It’s been several weeks since my last post, and the time has flown by. All to soon the Costa Rican adventure will come to a close. It is not a day toward which I am looking with anticipation. This has been an experience that I will treaure for the rest of my life. Although the language is still a bit of a barrier, it is clear to me that the people here have taken me into their hearts and allowed me to become a part of their lives, and they have become a part of mine. What an amazing thing! To discover friends across the boundaries that normally divide and find a kinship that transcends all else. lt is clear to me that: Yo estoy anamorando con Costa Rica. (I am falling in love with Costa Rica)
Since my last post I have been studying very hard. Every day following the classes, I spend an average of three more hours doing extra exercises and trying to get it to sink in. I am understanding much more than I am able to express. I am even able to decipher some of what is being said on the Spanish language television! If I see it in print, I get about 95% and am generally able to figure out the words I don’t know from the context of the story. I am very pleased with the progress I have made so far. I only wish I had about three more months here. I may have to return for a refresher course!
On the weekends I have taken advantage of several travel opportunities. So, I have seen two different active volcanoes, and spent time on the beautiful Caribbean coast, in the village of Puerto Viejo. Each experience has been rich for their own special reasons.
Volcan Poaz is located relatively near to where I am staying. Some friends from the school and I took a one-day excursion to the volcano and to the Peace Gardens and Waterfalls located near to the volcano. Of course, since Costa Rica is so small, nothing is very far away from anything else.
There are 112 volcanoes in Costa Rica, four of which are still ‘active’. Poaz is ’active’ but has not experienced an eruption for many years. For this reason, you are allowed to hike to the very rim of the crater. From there you look very far down to observe a large lake and a multitude of steam vents from which there is the constant release of mildly sulfurous gas. The aroma is not anywhere near as strong as I had expected, however. The lake at the bottom has a greenish hue. The day we were there clouds covered the entire mountain and when we reached the rim we were engulfed by the clouds and not able to see anything. Then, as suddenly as they had come, they dispersed and the entire crater was clear to our view. Very impressive.
From there we traveled to a coffee plantation. Since I don’t drink coffee, the experience of tasting the different flavors produced there was lost on me. However, my friends both said that they had seldom tasted anything so rick and flavorful. Costa Rica is at the epicenter of research on the coffee bean. People from all over the world come here to be involved in the research and to glean the knowledge gained here about how to grow a better coffee plant. So, when you are drinking that ‘rich Columbian blend’ - they learned how to make it right here in San Jose at the coffee reseach center.
Seeing how the coffee is grown, harvested, and processed was fascinating. The separate plants are laden with beans, cluster upon cluster covering each branch, and each bean matures at a different rate than all the others. This means that harvesting has to be done the old fashioned way - picking one bean at a time from the cluster, at the moment that it has ripened, and leaving the rest of the cluster untouched. No machines possible in this process. I cannot imagine how labor-intensive it must be. Then the ripened beans are laid out on a concrete slab the size of a small warehouse, where they are raked by hand, using long, wooden rakes, and allowed to dry until ready to be processed. The rest of the process is done inside the processing plant. The aroma drifts on the still air and is absolutely delicious. I did try to taste a couple of the blends, but, as I said, the tasting was wasted on me. To me it was just coffee. I did, however, enjoy sampling a rather large quantity of the chocolate-covered coffee beans.
Very flavorful - and not a bit fattening. Right!
From there we traveled to the Peace Gardens and Waterfalls. We started at the top of the mountain and hiked down very steep trails cut into the jungle, past several waterfalls which cascaded from the rocks, falling an average of 85 to 125 feet into the poos belowl. At a few, we were able to climb underneath the falls. Very beautiful, and very loud! And not very safe. I was surprised they let us do it.
The experience at the Peace Gardens included several habitats for different species, including frogs, butterflies, a massive aviary, a monkey habitat, humming birds, and, of course, snakes.
In the aviary, the birds flew free, unfettered by bars or cages. This meant you had the opportunity to have a close encounter with a tucan, if he deigned to stoop to the level of humans. They appear very aloof and tend to stay just out of reach. I think they tolerate humans, but just barely.
The parrots, on the other hand, seem more than eager to crowd your space. One, in particular, a beautiful bird colored red, yellow, blue, and green, with piercing black eyes, had learned a phrase or two - in spanish, of course. He said a name - either his or one of the trainers, I assume, and continued ____________ es quapo! ____________ es guapo! ‘Guapo’ is spanish for ‘handsome’. He decided my shoulder was a suitable perch for a few moments. His talons dug into my shoulder and he squawked loudly as everyone crowded around to offer him a morsel. I was just thankful he didn’t consider ears as part of his diet.
There are three species of monkey that inhabit Costa Rica. Spider monkeys are very active and love to jump from tree-top to tree-top, hanging by their long tails while peeling and eating the fruit from the tree. Howlers are very territorial and announce very loudly their displeasure at having their space breached by anything or anyone. You can hear their cries for several miles. They aren’t very big, so their howls make them seem much more foreboding than they really are. Cappucines are small and white-faced and extremely intellegent - maybe one of the most intellegent of all species. One little cappucine really put on a show for the tourists. All of the monkeys were behind plexiglass. He had chosen a perch right up against the glass. He would disappear below sight for a moment, and return with a piece of pinapple which he would then proceed to eat with great vigor and right up against the glass, allowing those of us with cameras to get a great bunch of pictures. We all crowded in for a good shot. He seemed to enjoy the attention.
