Behind every organization is a dedicated team of individuals who breathe life into the company’s mission and vision. At Amazing Vacations Costa Rica, we take pride in our talented and passionate employees who make a difference every day. In our ongoing Meet Our Guides-Employee Spotlight series, we introduce you to the passionate people who make our company. This time, we’re excited to shine a spotlight on Walter Centeno, a guide for over 14 years but also co-founder of Amazing Vacations Costa Rica.  Join us as we get to know Walter on a more personal level, exploring his journey, stories and passion for the people.  

What are some of your favorite moments from the past couple years?

So I really love to see people coming back. That shows us that people love it, people like what we do, and then they get to know us. I love that. I really like to talk to clients and new clients about what’s happening here, what we do and how we do it.  You know things like safety, about our gear, our guides, our office staff.  But I really like to talk to them and help them understand what we have to offer. 

You mentioned in your website bio that you had (3) goals when starting Amazing Vacations: Provide family friendly jobs and a better life to the families of Costa Rica,  give back to your local communities and share amazing experiences with travelers who visit the country.  How would you say you have reached your goals?  

Have we reached our goals?  Yes! We are providing for our families jobs and a better life, totally.  At the beginning we were five, six families. Right now, we have way more families than that. More guides, more people in the office.  It is still one of our goals to keep providing this to our families and new families who are  little by little getting closer. Having more guides, office staff in general, kitchen, drivers, new partners, tours – still in our goals. 

Give back to our local communities, totally! We have different towns where we do our, how do you call it, beneficia. Some of them are churches, some of them are schools, some of them are families who have a home saying that we need to come to help them. More than the paint or things like that to help with these things, it is also our knowledge. Coming to new towns and talking to them about tourism, how tourism can help them to be better, to make some cash, to grow, you know, in a good way. Sharing our knowledge in tourism to new towns, new families is also part of our giving back to communities, you know. Organizing groups and more things like the whitewater school that we are now running. Helping Daniel to find more sponsors to his academy and his kids. All the things that we love and we hope we can keep doing.

I almost missed sharing amazing experiences with travelers who visit Costa Rica. Yeah, that goal, oh, we do it!  Every day we have a client, every day we talk to someone.  It’s all about sharing, you know, making people more comfortable, making people see that we know what we’re doing. And then doing videos and doing pictures, I love to see how Facebook and Instagram now is moving more with local material sharing what we do. It’s not something that we just copy and paste from somewhere or pictures that are coming from different companies. This is our material, our experience, and I love to share all this with our people, our clients and everyone who follows us.

Biggest advice to travelers visiting the country for the first time.

Okay, my first and main one would be to let someone help you. In this case, let us help you. We know the areas, we have experience, and we’re honest. If we don’t know it, we look for friends and I’m glad we have friends all around the country that will help us and then at some point will help our clients. So that would be my biggest advice. Share your expectations with your trip planner and that way we can reach all of them or at least keep you as close as we can but always in a safe environment for kids, for adults, seniors and families. You know, but always safety first and having fun, you know, that’s the key.

Do you have a favorite travel spot in Costa Rica?

Oh, difficult. Very difficult because we grew up in the countryside, so we love to go outdoors, especially rivers. But, oh, it’s tricky. Let’s say our ideal vacation for our family is to go to the river or go to the beach. Rivers using rafts, kayaks, stand up, life jackets, helmets but just slow down and run the river. Go to the beach, rent a house where we can cook, and then go out and have no stress.

A weekend, a couple days, you know. It’s kind of like our favorite vacation. That’s why I love the WOR Rivers Pacific. When we do the WOR Rivers Pacific we do fishing in the whitewater. In terms of clients, you know. 

Since we were kids, we have known the area. Our goal is always to bring people here to share and then get to know them. They can get to know us. And that way, it gets more cultural and more accustomed to. So it’s kind of like the ideal vacation for us as a family and then for clients from my side. Oh, and then we have La Fortuna and we have Manuel Antonio, and all the areas that you know we could reach are amazing. They all have amazing things but they are different.

5.)  TELL US YOUR CRAZIEST STORY AS A GUIDE DOWN IN COSTA RICA

Too many, I guess. Lol. More than half of my life I’ve been doing this. So too many, but let me think. One that won’t be scary but could be fun.  Once we were with some friends (clients at the beginning who came back and came back again so, they turned into friends.  Family. We were at the Caribbean coast, at lower lands, Puerto Viejo area. So it was raining a lot in the higher lands – big storm. So everything comes down to the coast and the water levels come up, you know. So the rivers and the mist flats so it’s kind of like floating. That’s what this name is, I think. It’s kind of like  floating but not dangerous because it just comes up. Yeah it’s not that crazy you know. Anyways that night started raining and raining and raining and we are in an Airbnb house. So we are all together there, and it was cool, there was the unique house that was a little bit higher in all the area. So water didn’t get to our feet, which was good. But most of the other houses they have to the ankles, the water there. Well, we just spent the night there, eating, talking, and playing. We went out to see the other towns and see if we could help in something. But anyways, they’re used to it, I think. So everything was calm and all good. 

Well, the problem was the next day because the next day we had to go. We had to drive all the way to the airport because they were leaving the day after. So that morning we woke up and there were no roads – everything was under the water! So we call and they are like no we have to wait until the water drops, which makes sense right? But they have to take the plane and they have to get to the flight. Anyway that morning we woke up and we’re like okay we need to go, we need to move. And we didn’t have our cars, because there were too many people, we just rented a bus. So the bus couldn’t come to pick us up. We are on this side of the river, just there waiting to see what we can do, and the bus is at the other side waiting for us. It was like a mile of just water, you know, and kind of like brown because of the mud. So we’re there just looking at each other like, what are we going to do? And then, well, we just wait. And then there is a car coming kind of like a Tacoma. So he’s just driving. He’s like, I think I can make it, and we’re like, what are you gonna do? I’m gonna go across. And we’re like, you sure? I mean, you might need some weight on the back of the car so the water cannot move you out. So you know, cannot flash you out of the road. And he’s like, oh, you guys can help me. Just get in the back and then I can get you across. And we’re looking like, okay, why not? Let’s do it. So we all just put our bags up there in the back of the truck and then he was like, okay, just help me. If you see I’m going off the road, just let me know. So we are in the middle of the road with the water, you know, pretty much on the engine. On one side, a banana field, the other side banana field. We are driving in the middle all the way across. And what was funny was once everyone else saw that we made it, everyone with big trucks or big cars, they decided to do it.  So 10 minutes later, we were at the other side of the river, which wasn’t a river, it was just flooding, and this big line of cars came behind us. That’s kind of like a fun story, you know, not scary and safe. But again, we have  a lot of them.teno