Costa Rica

I didn't keep a journal of the Portugal trip so the first one to be written up was Costa Rica.

 Day One,

Best laid plans and all that. It was all going well, got to the airport in time. Check in smooth, even got the last seat with leg room on the plane. Queued half way around the airport to get through security but it was pretty painless and quite fast. Caught up on the people watching. VIP lounges are great, free coffee cake etc, quiet seating areas with no kids or football shirts but also no people watching. Still can't have it all I suppose.

Got on the plane to find I had only one other passenger in a row of six, so much for the last seat.  Eight hours later I arrive in Newark. This is when it started to all go wrong. The flight arrives late.

Anywhere else in the world they check your baggage through to your destination and you don't even need to enter the transit country. But this is the USA. Fill in immigration forms, one green and one blue, may need a white one but the stewardess wasn't sure so fill it in anyway. Get through customs after giving the required finger prints and mug shot. And that's just to pass through. Collect luggage  after waiting a lifetime for it to arrive on the belt. But there's no rush because I've missed my connection anyway.

So to cut a long story short, instead of me being in a nice quaint little Costa Rican hotel in San Jose,  here I am at 03:45 USA time lying in a smoke impregnated bed in a smoke impregnated room in a Sheraton hotel in downtown Newark. That's  08:45 GMT time. I think I will die of cancer from just inhaling the air in this room.

I am booked on the 08:00 flight in the morning, 2 hour check in, that's 06:00, transit to the airport runs every half hour so that's 05:30, I will skip breakfast even though it's paid for by Continental airlines, so it must nearly be time to get up and start the next leg of this journey. I should arrive in San Jose at 12:29. I spoke to Terry (Mateo my trusty team leader) last night and he is meeting me at the airport. He also kindly canceled my hotel in SJ.


Day Two

Having spent the night in a hotel in Newark instead of San Jose, I was up early to catch the shuttle bus to the airport.  Arrived, checked in through security (paranoia abounds) I headed for the gate, only to be told that I was going to be transferred to a flight that leaves late afternoon and arrives in San Jose at 21:30 hours. After a short, but to the point discussion, they kindly let me remain on the 08:00 flight. After some confusion and a wait on the tarmac for 45 minutes so that a crew member could go and buy some hand wash soap for the toilets, we took off just over an hour late. And Continental Airlines is the best in America so I'm told. This does not say much for the rest. Following a cramped flight with a child screaming for 4 out of the 5 hour journey, I arrived in San Jose to be greeted by  Terry "Mateo" Mattson, a welcome sight.

Alex's (Terry's wife who happens to be Costa Rican)  brother was to be our chauffeur for the rest of day. We headed off to San Ramone stopping at a little café on the way for a bite to eat.  I couldn't understand a thing on the menu. Not your normal Spanish fair, everything was made from corn. After what appeared to be a corn pancake with sour cream and cheese washed down with a juice made from who knows what but very tasty, we continued our journey.

First impressions are that the country is very green and lush, but then it is the rainy season. Even as we left the airport the ramshackle buildings made of blocks, pallets and tin roofs start to appear along the side of the roads. As ramshackle as they were they had iron bars surrounding them. I am told that theft, even of the smallest and most worthless item is rife here.

There are Gauchos (I think that's how you spell it) men on horseback riding along the edges of the sugar cane fields about 20 feet from the Pacific Coast Highway. And we think the M25 is bad, this is just one long queue of trucks the size of apartment buildings, cars (mostly  four wheel drives) and anything else that has wheels.

The rain started when we where about half way through, stopped by the time we arrived.  After checking into the hotel, well that's what they call it but it's a room with a shower, pure luxury and a great host.  Pleased I brought the sleeping bag, the sheets and cover look a little past their sell by date.

At about 20:30 the bus arrived to take us back to the airport to collect the rest of the team. Terry and Alex headed into the airport and the driver and I headed for a space to park up and get some sleep. I grabbed the  back seat but even then the bus wasn't wide enough but I must have slept for an hour at least.

At about 22:30 we headed back to pick everyone up and on to the hotel. I hit the bed (in my sleeping bag) and I don't remember anything else until morning.

To be continued.................

Its Still 2004

Its still 2004 I searched through the list of destinations on the Global Village section of the Habitat for Humanity web site and decided that I would go to Bolivia. This from someone who to date had only travelled throughout Europe. I had been on a few family holidays and flown to various European countries on business, never staying too long in one place, never getting to know the country or the people, although I always felt that I should.

In 2000 I rode my motorcycle (no not a Harley D but a 200 mph crotch rocket) through Spain and spent time getting to know a little about the country and the area in which I travelled. Taking this trip on my own meant that I could spend as much or a little time in one place as I felt necessary to get my fill of the culture. All in all it was a poor attempt. I loved the ride and the solace, the people and the countryside, but it wasn't enough to quench that thirst for adventure and travel.

So Bolivia looked good, a country that I new little about but had heard the stories, Butch Casidy and the Sun Dance Kid etc. But then uncertainty set in, what if I couldn't handle spending 2 weeks with a group of people I had never met. Flying half way around the world and getting stuck in a situation that I could not handle. What would I do then? Cut and run? It was a long way to run.

