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Back to General Information Page Costa Rica Rainforest Outward Bound School: Imagine...mud soaked boots drop from your weary feet to the floor
of a newly erected tarp shelter. Your leg muscles sigh relief as
you sprawl onto your sleeping bag. Your mind retraces the twelve
miles of Costa Rican rainforest you've just crossed. You smile as
you recall the troop of spider monkeys that crossed your group's
path earlier that day. You are deliriously tired, but have found
perfect peace. A change has occurred. Welcome to the Costa Rican
Rainforest Outward Bound School (CRROBS). What
students say about CRROBS: "I liked finishing. I loved being able to see that I could make it, that I could do something that looked hard, that seemed impossible. I often surprised myself, I would never have thought it possible for me to do some of the things we did. I discovered a new depth of determination in me. I found out that if I pace myself and breathe correctly I can do almost anything. I discovered that I can be strong mentally as well as physically. I found out just how much energy I keep in reserve. Never before have I been truly tired, truly challenged in this way. One day included the exploration of a limestone bat cave. Inside, the darkness was so thick compared to the insubstantial beams of light which were weakly radiating from our headlamps. The floor was covered in a dull orange-brown mud sprinkled with small, bright orange puddles of guano (bat excrement). My worst fears came alive when friends ahead of me spotted spiders. Their bodies were the size of a quarter and their legs stretched about four inches beyond their bodies. As I walked farther, the darkness of the cave completely set in, and I realized that the cave was not really quiet. We sat in silence and listened to all the life within the cave: dripping water, squeaking bats, and chirping crickets. That evening, after I had finished my food and put on my warm clothes, I lay down in my sleeping bag and looked up at the stars. They were spectacular that night, and the gigantic fireflies lit up the trees. Fruit bats dove beneath the branches, but I wasn't afraid. Even the dark didn't scare me. I felt as if I was really a part of the forest I was sleeping in. I trusted myself then, and I liked who I was." --Carolyn Alburger "I learned about the rainforest not by looking in a book but by living in it." --Michael Rauch "Two more days into my course with CRROBS and already I knew that this was nothing like any class I'd ever had before. The classroom, for one, was alternately cloud-laced coolness filtering like a ghost through the canopy, or green-filtered sunlight beating down on our hunched packs. The 13 students knew that grades were a thing of the past. Whether you passed or not depended on whether, at the end of the day, you were still standing, and had enough wherewithal to thank the Tico villagers for the food, preferably in Spanish. Those fifteen days weren't only about those fifteen days. They were about every day after. How I can use something I learned from then for the rest of my life. It's not a physical object that I can show everyone, but it's something engraved in me that I won't ever let fade away."-- Courtney Penachio "Obstacles that were thought to be insurmountable became small, and material things became less important after this trip. The worldview gained cannot be duplicated from a bus or from walking in a museum. By challenging the students physically and mentally it affects their very soul. To me, this is why I teach and it's something that I can't reproduce in the classroom." --Wendie Moore, teacher Thoughts
from Instructors: CONTACT
CRROBS: |
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