He did this several times in a row and until a good-sized crowd had gathered and were as close as we could get for the pictures. He disappeared again, then he emerged from his hiding place, but this time, instead of a piece of pinapple, he held in his hand a rock about the size and shape of a softball, which he hurled without warning, and with tremendous force, into the plexiglass. This resulted in a very loud ‘bang!’ and shrieks from the crowd who jumped back in terror. This was evidently great fun for the little guy, who appeared to fall over himself in glee. I watched him do this for three separate crowds. He never tired of the joke. Neither did the crowds.
We finished the day with a boat trip on Rio Sarapiqui, where we saw more monkeys, lots of iguanas, and birds of various species, including one particular king-fisher who had great success as we watched. He would hang upside down, merely inches from the surface of the water, and suddenly release from his branch and disappear beneath the surface, emerging every time with a beakful of fish.
The next weekend I decided to take a public bus across the country to the Caribbean coast. This was a great experience. The cost was unbelievably cheap. Less than $7.00 US for the entire trip. I had an assigned seat, but, just like the airlines, the bus had overbooked by more than a dozen people. This meant that 12 or 13 had to stand for the entire four-hour trip. It is not in my nature to see a woman standing while I sit, so I offered my seat to a woman standing near me. She decilined, but I finally convinced her that I needed to stand part of the time. So we switched back and forth. She turned out to be a very interesting lady who has left everything that she knows in Arizona, and decided to open a shop to do therapuic massage in Puerto Viejo. She doesn’t speak a word of spanish, and came with only a few dollars and her massage table, but is taking a chance that here she will find what she seeks in life. More power to her! I hope she finds her heart and continues to live her dream.
Puerto Viejo is the epitome of the heart of the Afro-Caribbean culture. Very laid back. Very tranquil. Immersed in the reggae beat that drums like a heartbeat beneath everything. I stayed in a little hotel that was literally covered by the forest. Again, no glass. No screens. Just bars across the windows which were open to the humid air. Mosquito netting surrounded the bed. The air was still, moved only slightly by the small ceiling fan, which provided welcome and necessary relief. The sound of the waves were again a constant background noise. At night the ranas (tree frogs) serenaded until dawn. Very calming.
Speaking of calming. The second day I was approached by a guy about my age who inquired, ‘Habla ingles?’ I answered, ‘Si, hablo ingles.’ We established that I was from Oklahoma. He asked how long I had been in Costa Rica. I told him. He told me he’d been here for 19 years and had a business as an ‘herbal therapist’. I thought this probably meant he had did aroma therapy. I was wrong. He said, “My therapy includes partaking of a certain very potent herb. I have some with me if you would like to partake.’ I declined, but others did not. I watched three guys passing a joint around as they talked. No one seemed to be the least upset by the display. Just part of the culture. That night, at a restaurant, as we were listening to some outstanding reggae and calypso music, the aroma of marijuana wafted through the room on the sea breeze. Pura Vida has different meaning to different people.
Puerto Viejo is a very interesting place. One might easily picture oneself living in a little shack among the palms, making a living (such as might be needed) selling sand dollars to la touristas. What would you need? A bicyle and a hammock and some shelter from the rain. Hmmmmm.
Ah, well, back to reality.
Volcan Arenal was my latest adventure. It is a very active volcano. So much so that no one is allowed within several miles of the mountain itself. It was formed some 7000 years ago by a massive eruption in the surface of the earth which pushed the earth into a nearly-perfect cone-shaped mountain 3800 meters high. There were many eruptions that followed, but the mountain had been relatively quiet for several hundred years.
Then, in 1968 there were a series of four different eruptions, resulting in the very tip of the mountain being blown off and several thousand people being immediately covered with scalding volcanic ash, in the little village just seven kilometers to the east. On the other side of the mountain was another village which was the same distance from the volcano. It escaped any damage. It was subsequently renamed Fortuna because of the fortune they recieved of being spared.
Arenal means ’sand’ and the volcano is named such because as it spews molten rock, the bolders crash down the side and crush the rock into lava ’sand’. During the day it is difficult to see the activity, but at night, when darkness surrounds, you can watch the molten red rocks leaving a tail of red behind them as they bound down the side of the mountain. Tremors are frequent. I could swear that I felt one, but it might just have been my overactive imagination. This is still a young land, and still in active formation. The volcano itself increases in height about two meters per year. No one knows when the next major eruption might occur. Yet the people continue to live in Fortuna, just seven kilometers away, and believe that nothing will occur to disrupt their chosen life.
Because I have become more comfortable with the language, I have become much better about risking meeting and talking to people. On this trip I met a very interesting and delightful woman who was vacationing in Costa Rica from Rio de Janero, where she is the editor of a large newspaper. She was trying to work on her spanish (Portuguese is the official language of Brazil). So we helped each other by speaking to each other in spanish as much as possible and we had a wonderful time eating out, hiking in the forest, and discussing politics and religion and just enjoying each other’s company.
I think I am liking the person that this experience is helping to shape. I have met some wonderful people, new friends from all around the world. I have no idea where any of this will lead, but I am beginning to feel like this land - still in formation. I suppose I have always known that - but the experience of being here has given new energy to that process.
At the risk of sounding hokey, maybe the tremor I felt was not the ground around the volcano shaking, but the plates of my life shifting to form something new.
Who knows where all of this will lead.
Isn’t life a trip!