Monteverde, Barba, & Life in Ciudad Colon

Pica Caballo w/Amy's foot and 100 Colones for comparison

Suspension bridge in Selvatur Park in Monteverde

Ahhh....tropical flowers

A dark picture of the group...sorry.

White-faced capuchin feeding.

More cloud forest from suspension bridges.


A Delinquent Blog: Monteverde (8/5-8/6) and Barba (8/12-8/13):

Greetings to all…many apologies to those who follow our blog religiously (that would be Linda and Betsy from the postings, thanks!) for we have been delinquent for a couple of weeks now, and there is a lot to catch you up on.

Amy has been settling into a routine here over the past couple of weeks. She has started to take some Spanish classes from a woman named Roxanna, and it seems as though she is not only learning, but enjoying it! Roxanna has been teaching Amy all sorts of good Costa Rican slang that even David has no idea what it means. So, by the time we are done here Amy will be outdoing him in the slang department. Amy also has very interesting and useful homework assignments, like telling David stories, doing interviews of local people over the phone, and other tasks that generally force her to get out there and try (which is the only way to really learn). Amy has taken to sweeping frequently, and has outright declared that we can never have a house with white tile. David reassured her that he agrees, so she need not worry J.

David’s life is settling into a routine as well. He has been hard at work trying to prepare his class for the beginning of the semester, and is slowly being roped into committee work. With such a small faculty, and many good ideas floating around, somebody has to make them happen…which unfortunately means there are MANY committees. David enjoys working with his colleagues in the Environment, Security and Peace Department (a bunch of guys, a bit gender unbalanced but a good group of people). David is actually now a real person now that his faculty bio has been put up on the UPEACE homepage (“The new phonebooks are here! The new phonebooks are here! I’m a real person!”). His class starts the 18th of September, and his students have informed him, “no pressure”, that they are very excited for his classes and the perspective that he will bring. Ha!

OK, OK, enough of the boring stuff, on to the fun traveling around Costa Rica. Two weeks ago we had the fine pleasure of joining in with the Spanish women again for a trip to Monteverde, the cloud forest that lies some 5 hours (by bus) northwest of San Jose. The ride to Monteverde was a pretty long one, and the last 50 kilometers or so took a REALLY long time since the road is a torn up dirt road that rides right along sheer drop-offs. We couldn’t help but think of our friend Carol and her perilous trips through Bolivia on the world’s most dangerous road. It wasn’t quite that bad, but Amy was pretty tense for a while. Monteverde is a small community that was originally founded by Quakers to farm; making milk, cheese, and other milk products. The climate there is cool and rainy most of the time…hence the cloud forest that makes this one of the most visited places in all of Costa Rica. The area has several areas that are protected on various levels: community-based reserves, private land conservation, and state-sponsored park areas. It is clear that the area thrives on the throngs that come here despite the bad road. Throngs is probably overstating it, but there is a thriving tourism business there which is growing the community and driving many local people out due to higher prices. A process that isn’t much different than other places we all know.
We only stayed 24 hours, and we really wanted to stay some more, but it just wasn’t a possibility. However, in that 24 hours we managed to pack in a quite a bit. Upon arrival we found a nice little set of cabins to rent from…$10 a person between the 7 of us for two cabins, and they were cute, well-maintained, etc. After settling in, we went for hike in the Children’s Reserve run by and for the benefit of the local schools. It was a fun couple of hours in the secondary forest that started out with some very close views of white-faced capuchins…almost too close at times. We also were treated to the thrilling sounds of the “bonk-bird,” (Three-Wattled Bellbird) which haunted the forest with its “bonks” and shrills. We spotted one flying too! Amy managed to dig up some neat centipedes and other exciting bugs to show off to others, and we saw a nice Morpho butterfly! Again we were treated to a pair of Lora snakes, which this time were safely snoozing in a tree. All in all, it was a good few hours in the forest except for Juan Pa’s sudden waves of illness…a virus we were all glad we didn’t get. That night we went to the Morpho restaurant for dinner….and it was good.
The next day was rung in with real excitement, which meant that we went for a canopy tour at Selvatur. What is a canopy tour you ask? Well, there are basically two parts: one is a set of suspension bridges that go out across the canopy of the forest (about 80 feet up or so, and more) and the other part is when they strap you into a harness and you get to go down zip lines at about 200+ feet above the cloud forest floor!!! The suspension bridges and trail were cool because you really got to see lots of forest and birds…so many hummingbirds (yes Paula…colibri) it was amazing. The zip lines were more exciting, clearly. Despite all of our nervousness, it was a lot of fun to zip across these huge expanses only connected by a harness, hanging above the canopy. Dave learned that he is not very good at it since he didn’t curl his legs up very well, which meant that he got stuck in the middle of one of the lines and had to haul himself across much of the space. Oh well. Amy was still smiling from the adrenaline rush, especially after the “surprise” in the middle. We’d tell you what it was, but that would ruin your tour when you come down to visit us…let’s just say it’s a rush that made some expletives fly out of David’s mouth and made Amy elicit a little girl scream that David has never heard! After the tour, it was time to catch the bus home, where we were all able to get some sleep, and recondition ourselves to the heat that exists in the lower elevations.

So, the week after went by quickly, and Amy and David were treated to another Thursday night festival at the casa de las Espanolas, at which David presented a team effort sopa azteca, guacamole, and his companero Juan Pa cooked up some chicken salbutes and elotes…a Mexican feast was had…replete with Tequila! At that party a new friend Oscar, who works as a network/web guy at UPAZ invited us up to his cabins in the mountains across the central valley to celebrate his wife’s birthday. So, Friday afternoon we loaded up into Oscar’s jeep to head off to shop for some food and then off to the Volcan (Volcano) Barba area. We enjoyed a fun night of getting to know some new Tico friends, and especially enjoyed their friend Fernando who has been working in the Southern U.S., and has managed to pick up on Southern slang and attitude. Pretty hilarious! The next day we attempted to climb Barba Volcano, but were thwarted by the condition of Oscar who looked like he was going to die. We decided to turn around, headed back to the cabins and fished with handlines for some of the trout (trucha) that they have in the pond on their property. They used to farm trucha, but gave up the business a while back. So, after lazing around for a few hours, we headed back home…thanks again to the kindness of Oscar!

So, the last exciting news to report is that the fiestas patronales are happening here in Ciudad Colon to celebrate the virgin…not of Guadalupe…but were not quite sure which one yet. Obviously we need to ask some more questions. Basically, it seems like it is a good reason to throw a party in August. We went to the fairgrounds and had a few beers while cruising around checking out the scene. The scene was composed of many games of chance, two bars (one free and another with a cover charge), some rides that made you wonder how safe they were, lots and lots of people just sort of standing around with their hands in their pockets, and competing sounds systems cranked to the loudest volume possible. Amy had a lot of luck with the roulette sort of game, and we actually left with about the same amount of money that we entered with…not bad.
The next day was time for the “Tope,” which was basically a parade of horses and riders (about 500 or more of them) who ride through the center of town showing off the special cantors and other paces that the horses can do. All types of horses ridden by men and women in various states of drunkenness, cheered on by a crowd of variously drunk Ticos that lined the streets. It was quite a scene. After having stood on the sidewalk waiting for the event to start for two hours (they need to be properly lubricated…drunk…before the event can start), and then watching an hour or more of drunken riders, it was time to head home.

Well, sorry for the lengthy report. That’s what happens when you go delinquent for a couple of weeks, there is lots to report. We hope that all of you are doing well, and until the next time: Esperamos que todo este bien consigo.

Saludos, abrazos y besos a todos.

David and Amy