Tortuguero and Coffee Tour

Pura vida mi familia y mis amigos!

We have much to catch up on!

Tortuguero
Two weekends ago (Sept. 24-26) I went on a trip with my gringa friends Corrylee and Abby to a place called Tortuguero. Tortuguero is a tiny little tourist town on the north Caribbean side of Costa Rica that is only accessible by boat or plane because it is cut off by canals (or lagoons - I'm not sure which is the right term). We left for San José at 4:30 a.m. in a taxi, took about a 2-hour bus ride from San José to a town called Cariari, where we waited for a couple hours and then took a hot, sweaty, bumpy, jungley and crowded bus ride to Pavona. Pavona is a rural area where we got on a boat to take us to Tortugero. I was so sleepy that the boat was rocking me to sleep.

When we got there, a local who had been on the bus since Cariari and also on the boat, showed us to our hostel which was called Princess Cabinas Resort, which was our hostel right by the beach. The local, Ricardo, stopped by a house where they had just baked fresh bread. He gave us a sample and it was AMAZING! It had some kind of subtle cheesy, sugary filling, but we were so hungry that it was like manna from heaven!

We got settled in our hostel, got some food, cooled off in the pool, and then it turned out that Ricardo and his brother Ronaldo gave tours, so we paid him for some tours, which I will describe momentarily!

I need to mention that right when we got to the hostel, there were people out surfing at the beach right in front! We were more interested in eating at that moment though, so we didn't get to watch (or join) them. The beach wasn't very nice either - black sand with lots of flies and kind of littered. Supposedly the water has currents too, so we didn't go in.

That night we met with a group of six other tourists, Ronaldo and his little daughter, all of us dressed in dark clothes. Ronaldo gave us some brief instructions and then led us out to the beach to search for momma green sea turtles that come up to lay eggs at night. We found one right away and watched her lay her over 100 eggs by the light of Ronaldo's red lamp. Ronaldo explained that they go into a trance when they lay eggs, so he was able to hold one of her back fins out of the way so we could have a good view. When she finished laying eggs, she started covering up the nest with her fins. We went down the beach in another direction and watched another turtle creep up and start digging her nest, and then went back the other direction and watched another go out to sea. It was so amazing. It was supposed to have been a rainy weekend because of nearby hurricane effects, but it was really clear and almost a full moon, so we could see pretty well!

We learned some sad facts about the turtles. Apparently only 2 out of 1000 turtle eggs will hatch and make it to adulthood. Even before they hatch, they risk being dug up and snatched by raccoons, dogs and even local poachers who eat them. When they do hatch, birds will come and hunt them as they crawl to the ocean, and then those that make it that far have to swim a long ways to safety. Crazy! No wonder they are endangered.

Fun little tidbit was that one tourist in our group was the voice of one of the cartoon ninja turtles from the tv show!

The next day Ricardo took us on a canoe down the canals and pointed out a bunch of wildlife that I probably wouldn't have been able to see by myself. It was incredible how he could spot them! We saw a bunch of different plants, iguanas, a couple different types of herons, a caymen (small crocodile), a couple of howler monkeys, macaws from a distance, a Jesus Christ lizard (so called because it runs on top of the water, and a bunch of other birds. Sometimes there are manatees in the canals, but it is really rare to see them, so needless to say, we didn't see one.

Afterwards, we went on a short hike with our new British friends that we made, named Hannah and Lucia. We didn't see much except for howler monkeys from a distance and a little land turtle.

That afternoon we got coffee and banana bread at a little café owned by a lady named Dorling. Dorling was really nice and ended up talking to us for about an hour about some writing she was working on. She, like 85% of the Tortuguero population, was Nicaragua and knew a lot about the history and politics of Nicaragua's past. She writes about that and about experiences of interesting individuals who have stories to tell related to culture and history. It was a really cool conversation. Well, it was pretty much just her talking and us nodding our heads and saying "Mmm, sí," but it was really cool to hear what one of the locals had to say.

Another tidbit about the locals is that, since it IS the Caribbean, there is a small Afro-Caribbean population in Tortuguero who speak a really different version of broken English, whose name I can't remember at the moment. A few of them ran the hostel we stayed at, so we got a sample of how they talk, but didn't really understand anything they said!


That night we went out to dinner with Hannah and Lucia, and then walked around town a little bit before going to bed. Dinner was chicken with a coconut sauce, two different kinds of rice, typical cabbage salad and veggies and was delicious! I met a girl in town who was from Spokane and new people who go to Whitworth. Weird!

