of traveling and not destroying the environment in the process, those same trips with my mother tend to stress me out. Previous trips have found us in France and Ireland in GIANT tour buses that make me cringe when I think of the carbon emissions coming from my enjoyment of a new country.
I have newly found faith in my mother’s traveling compulsion these days. Immediately upon finishing my first year of college, my mother and I hopped on a plane and flew to San Jose, Costa Rica to join a trip with G Adventures, an eco-friendly tour company based in Canada (and one where I was only required a pair of flimsy sandals in order to be comfortable).
The highlights of the trip included white water rafting, ziplining, and a safari with a whole lot of monkeys. So let’s go into picture heavy post, because I very honestly cannot encompass this trip in words.
G Adventures offers many kinds of tours. My mother and I took a YOLO trip, which is a budget-style trip kind of perfect for us. The trip style that interested me the most, and is how our tour guide Jorge started in this line of work, is a “Volontour” trip. Jorge worked at a biology research center studying leatherback sea turtles. Volunteers, through G Adventures, were able to work alongside the biologists, protecting the sea turtles as they hatched.
I’m still a bit in awe of the fact that I got to be in Costa Rica, sharing the tree tops with howler monkeys. I’ll be back when I get over that awe and talk to you guys about college (yes, yes, it is that time).
