Adventuring: From the Mountains to the Beaches
Friday I got up really early and took a bus downtown at 8:00 a.m. to meet my Tico friend Mariano at the edificio de correos so that we could catch a bus to one of his favorite mountains he wanted to show me. I wandered around aimlessly for a while when I got there until I see him sprinting towards me in full-on tour-guide gear. I'm talking cargo vest and cargo pants, sun hat, and backpack;- all khaki colored. I don't have time to laugh though because he grabs my arm and continues running to the next street, we are about to miss the last bus for a while and we really need to hurry if we want to enjoy the hike without a lot of heat; so here I am sprinting through the streets of San Jose until we hop on the bus for San Isidrio and fall into some seats, panting and laughing at what just happened. Here we go again, I have hopped on a bus to God knows where and I'm about to embark on another adventure in Costa Rica !
We get off the bus less than an hour later in San Josecito, and started trekking up the roads while Mariano goes all biologist on me telling me about the different plants we are passing and various other things like the Santa Lucia flower that is supposed to be good fortune for someone who receives it and puts it in their wallet. We get lost at one point and have to ask for directions, but eventually we end up on the road/trail straight up and are covered by a little shade from the (non-native) pine trees along the road. The hike up is just about an hour, hour and a half, and when we are almost at the top Mariano literally grabs my arm and starts us sprinting up this incline to the top of the hill where the viewpoint of the valley is. I am dying, catching my breath, and probably seeing stars when we get there but what an exhilirating feeling! And then, we turn past the little cliff and walk over the grass to one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen! We can see the whole valley, surrounded by the mountains on the other side: Cartago, San Jose, Alajuela, Heredia, and everything in-between. We sink down in the grass at the edge of the ledge and just relax, catching our breath and taking it in.
This is by far one of the most exhilarating things I think you can do, to just leave everything at the door and venture out into a culture beyond your own. Meet a local, and let them show you their own country, without the tour guides and comforts of home, without the overpriced tshirts and souvenirs. Just go see what's really there, get to know more than just the view ! Mariano is by far one of the most interesting people I have ever met, and I am glad to have had these opportunities here in this country.
This weekend we went to Durika Biological Reserve with our Environmental Impact and Social Development class. I am taking three environmental studies classes; the other two are tropical ecology and tropical marine biology. Each of them has two weekend trips as field labs to earn the 4th credit hour for a lab, which leaves me with a grand total of 5 weekends of lab trips (two of them overlapped, one of which was this weekend). I have skipped over the first I took with my ecology class to La Selva Biological Reserve, because I did not have much to say other than that it was a really neat experience and we saw an armadillo and a Toucan !
Durika Community is a rather interesting sustainable community located in the Talamanca Mountains near the Panamanian border of Costa Rica. This was by far one of my favorite trips, although it included a long amount of traveling and bumping down rocky dirt roads is definitely not my favorite thing in the world. The mountains are full of fresh air and the smell of rich soil.
The community is so resourceful: they take us on a quick tour of a part of the rain forest that they first planted on previously scorched land, and later was naturally regenerated, which has in it a little coffee farm yielding just enough to serve visitors to the community and is found within the forest. This is to show that the rain forests do not have to be cut down to make way for coffee plantations. They also have a waterfall full of freezing cold spring water which we swim in and drink (finally! water I don't have to be scared of), and then hike down the mountain to their hydro-electric system which produces all of the electricity for the community and routes the water back to the stream to return it for the indigenous peoples at the bottom of the mountains to also have access to fresh water.
The meals served are all vegetarian with some fish, all of which is picked fresh daily from their communal garden growing on the edge of the mountain. The garden is worked on daily by the community in the morning and the evening, and we all get the opportunity to help fertilize the plants and pick the daily meals. We had the option of working the garden, milking the goats, or doing yoga at 5:30 AM that Sunday morning. The members of the community do these chores twice a day every day, with only Saturday afternoons as a resting time. Honestly, they have good intentions with the super efficient renewable energy and the socialist structure community, but the kids that grow up there are like children of the corn and although its a beautiful place to visit and experience, I would not recommend it for life.
We get to hike down a mountain that Sunday using a trail literally hundreds of years old that the Spanish used when they first came to Central America. The mountains are gorgeous, and we can see the scalded ridges where the indigenous peoples have burned the forest to make room for more cattle (this is the price of your McDonald's hamburger, btw). The winds are strong and we paint with the colors, Pocahontas style. We see some old indigenous graves, empty and surrounded by stones. We hike something crazy, like 14 kilometers down to the Guanacaste Tribe and see their community, eat by the river, and then walk to the edge of the reserve where the bus meets us to take us home; but not before crossing literally the sketchiest bride I have ever seen in my life, even by Costa Rican standards. Guys, they were literally putting pieces of wood down just for me to walk across. (Spoiler Alert: I made it). This was by far the most amazing field trip experience I have had yet, and I am loving this environmental impact class Leo forced me into taking ! (much love to my CEA crew!)