So I decided Portugal was a better option, (or was that the soft option) only just down the road in relative terms. I was here in the UK, cheap flights or even road links. I thought I might ride the bike down and spend my two weeks working on the project and ride back. If the build was not as enjoyable as I would have hoped, the ride certainly would be. A win win situation. Or so I thought.

The first step was to contact the team leader and apply to take part in his project. Terry (Mateo) Mattson was his name, (unchanged because he deserves a mention) lived in Bellingham, Washington State USA. I sent an e-mail which was responded to in double quick time. This was followed by more e-mail's, questions, and answers.  I got a feeling about this guy, I figured I would like him, we built up some kind of relationship even though we had never spoken directly, it was an e-mail relationship at this point.

For whatever reason he decided I was a suitable candidate for his team,
little did he know.    I Can't remember what month in which all of this happened. But the project was due to start in May/June.  I looked into ferries and fares to various ports and planning routes across France, Spain and Portugal. I had it all worked out and was about to make my bookings when a very good friend informed me that it was his birthday on the 2nd of June and he would be celebrating in Ireland and I was invited.

Well that changed everything. I booked my flight to Dublin for the 1st of June. It was then that I realised that the project didn't finish until the 1st of June. With a 3 day ride back to the UK this was never going to work. So onto plan "B" fly Gatwick to Porto and leave the project a day early so that I could be back in time to fly to Dublin. Not a good start to my voluntary endeavours. But that was the way it had to be, and who knows, I may have been desperate to leave a day early.

This was my first venture into the world of voluntary eco-tourism and I did not keep a diary which was something that became a "must do" on future trips. What I can tell you is, that this trip was a life changing experience that lead to many more adventures and eventually to me becoming a team leader. And for that I have to thank Mr Terry (Mateo) Mattson, a remarkable man who now, along with his wife (Alexandra) runs his own mission in Honduras.

So this is how it all started

The year was 2004 I needed to find a web address that a friend was involved with, he was currently half way around the world racing a yacht for someone with more money than sense, so I thought I would Google his name.

I couldn't believe the amount of information displayed before me. Most of it was listings from yacht clubs around the world, placings that he and his crew had attained in various classes of race. There was page after page. I eventualy found the information I required and moved on. But it set me thinking, wondering about how much information there was out there about me, not that I had attained the heady heights of fame as a master yachtsman or anything else for that matter.

My life had been quite dull up to that point, businessman, father, (not a very good one) married twice, (first one doesn't count as we were both too young) and one partner, or at least at that time in my life, I had a partner.

I was to be proved correct, there wasn't a lot in cyberspace about yours truly. I got a mentione in my company website which I subsiquently removed.  There's more than enough information available for public viewing, I didn't need more added to it. There were a few other entries under the same surname but unrelated to me. Then there was an entry entitled "The Fowell Street Project". Well that one caught my eye. I just had to link in and take a look.

What I found was to change my life forever. For a number of years I had wanted to take part in international voluntary work. But as most organisations require you to sign up for six months, a year or even three years, it was a non starter. I still had a business to run and required an income so as to live. There was also the problem of not having a trade or qualification that these voluntary organisations needed. I had built and run my own business, sold it, worked as operations director for a national company and then moved into the property management business. None of this qualified me for a post with an NGO.

But then I found the "Fowell Street Project".  Fowell Street is in Georgias America. The project was  housing. The organisation behind the project was Habitat for Humanity. I read with interest what they were doing, using short term volunteers to assist in building homes with families so as to improve their life, to lift them out of poverty housing and into the home owner sector of society. Improving family security, health and education. Giving these families a hand up, not a hand out.

From that project, I delved into the pages of Habitat for Humanity's own web site. I was lost in there for days, reading everything I could about them, watching their online videos and soaking up as much information as I could.

Here is a charity that works all over the world. Offers short term voluntary projects of fifteen days at a time. This was just what I had been looking for. A chance at last to give back to a world that up to this point, all I had done was take.

Habitat for Humanity was a Christian based charity and as I was not of that faith, my first question, and only question was, "am I acceptable as a volunteer" the answer was a definite yes. HFH is in fact a multi faithed organisation and works with people of all relegions and even no relegion. So that was the start, all I needed to do was decide where I would work and when.

Start at the beginning

This is all new to me. I decided to start because a few of my friends have blog's and I have just worked my way through the J A Jance novels in the Ali Reynolds series. She too has a blog, but it seems to get her into a lot of trouble. Lets hope this doesn't get me into any scrapes.

I started to record my experiences as a team leader back in 2005 when I started a fascinating journey with Habitat for Humanity Global Village Project. These ramblings have remained on my pc ever since. I now think it is about time I did something with them. I am not a writer and I am sure they will contain many errors in grammar and punctuation. I sent these jottings out to friends, just for their information and hopefully enjoyment. One of these friends returned one edition to me with corrections on it. Amazingly she is still a friend. These ramblings are not out there to be marked. Read them or dismiss them, your choice.

I will post from the beginning so dates will not be current. Names will be changed so that the innocent or even the guilty will be protected. If you detect someone you perceive to be yourself or someone you may know, I can assure you, you are wrong. I will not put in the dates of the trips in question so there will be no way of trying to prove who was who. That is until I get up to date and then I shall just have to be careful.

So follow the blog and enjoy the ride (I hope) and I look forward to reading your responses, good or bad.