The next day we made the trip home, accompanied by Hannah and Lucia all the way to San José. I forgot to mention that they just graduated from "uni" in England and had spent two months traveling from Mexico through Central America and had just gotten to Costa Rica on Friday. Poor Hannah had her backpack stolen on one of the bus rides. She'd put it up above her and dozed for a few minutes, so that when we got to our stop, it had disappeared. Thank the Lord, she had her passport in a fanny pack under her shirt though! Other than that, we had fun getting to know them!

Well, since I am sooo detailed, I can't fill in the rest of the haps here at the moment, but I'll talk about today and then fill in the holes later.

Coffee Tour Fieldtrip
Today is Saturday, on which I went with my Spanish and culture class on a fieldtrip to Santa María de Dota, which is a coffee plantation. We got a little tour informing us about the toasting and cultivating process of their coffee and then were treated to a little presentation by some barristas, one of which was a girl who had one the nation barrista championships two years in a row! They made us some samples and then we piled into the van.

We then drove about a half hour up in the hills to a small organic coffee farmer's house. The women of the household made us these delicious sandwiches! Then the farmer took us on a walk, giving us very impassioned talks about sustainable living, agro-chemicals, contaminated water, economics, etc., all of which was kind of scattered and hard to follow, but very thought-provoking nonetheless. He also showed us the house of a couple indigenous women, which was pretty basic and bare. He told us that he and some other farmer friends are working to give the women new types of stoves to use that are more environment friendly, because they don't emit dangerous chemicals like a woodstove does. We were all a little confused about what exactly he was trying to tell us, but felt that his main point was that he was trying to do his part, no matter how small, to save the planet and care for the indigenous women in his area. If anyone's interested in his stove project, go to www.SeaChar.org.

We went back to the house for cafecito and then packed ourselves into the van and drove through the foggy mountains to get back to Heredia at 5:30. We all have group projects about some aspect of coffee, so my group met to talk when we got back and then I took the bus home with my friend Holly. Now I must work on my part of the project, but will definitely be writing another post soon. Hopefully I will learn to be more succinct so you won't have to read novels! Love you all and please remember me in your prayers.

Pura vida,
Caitlin

P.S. My internet is being troublesome, so I will post pictures later as well.

Haircut...Costa Rican Style

This past Friday the 17th, my exchange student friend, Jennifer, took me to a hairstylist that her mama tica had taken her to, to dye her hair. He works out of his home, which is right next to the university, because his salon was robbed last October. So now he's just working and saving up to get a new place to work out of. Anyway, so we go up and knock on the front door at nine in the morning, and Jen tells me that you have to be very persistent to get anyone to answer the door. The building he lives in is almost like a hostel, with a bunch of different people in separate rooms who share a common area and bathrooms and kitchen. After we knocked, I saw a woman's face peek through the curtains by the front door, but no one answered. We waited a couple minutes, went around to another side of the house, where we yelled "Carlos!" towards what Jen said was the hairstylist's room. No answer. Jen said that he must be asleep still. We go back to the front door and knock again and wait. Still no answer. We waited about fifteen minutes total and Jen finally said, "This is the first time I actually feel like giving up!" But just then someone answered the door. It was the girl I'd seen peek through the window. Oh, I forgot to mention that Carlos doesn't even know that we're coming. He doesn't have a phone, so Jen sent his friend a text telling him that we were coming, but never got a response. So as we climb the stairs and walk down the hall towards Carlos's room, I'm telling Jen, "I don't want to wake him up if he doesn't even know that we're coming," but she reassures me that it's fine because he needs the money. So we wake him up and wait in the common room for him to brush his teeth and get his styling tools. I told him that I just wanted a trim with long layers, to which he responds, "WELL, the style in Costa Rica right now is to do this zig-zag layering on the ends. All the girls are getting their hair cut like that." So I just said, fine, do what you want but don't take off a lot (in kinder-sounding Spanish words). He took about an hour and a half for a trim, haha! Jen had also told me that he likes to play matchmaker so she asked him if he had a a tican boyfriend for me, and he said, "Yes, yes, of course! He's coming in a bit to get his hair braided!" So the braids-guy, whose name is Christian, comes over and we all chat it up and watch Toy Story and futbol on tv as he's cutting my hair. I was anxious to go start my homework but then he tells me he's going to get curlers and that I had to wait a half hour with curlers in my hair! So I told myself, pura vida, just relax and enjoyed the conversation, which consisted of a lot of broken English and Spanish. And he actually did do a good job with my hair, despite my doubts. So there you have it, the most interesting hair cut of my life!


