MY CONSERVATION PROJECT IN COSTA RICA

Hi I'm Marina, I'm very passionate about how the world works and want to help animals thrive. I want to share my journey with you in learning what we are really here for and why we should be more compassionate towards animals.

On my first trip to Costa Rica I started off Volunteering for a company called Global Vision International (GVI), which sounded good and had great intentions but didn’t turn out quite the way I expected.

They picked us up from a hostel in San Jose. 5 hours, 2 buses and a boat ride later we ended up at the most epic location in The centre of Tortuguero National Park, spotting Sloths, Crocodiles, Turtles and spider monkeys before even getting to camp

We took the canoe out most mornings to try and spot the wild life from the canal hoping to be less noticeable than by foot

Our main focus was to record everything we saw in the park on different trails to monitor the growth of different species in the park, which inevitably ended up being pretty boring most of the time but all in all we saw some pretty cool shit!

                          Including Red Eyed Tree Frogs 

                            Keel Billed Tucans 

                 And Opossums and Frogs caught in the act "Sorry guys"

After a month of Kayaking and trekking throughout the jungle identifying birds and hoping to see a Jaguar, we left the park and headed to a little town called Puerto Vejo

We dumped our packs at the nearest available hostel and headed to a Jaguar Rescue Centre (which doesn’t actually have any Jaguars)

In order to keep the jaguar population up they need to be kept away from humans, if they get to used to us they are more vulnerable to poachers and we as Humans are more likely to be attacked

But there was still plenty of awesome animals to see,

This little Tamandua was attacked by a dog but roams around the centre getting lots of love and support

We saw the cutest Baby sloths in the sloth garden which brought me to tears with their cuteness

I highly recommend heading to the centre if your in Costa Rica, it’s only $20 US for a 2 hour tour 100% of which goes to the animals food and medical funds. I know I will defiantly be heading back there to volunteer as soon as I can!!!

find them here: http://www.jaguarrescue.foundation/ And no this is not a sponsored post

Thanks for reading, follow me to join me on my next adventure xxx

Photo credits by my friends @gillhauge and @alisansbury as I dropped my phone in a swamp in the middle of the jungle (jungle problems )

The jaguar photo is from Globe Views and Cost Rica map is from google maps

http://globe-views.com/dreams/jaguar.html