¿Pura Vida?

I won´t name names, but about half a dozen of my fellow study abroad-ers, most of them girls, have gotten the phrase pura vida tattooed on their bodies.  Now, you may be wondering what could compel such educated, bright and classy women to do such a thing.  Well, I´m afraid I can´t offer a fair answer.  But, I´ll take a stab at it: these girls, after having lived and breathed pura vida for the past three weeks of their lives, have reached an understanding of Costa Rican culture so deep and so personal that they just had to receive a permanent reminder of what the pure life really is.  I can only hope that I too will be able to appreciate this fine country on a level half as profound.

AsoProLA

This weekend my EA and SD class took an incredible field trip to the rural town of Altamira.  Altamira, along with several other neighboring communities, is part of an association called AsoProLA.  I'm not sure what the acronym stands for, something like Asociasion para la Proteccion de La Amistad.  La Amistad is the country's biggest national park, and is shared with Panama, hence the name.  We stayed in a hostel type building, and Saturday morning I was woken up by the sound of shovels hitting dirt and a rooster crowing.  In AsoProLA, there are several organic farms, an organic coffee plantation, and a small barn where cows are raised solely for the purpose of composting their poop.  On Saturday, we traveled to the national park where we took a hike and were eaten alive by mosquitos.  After lunch at the hostel, we ventured out on another hike, this time to visit Pancho, who lives on top of a mountain.  It rained gatos and perros on the way up there, so the hike was slippery.  The view from Pancho's place is breathtaking, but as I stood there taking pictures, I was greeted by an ant hill.  Pancho, a slender man with half grown-out dreadlocks, is the brains of the operation, and has constructed an edifice, for lack of a better word, out of garbage.  He gathered several buoys from illegal fishing operations and uses them as planters and decoration.  Two boats are suspended on the second floor of his establishment, along with a motorcycle, animal skeletons, glass bottles, dentures and other odds and ends in the first floor workshop.  His 14-year-old schnauzer Hippie follows him everywhere, even though he is deaf and blind and has no sense of smell.  After our initial introduction, Pancho took us down to the river (I'm not sure why) and I got stung on the ear by a wasp.  Back up near Pancho's place, we planted a tree that I had helped carry up the mountain to Pancho's place.  For some reason, it took us about half the time to get back down the mountain as it did to get up, but I thought it would be better to not ask any questions.  

Waking up on the wrong side of the cama

I find it miraculous that for the past two weeks, I have been able to wake up before seven a.m., leave the house by 7:30 and make it to school before 8 o´clock for my Spanish class. Hopefully I can continue this practice into next semester and make it to my 8 o´clock class on time and ready to go.
I almost forgot to write about my Costa Rican funeral experience. My señor´s (Herbert) mother died last week. My señora told me the news, and soon after, invited me to the wake. I accepted the invitation, partly in order to extend my sympathies to Herbert, and partly out of curiosity. Since the family decided to have a more traditional funeral service, they only had 24 hours to get the body in the ground before it started to, well, do what dead bodies do. Apparently, wakes are usually held almost immediately after a person passes, and last for hours. Herbert´s mother died at around 10 in the morning, and that evening, his whole family was crowded in a family member´s living room, performing the customary funerary rosary prayers. Not only were the family members crowded in the house, but the casket was placed by the front window, surrounded by candles and flowers. A piece of glass was placed in the casket; I can only imagine it was to keep the body fresh. The next morning, while I was in class, Herbert´s mother was buried, and a mass was held the following weekend.

Mojada hasta mi alma

This past weekend I had the opportunity to ride a horse to La Fortuna Waterfall.  Everyone I asked said it was the best way to get there, and definitely beat taking a bus up to the trail.  The horse riding started out alright.  Amazona, my horse, was tame and the perfect size for me.  The group of thirty people and horses followed a trail that crossed three rivers, a pasture, and up a road to the trailhead to La Fortuna.  All was fine and dandy until it started raining.  Luckily, I had my rain jacket, so only my legs were soaked.  My program director said that she was soaked to her soul.  Consequently, everyone's backs were splashed with mud.  My stirrups didn't fit quite right so I was jostled around quite a bit every time the cowboys started to make to horses trot.  Needless to say, I was hurting by the time we got to the trailhead.  When we made it down to the waterfall, which was an incredible sight, my friends and I found ourselves wishing we could trade our horses for a bus ride down.  I didn't get in the water since I was already wet from the rain shower.  I reluctantly mounted Amazona for the ride back, which I must admit allowed us an incredible view of the landscape.  I found it hard to sit down the rest of the weekend, but managed to forget the pain I was in to do a zip line canopy tour of the forest on Monte Verde the next day.  

Gato Ninja

I went on an excursion to Manuel Antonio National Park this weekend. We stayed in a darling hotel within walking distance of the park, called Villa Bosque, which had an adorable spaniel as a guard dog, two cats, and monkeys that played on the roof. The hotel even had a see-saw! We spent most of Saturday lounging on the beach, followed by a beautiful sunset at a restaurant called Ronny´s Place, and topped off our day/started our night with a shot of a local liquor with the owner himself, Ronny. On the bus ride home, we stopped to look at some crocs that live underneath a bridge. According to my EA and SD professor, Roberto, it is the largest concentration of crocodiles in the Americas. Needless to say, it was so hard to wake up for class this morning.
Today in EA and SD Roberto allowed us to share our favorite YouTube videos with the class. I picked ¨Ninja Cat¨ and I think the whole class, including Roberto, thoroughly enjoyed it.
And a note on the homework assignment mentioned in the previous post: Try as we might, Roberto wouldn´t give us credit for that assignment. Oh well. It was worth a shot.

Tarea

My homework for environmental awareness and sustainable development was to go to el mercado central and try pejibayes, a palm tree fruit. I made it to the market but didn´t end up trying the fruit. Oops. At least it´s not due till Monday.

Perdida

After a full day of orientations and city tours, I walked home from Universidad Veritas with a large group. But soon enough, there were only two of us. And that´s when I realized I had no idea how to get home. It took our asking a random man inside his house for help, that man bringing us to the corner store across the street and asking the three people who worked in the store if they recognized the address, their telling him they didn´t recognize the address, that man running into a woman who asked him what was up, that woman exclaiming that my host parents were her neighbors, and against my better judgement getting into her car and having her take me home. Luckily, she really was a neighbor, and she safely and happily dropped me off in front of my house. Oh yeah, and it was pouring the whole time.
But, it looks like I´ll be taking a taxi home after witnessing my classmates getting robbed on our walk home yesterday. I´ll write more about that later. Otherwise, I am having an excellent time.