Topics: teen tours | outdoor education | teen travel | teen summer camps

Rafting, the Caribbean Coast & Community Service (Weeks 1 & 2)     View Week 1 Slideshow

We spend 2 days rafting the scenic Pacuare River through virgin rainforest. This Class III-IV river plunges through mountain gorges and drop beautiful waterfalls right alongside our rafts. We spend the night at a beautiful riverside camp (complete with shower and bathroom facilities), where we enjoy the cooking of our expert raft guides/gourmet chefs. More rapids await us the following day. At the end of the river trip, we visit a famous serpentarium to learn from a local snake expert.

Puerto Viejo de Talamanca

The Caribbean Coast is significantly less "touristy" than most of the rest of Costa Rica, and the small Caribbean town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca still has a strong local feel. The road to the Caribbean Coast was just paved in the year 2000, and tourism has been slowly increasing ever since. Our guest house is right on the beach, just outside town of Puerto Viejo. The town itself has some small local shops selling hammocks, post cards, etc., and artists' booths with handmade jewelry and crafts. We spend our days visiting the Kekoldi Indigenous Reserve, performing community service, and playing at the beach. One of our nights in Puerto Viejo, we take a (well-supervised) trip into town to eat at a local restaurant, and visit some of the shops and artists' booths.

Kekoldi Indigenous Reserve

Lucas, our local guide at the Kekoldi Indigenous Reserve, teaches us about the culture and customs of the Bribri people, one of the few remaining indigenous groups in Costa Rica. We visit the iguana farm, and learn about Lucas and his family's efforts to protect the endangered green iguana. We take a short hike through primary and secondary rainforest (which Lucas often calls his "grocery store" and "pharmacy"), and learn about many of the medicinal properties of the plants. Our delicious lunch is served in traditional style-wrapped in a banana leaf.

Community Service (3 days)

As visitors, we hope to leave a positive mark as responsible tourists by putting our energy back into the land and communities through which we travel. We dedicate a generous portion of 3 of our days on the Caribbean Coast to working on Tikkum Olam projects (a total of 15-20 community service hours). Projects are organized in conjunction with community members, and the specific projects each group will work on depends on what is most needed at the time. Past projects have included: painting local schools (including painting murals inside and outside); planting fruit and vegetable gardens at local schools; helping at a local recycling center; building iguana cages and helping with other projects at the Kekoldi Indigenous Reserve; painting and weather-proofing picnic tables at a beach reserve.

Punta Mona Center for Sustainable Living and Education (3 nights)

Punta Mona is our private, beachfront organic farm and sustainable living center in the middle of the rainforest. To arrive there, we spend the morning hiking through the Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge, the only path into Punta Mona. (Our luggage goes by boat.) Tino, our local guide from the neighboring village of Manzanillo, guides us on this hike through his "backyard." As we hike along the beach and through the jungle, Tino teaches us about the medicinal, culinary and other uses of many of the trees, fruits and plants that we see, helps us find monkeys, frogs, crabs, and snakes, and opens coconuts with his machete for us to drink from.

At Punta Mona, we spend our days kayaking, swimming, swinging in hammocks, touring the grounds, and learning about the art of sustainable living. Most of the food we eat is harvested from the extensive organic gardens with more than 150 varieties of fruit trees. Our energy comes from solar panels and the buildings are built with fallen wood hand-hauled from the surrounding rainforest. We also spend a very special Shabbat in this tropical paradise. On Friday before the sun goes down, we prepare for Shabbat by baking Challah, and making homemade organic chocolate from locally grown cacao beans. We then spend Shabbat singing, celebrating, eating, learning, and relaxing.

Shabbat with the Costa Rican Jewish Community

Believe it or not, there are Jews in Costa Rica! The Jewish Community is about 5000 strong, with an enormous, beautiful new synagogue, where we join them for an unforgettable Costa Rican Shabbat service. After Friday night services, we divide up into groups of 2s and 3s and head back to Jewish families' individual homes for a Shabbat Dinner, Costa Rica style! You'll be amazed at how familiar it all seems. The next day, we have some time to explore the nearby San Jose equivalent of Central Park before celebrating Havdallah together and meeting our new Costa Rican Jewish friends at the bowling alley.

View Week 3 Slideshow

We travel up to the misty cloud forest of Monteverde to zip through the trees on a series of 11 ziplines. We begin our bird's eye perspective by traversing the Sky Walk, a series of bridges through the cloud forest canopy. Orchids, bromeliads and ferns share this aerial existence with an abundance of wildlife. If we're lucky, we may catch a glimpse of the resplendent quetzal, a bird sacred to the ancient Maya. We then move on to the Sky Trek, sailing through the clouds and the treetops of the forest canopy via zipline. Expert guides assist us in this exciting journey through the different layers of this unique cloud forests. We can't leave Monteverde without sampling the Quaker's famous local ice cream!

Sarapaqui, Hot Springs, and La Fortuna Waterfall

On our way to Arenal, we visit the small typical Costa Rican town of Sarapaqui, practicing our Spanish at the local fruit and vegetable market, and getting a feel for life in this small town. Upon arrival in Arenal, we will take a short hike to a stunning waterfall and swim in the pools at its base. That evening, we bathe in soothing hot springs while witnessing (from a safe distance!) fluorescent red lava flowing down the sides of the Arenal Volcano. The next day, we bike part-way around Lake Arenal with a fantastic view of the volcano. Along the way, we pass by the windmills that supply an alternative source of electric power to the hydroelectric dam which created the lake.

Shabbat in the Cloud Forest

Our last Shabbat is spent at a small private ecotourism lodge in the cloud forest. The lodge overlooks precious primary rainforest. Before the sun sets on Friday, we take one last hike together for our last chance to spot the plethora of Costa Rican wildlife we've come to know and love. We say goodbye to the monkeys, toucans, scarlet macaws, and iguanas. We have one last day of rest and connection with all our new friends to reflect on our amazing, action-packed, educational, and unforgettable Jewish journey through Costa Rica.