Spending the week in Nosara brings an unsurpassed connectedness to nature; it’s almost too great to put into words. An area located on the northern Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica, the Nosara district is surrounded by the protection of national parks and forests, which helps maintain its pristine beauty and undeveloped beaches. Time slows as idyllic days are spent sipping from fresh coconuts, wandering to the beach on the lookout for monkeys, swimming and surfing in the waters of the Pacific and afternoon yoga sessions with lush jungle views that surround you.

But if it were possible to top such days, our last day on the Kunga Yoga Winter R&R Retreat was spent giving back to this beautiful community as volunteers with Costas Verdes and their BarriGuiones coastal restoration project.

With the help of Costas Verdes, the Guiones community united with the singular mission to renew their coastal ecosystem. This has had a positive impact on the whole community – economically and socially, as well as across all groups of people – locals and tourists, businesses and organizations. It has now been seven years since the BarriGuiones project’s inception and over 17,000 trees of 40 different native tree species have been planted so far, and over 500 volunteers and 650 students from local schools have been hosted. It was so inspiring to have the opportunity to add to this amazing mission, to show appreciation for the land, and to add a piece of ourselves that will stay and live on here in Nosara.

Costas Verdes is a non-profit with the aim of returning the coastal ecosystems of Costa Rica that have been devastated by years of human misuse. Finding great success with its original coastal renourishment project, in 2011 they expanded into the Nosara district, specifically the beach community of Guiones, for their next project, known as BarriGuiones. In the early colonial period through the 1950s and 60s, much of the Nicoya Peninsula’s forests had been cleared for cattle farming. But fast forward years later, and this popular source of income had been terribly detrimental to the environment. In the 1980s forests in Nosara started to become protected as a wildlife and turtle refuge but since many of the native coastal forests had never grown back, it had allowed for invasive species to take over and native plants and animals were struggling for survival.

Gerardo Bolaños, the extremely knowledgeable Project Director for BarriGuiones, gave us a brief history of the project and organization, as well as a tour of their nursery before leading us out to Playa Guiones for planting. With hands deep in the dirt, serving the land, planting trees on this awe-inspiring beach, surrounded by birds chirping and waves crashing on the shore, sunshine beaming and ocean breezes on our face, I could not feel more alive in the present. From this point forward I was rooted. I am now forever connected to the continued success and nourishment of this place. Ironically, I too had been restored through this project though. It restored my faith that this could work – coming together as a community, making positive growth and change, thriving with the future in sight. It filled me with an abundance of hope.

Article by Lisa Cole
2018 Costa Rica retreat participant, 200RYT Kunga Yoga School