Two unplanned moments that resulted in life-changing discoveries in Costa Rica
One of the best memories I have occurred in an area called Cañas on a Real Affordable Costa Rica tour. The community was celebrating the Day of the Oxcart and the Sabañero (equivalent to the cowboy in the U.S.), and we arrived there just at the beginning of the parade. I asked one person who looked like he was in charge of the event, “What is going on?” It happened to be the president of the Oxcart Association of Cañas. I told him about how unique and interesting this event was for my group—there were lots of people, and lots of oxcarts and beautiful horses everywhere. He decided to dedicate one oxcart to turismo (tourism). So our 15 passengers participated in the parade by taking turns riding in the back of the oxcart in small groups of two. The OAT turismo cart was acknowledged over the loudspeaker several times by saying (in Spanish): “Cañas, a friendly town, says ‘welcome’ to our visitors.”
The very simple action of this gentleman represented the highlight of the visit to Costa Rica. The travelers felt so special that it was the only thing they talked about for the rest of the journey! And for some reason, what personally touched me was when the passengers came to me at the end of the parade and said, “Rafa, you should be proud to be Costa Rican.” That felt really good!
Something else that I will never forget happened one day at the San Francisco School, a Grand Circle Foundation site. We finished our activities and thanked everybody for the presentation, and just before I got in the bus I saw this little girl (around 7 years old) crying. I asked her what was wrong, and she said to me that she practiced for a long time to say a farewell speech in English to our group and that I had forgotten about it! It simply broke my heart. All of the travelers were already in the bus and ready to go, so I told her, “Hey, let’s do something even better!” I asked her to step onto the bus to give her farewell to our travelers with the microphone. She was so excited that her face simply changed to the happiest face in the school, and when she gave her speech the whole group clapped and cheered for her. It was the first time that she’d ever used a microphone, and she said, “I will never forget that,” and then, “I want to be a tour guide.” Talk about changing people’s lives!
You’ll never know what unplanned moments will result in life-changing discoveries for you on our Real Affordable Costa Rica and Costa Rica: Natural Parks & Tropical Forests adventures.