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Rafting, Volcano, Independence Day and other Tidbits

Hello friends and family! Sorry for being such a slow blogger. Here are a few highlights from the past three weeks:

Rafting
Two Saturdays ago I went rafting with a group of nine other exchange students from my program in a region called Turrialba. We caught a bus from Heredia to San José at 6:00ish in the morning, took a taxi from that bus stop to another bus station, took another bus for about an hour to Turrialba, where a guy from the company we signed up with took us in another smaller bus for about a forty minute ride mostly on a bumpy dirt road to the river. There, we split into two boats. I was in one with five other girls and a guide, and then the other raft had three of our girls, one of our guys, a Mexican guy and girl and the Tican guide. They gave us helmets, paddles and lifejackets, showed us a few techniques and off we went. It was a beautiful sunny morning, so in between rapids we would chat with the guide, watch bright blue “morpha” butterflies fly around or gaze at the greenery all around us. The rapids were pretty epic. We charged some class three and even class four rapids! Sometimes, if we were going over a rough rapid, the guide would tell us all to sit down in the bottom of the raft, instead of on the side where you normally sit when you paddle. On one of the class four rapids he yelled, “Get down!” so we all got inside. But then the raft filled with water and everyone, including the guide fell out! When I came above water I looked back and saw the guide crawling back in the raft, but I just kept floating along nearby my friend Ashli, holding onto my paddle and keeping my feet up, like they told us to, so that they wouldn’t get caught on a rock on the bottom. There were guys in single kayaks who’d been cruising alongside us, so at that point, one of them came up and was telling us to swim to the left, away from the current, but it was so strong that we couldn’t really do anything but literally go with the flow. Before I knew it, I was being heaved out of the water by David, the guy from our group and the Mexican guy who were in the other raft. They saved three of us, our guide saved the other three and everyone ended up safely back in our raft. One of the girls lost a paddle, but we ended up retrieving that, too, when it floated past our raft. I wasn’t really scared the whole time – I just kept telling myself, “Stay calm. You surf. You’ve been held under before. You can handle this. God’s is in control.” Everyone was completely fine and we all laughed about it afterwards. No one fell out after that. We stopped on a riverbank shortly after that for lunch, had sandwiches and fruit and relaxed a bit, and then hopped back in the raft for about another hour of paddling. There was one really cool part where we went through a ravine of sorts that was enclosed on the right and left with mountains and a suspension bridge crossing overhead. At that point the guide let us all (well he kind of made us) get out of the raft and just float on our backs for a while. It was soooo nice. A professional photographer had been following us down the river taking pictures, so all the girls in my raft split the cost of a picture cd. My face came out pretty hilarious in all of them – super intense and focused and embarrassing…you’ll have to see for yourself. We were very sleepy on the bus ride home.

Group Excursion to Volcán Poás and la Catarata de la Paz
This past Saturday we had an official ISEP (International Student Exchange Program) excursion to a volcano called Poás and a waterfall garden called La Paz. I guess we really lucked out in seeing a clear view of the volcano, because my host dad told me later that it's usually completed clouded over. He said he's been at least twice, but never seen it. We took a short hike to a lookout above the crater and watched smoke spume out of it. It was awesome! Then we took another short hike through a pretty forest to a lagoon, which was a bright blue color. After that we got back on the bus and went to La Paz and had a lot of lunch! The resort at the gardens is so nice!
It had a cute jungley theme, so even going into the bathrooms made you feel like you stepped right into Swiss Family Robinson. The Gardens had much more than waterfalls and plants. It was more like a zoo of Costa Rican wildlife. We went through a butterfly house, saw monkeys, went into the bird house, a reptile house and rainforest frog house. It was all amazing, but I think the bird house was my favorite because I got to hold a tucan on my shoulder! The frogs were pretty cool, too though. After La Paz, Ivelina took us to a souvenir shop and a restaurant where we got strawberry smoothies and dessert. We were stuffed, but it was so good!