The following Tuesday we realize we don't have class until 6 at night so a few girls from class and I took the day bus to Jaco Beach which is only about an hour or two away to chill for the day. The thing about Jaco is that not only is it a touristy beach, but also that just up the coast from it is where a good amount of the rivers dump out into the ocean. Many of the rivers in Costa Rica are of poor quality because they have trash and pollution in them, and only about 5% or less of that gets treated. So basically all of the waste water from the city is emptied out into Jaco (and although many locals will swim there, they do not recommend getting the water into your mouth or eyes.) Colleen and I decide to take a taxi from Jaco to Playa Hermosa, which is only about 10 minutes away) to hang out because it is a highly recommended and beautiful black-sanded beach.
Playa Hermosa is beautiful but hot and we burn our feet walking out to the shore. We soak up the sun and let the waves crash on us. I am literally in Costa Rica right now, chilling on the Pacific, on a glittering black sanded beach, before taking a $5 bus back to San Jose to study Tropical Ecology at my university. When am I waking up to real life, again ? I pray that April never comes.
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| San Josecito |
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| View of the central valley |
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| Mariano pondering life, the universe, and everything beneath some shade |
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| A far out view of the ledge and the tree |
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| Orchid Season |
This is by far one of the most exhilarating things I think you can do, to just leave everything at the door and venture out into a culture beyond your own. Meet a local, and let them show you their own country, without the tour guides and comforts of home, without the overpriced tshirts and souvenirs. Just go see what's really there, get to know more than just the view ! Mariano is by far one of the most interesting people I have ever met, and I am glad to have had these opportunities here in this country.
This weekend we went to Durika Biological Reserve with our Environmental Impact and Social Development class. I am taking three environmental studies classes; the other two are tropical ecology and tropical marine biology. Each of them has two weekend trips as field labs to earn the 4th credit hour for a lab, which leaves me with a grand total of 5 weekends of lab trips (two of them overlapped, one of which was this weekend). I have skipped over the first I took with my ecology class to La Selva Biological Reserve, because I did not have much to say other than that it was a really neat experience and we saw an armadillo and a Toucan !
Durika Community is a rather interesting sustainable community located in the Talamanca Mountains near the Panamanian border of Costa Rica. This was by far one of my favorite trips, although it included a long amount of traveling and bumping down rocky dirt roads is definitely not my favorite thing in the world. The mountains are full of fresh air and the smell of rich soil.
The community is so resourceful: they take us on a quick tour of a part of the rain forest that they first planted on previously scorched land, and later was naturally regenerated, which has in it a little coffee farm yielding just enough to serve visitors to the community and is found within the forest. This is to show that the rain forests do not have to be cut down to make way for coffee plantations. They also have a waterfall full of freezing cold spring water which we swim in and drink (finally! water I don't have to be scared of), and then hike down the mountain to their hydro-electric system which produces all of the electricity for the community and routes the water back to the stream to return it for the indigenous peoples at the bottom of the mountains to also have access to fresh water.
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| Left: the original soil, Right: The soil after the natural compost |
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| In front of the mountains on our long day-hike |
The meals served are all vegetarian with some fish, all of which is picked fresh daily from their communal garden growing on the edge of the mountain. The garden is worked on daily by the community in the morning and the evening, and we all get the opportunity to help fertilize the plants and pick the daily meals. We had the option of working the garden, milking the goats, or doing yoga at 5:30 AM that Sunday morning. The members of the community do these chores twice a day every day, with only Saturday afternoons as a resting time. Honestly, they have good intentions with the super efficient renewable energy and the socialist structure community, but the kids that grow up there are like children of the corn and although its a beautiful place to visit and experience, I would not recommend it for life.
 |
| Fresh food is picked everyday from the garden |
We get to hike down a mountain that Sunday using a trail literally hundreds of years old that the Spanish used when they first came to Central America. The mountains are gorgeous, and we can see the scalded ridges where the indigenous peoples have burned the forest to make room for more cattle (this is the price of your McDonald's hamburger, btw). The winds are strong and we paint with the colors, Pocahontas style. We see some old indigenous graves, empty and surrounded by stones. We hike something crazy, like 14 kilometers down to the Guanacaste Tribe and see their community, eat by the river, and then walk to the edge of the reserve where the bus meets us to take us home; but not before crossing literally the sketchiest bride I have ever seen in my life, even by Costa Rican standards. Guys, they were literally putting pieces of wood down just for me to walk across. (Spoiler Alert: I made it). This was by far the most amazing field trip experience I have had yet, and I am loving this environmental impact class Leo forced me into taking ! (much love to my CEA crew!)
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| Our Environmental Class joined the other one from our school to descend the mountain on a day-hike from Durika Community to the Guanacaste indigenous tribes |
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| Literally the sketchiest bridge I've ever crossed |
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| Playa Hermosa, a black-sanded beach on the Pacific Coast |
Playa Hermosa is beautiful but hot and we burn our feet walking out to the shore. We soak up the sun and let the waves crash on us. I am literally in Costa Rica right now, chilling on the Pacific, on a glittering black sanded beach, before taking a $5 bus back to San Jose to study Tropical Ecology at my university. When am I waking up to real life, again ? I pray that April never comes.
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