What follows a slightly more factual account of our time here, to complement Dan´s sitcom! At the time of writing, it´s 10.30am on Sunday morning here in Santiago de Puriscal in Costa Rica. Dan and I are catching up with our emails for the first time since we left San Jose 10 days ago. There are so many first impressions that we want to write home about – like the fact that life´s a bit slower here, but people have to work hard for what they have. Or how even a small journey becomes an adventure!
We are staying in a small village called Mastatal, with a population of about 100 people. It lies about 40km from where we are now, heading as the crow flies towards Quepos on the pacific coast. It is too small to appear on most maps and is accessible via a single track hard core road (no tarmac). It takes 2 hours averaging 20mph for the bus to wend its way through breathtaking and at times vertiginous scenery to Puriscal. There is one bus a day and it leaves Mastatal at 5.50am.
So we were up early this morning, just before dawn in fact. Our home for the time being is at the Cabañas siempre verde. At night we are sleeping in a small house on stilts (a cabaña) in the jungle. It has no walls, on two sides the sloping corrugated tin roof provides shelter and privacy. Trees, vines and creepers mask the rest. We have a double bed with a mosquito net and a candle to discourage bats from roosting with us. Outside we have a composting toilet – and yes, sawdust really does stop the smell! Frogs and a host of unknown jungle sounds lull us too sleep and then !!BANG!!, nuts, branches and whatever else thunder onto our tin roof.
We have to watch out for snakes, but haven´t seen any yet. There are cute green and black poison arrow frogs in abundance (just don´t pick them up) and species of freshwater crab. There are lots interesting birds too if you see them, like the blue collared mot mot. I´ve heard a toucan, but yet to see one. It sounded like a high pitched dog barking! The butterflies are beautiful and we´ve seen some interesting bugs too! Dan is keeping a detailed bird list – can you believe it?! We´ll upload photos soon, for now a taster will have to do. We´re taking high resolution images and they take too long to load.
During the day for the past week, we have each had a daily 2 hour Spanish lesson in our jungle classroom, which sits below our night time shelter. Another classroom is almost finished. Otherwise, we are up the hill with Molly, an American volunteer, sharing the home of our hosts the Guzman-Garcia family. Their son Marcos is our Spanish teacher and the brains behind the Cabañas enterprise. Not just the brains, he also built most of the Cabañas himself.
Our host family is in other ways a typical “Tico” for this rural area. They keep cattle, horses, chickens and pigs. The cattle are steers, with one or two cows for milk with which Sra Guzman makes cheese. The horses are for transportation, otherwise motorbikes are the best way to get around. Chickens provide eggs and meat (though not for this vegetarian!) and the pigs, well, are for the chop at some point… pardon the pun. Marcos has also begun an organic farm (volunteers are welcome) and we have been enjoying his fresh pineapples!
We have breakfast at 7.00am, lunch at 12.00pm and dinner at 6.00pm. Bedtime usually arrives before 9.00pm, unless we go to the bar. Meals feature beans and rice a lot, but it´s tasty. We´ve tried lots of other vegetables too, enjoyed home made tortillas and empenadas. The odd thing has been to have porridge for breakfast some mornings and at other times, hot soup.
Wandering down the road you arrive in the centre of Mastatal. For such a small place it has an elementary school, a police station, small church, community centre, business centre, a bar and 3 small “pulperias” which is the local linguo for grocery store. On the other hand, there is only one public phone for the whole village. That should change in the next year or so because a telephone exchange for individual homes is being installed. Broadband is still a long way off. Opposite the bus stop is Rancho Mastatal where we will start our internship in 2 weeks time. But more about that another time.
I said before that things happen slowly. There is a good reason for that – when the sun is out it´s hot and very humid. With the smallest exertion we sweat horribly. We have arrived in the rainy season and most days the heavens really pour. Everything gets sweaty, wet and very, very muddy from the rich red clay soil hereabouts. Washing clothes and bodies is a daily necessity. But here´s the catch, for the last week we have had no running water! Rain water from the roof has flushed the family´s toilet and I´ve washed myself with rain caught in a tub. Dan has braved (and felt liberated by!) the stream fed ´snake´´ jungle shower near the cabañas. We washed our clothes with the same stream water yesterday.
That said the water here is very clean and safe to drink, it is piped straight from a spring in La Cangreja national park. We have developed an appreciation for things we took for granted, like piped water. Electricity too, can be a luxury here. Last week a junction box blew a fuse and the whole valley heard the explosion! Power was restored 24hours later though.
I also mentioned bugs. We have been bitten in so many places and so many times (by mosquitos, ants and other unidentified insects) that we can´t count. My bug spray has proved useless… the only thing you can do is bear it (I moan a lot..) and hope that your body develops a resistance quick!! We will have to go through the same process every place we stay (= ouch + more groans). I don´t look forward to that bit. It also means that we will have to take malaria medication when necessary because we can´t prevent bites. Fortunately, we don´t have to think about that for now….
We have another week to go at the Cabañas staying with Marcos and his family and learning Spanish. Then we have a little time before our internship starts at the Ranch, so we´re going to head for the beach via Quepos and the Manuel Antonio national park. More news from there next time.