September 13, 2010
Four things worth talking about from today:
1. I had my first Spanish exam, which the teacher had assured us would be “muy, muy fácil,” and it was very, very easy, except for a few tricky things. I think I did well!
2. I finally mustered up the guts to go play with the girls’ soccer team. One girl from my Spanish class named Jennifer, who’s an exchange student as well, has been playing on the team for over a month now, and told me that the coach is very easy-going and really understanding and flexible about attendance at practice and games. So I just went up and introduced myself to the coach, Amelia, and hopped in on the drills. My soccer skills are rusty! I did alright, but definitely need some practice. Another big factor, though, was the fact that since it rains so much, the field was pretty soggy. There were about three mud pits in the half of the field we were playing on so everyone got really muddy, and which you can imagine makes obstacles to avoid where you’re running around. Plus, I don’t have cleats yet, which made it even more slippery in my sneakers! I had fun, though, and met a couple girls on the team who surf! One even told me she has a six-foot short board!
3. I had my “Pablo” class at six, which was good! We studied Galatians, but now we’re moving on to Philippians.
4. I was a total klutz today. I slipped and fell twice and ended up with five separate cuts on my right hand all in one day! The first three scratches appeared on one finger at soccer practice…don’t know how they got there. The first slip was after soccer practice. I had to walk down the hill from the school in the rain to make a bank deposit for a student visa transaction. On the way back I was crossing the McDonald’s drive-through outlet and slipped on a white painted arrow and fell on my left side. A man happened to be crossing at the same and gasped, “Muchacha!” and offered his hand, but I was already up. I scratched my foot a teensy bit and got my pants a little wet, but was fine. Then, at night class I cut another finger trying to close my umbrella. After class, I caught the bus to a stop about five minutes from my house. I walked through this little park right by my house and almost made it back fine, but slipped on a muddy part of the sidewalk right before the stairs that lead down to the street, and fell right on my caboose. I got home and cleaned the mud off of everything and found two more cuts on my right palm from falling. It was a trying day with the rain and mud, but pura vida!

15 de setiembre – Costa Rican Independence Day
Today was Costa Rica’s Independence Day, so for about a week prior to today, when I’ve walked past the central park in the afternoons, I’ve seen some sort of gathering, usually with music and folkloric dancing. All of Heredia has been decked out with Costa Rica flags and colors and coats of arms for a couple weeks now, too. The main celebrations started on Tuesday afternoon of the 14th, with the torch ceremony. It’s kind of like the Olympic torch idea, except it represents Central American independence. The torch is lit in Guatemala and then passes through Honduras and Nicaragua and then finally to San José, Costa Rica, where it is dispersed throughout the other provinces, including Heredia, where it is passed on to various little barrios. I should probably learn the history better, but I’m pretty sure that these four countries share Sept. 15 as their independence day because they were all liberated from Spanish rule around the same time. Please correct me if I’m wrong or feel free to enlighten me on the details!
So, on Tuesday afternoon I had my “Alternative Therapies” class, where I was supposed to give a group presentation that ended up getting postponed to next week since we had an hour-long conversation at the beginning of class and some other students had to finish up older presentations. Then after class, a Tican girl named Andrea, who is one of the two Andreas in my group project, took me to a Colombian ice cream shop about ten minutes from campus where we got “granizados,” which is a cup full of slushy, pieces of fruit, condensed milk, and topped off with a scoop of ice cream. It was delicious, needless to say! I had a really good time talking to Andrea, who is a year older than me, majoring in business administration (I think?) or something along those lines and has a contagious smile! Afterwards we went to the park where the festivities had started. We ate churros (oh yes, more sugar!) and watched some folkloric dancing. I met up with some exchange student friends and Andrea eventually left to go watch the festivities in her town. The big thing of the night was a little mini-parade of “faroles,” which are home-made or store-bought torches, made out of cardboard and decorated with tissue paper, with a candle glued inside it. It’s mostly something that kids are really into, so there were a bunch of families with kids and their lanterns that circled the park for the “parade” of sorts.
The next day (Wednesday), was feriado (holiday), of course, since it was Independence Day. I met with some friends around 7:30 at the park to find a good spot to sit and watch the parade. All of the benches were already taken, so we found a spot on the sidewalk. The sidewalks filled up pretty quickly, too, so it was a good thing we got there early! The parades started around nine and consisted of marching bands, cheerleading squads, flag-holder groups (sorry, I went to a tiny private school, I don’t know the names of these things), dancers, clowns, mimes, etc. The first two and a half hours were elementary students and then finally after about three hours the older student bands came, who were really good, but we were so hot and sweaty that the three of us out of about the ten or so that had started there, got up to get, yes, my second granizado in two days! Although it was hot, I loved the parade and all the different outfits and instruments. I especially liked the portable xylophones that some bands had, which is a typical Costa Rican instrument, and the really good drum bands from high schools.
Today was also the birthday of a friend named Lauren from the exchange program. Her mom had one of our student friends organize a surprise party, so about ten of us showed up at her house with a cake and candles and card and sang her happy birthday in Spanish. She was surprised and it was lots of fun. Her host parents made us lasagna, let us play pool and her dad even played us a few tunes on his guitar as he and his wife sang.