We’ve been very busy in San Luis! Here’s a little round up
of our few weeks here...
Sendero Pacifico Hike
To orientate ourselves with the trail and start collecting
footage for the video, Bro and I went on a two-day hike on the already existing
section of the Sendero Pacifico trail, from San Luis to the community of
Guacimal. The very lovely Canadian Trail Intern Caroline, and the very
knowledgeable Francis came with us to show us the way.
I can’t describe how spectacular the views were, and how magnificent the forest is. We spent the night in the very rustic but very beautiful Amapala Albergue, and thoroughly exhausted ourselves, but it was totally worth it. The walk however did highlight how widespread farming is in the region, and the devastating impact this has had on the land and the biodiversity in the region…something the project is trying to combat.
I can’t describe how spectacular the views were, and how magnificent the forest is. We spent the night in the very rustic but very beautiful Amapala Albergue, and thoroughly exhausted ourselves, but it was totally worth it. The walk however did highlight how widespread farming is in the region, and the devastating impact this has had on the land and the biodiversity in the region…something the project is trying to combat.
I’m afraid despite lugging my SLR the entire way, I didn’t
really take any photos as I felt too ill to get my camera out, so here’s the
couple I do have.
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| What a dashing little fellow! |
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| One of the many stunning views down the Pacific Slope looking towards the Nicoya Gulf |
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| Bro, Caroline and Francis -stopping for a quick lunch at one of the peaks |
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| One of Bro's pictures taken from the Alberge, watching the sun set over the slope |
Resident Parasite
Over Christmas, I made the foolish mistake of boasting to
someone we met that I’d not been ill yet on our trip. Lo and behold, the winds
of fate turned their malicious gusts against me, and by the time we’d reached
San Luis to start our work with Sendero Pacifico, I was not in very good shape.
The thing is you don’t want to turn up somewhere new and start moaning about
your belly. Added to that, on my first morning in San Luis, someone made the
mistake of saying to me with a concerned look… “the only thing is you might
have to get your hands dirty”…which is a sure fire way of me rip off my bra and
dive into the nearest pile of mud just to prove them wrong and wave my feminist
flag in their face. So I was hardly going to advertise my dodgy tummy…
So after surviving the hike, but not feeling any better I
finally gave in and we went to the doctors.
Queue one of the weirdest experiences of our trip...
...A private clinic at 100 bucks a pop-Not only can you get treated here, but you can also buy aromatherapy oils…and nailvarnish (which were lined up for your perusal on the Doctor’s desk). The Doctor (think Kim Kardashian-esque, uber glamerous, significantly curvaceous Costa Rican woman in her late 20s, complete with fake nails and fake eyelashes) after asking us to help her fish out one of the afore-mentioned unruly false eyelashes from her eyeball, then introduced us to her pet cat (called Snookums or something equally vomit-inducing) who proceeded to curl up on her emergency bag, from which she later produced her ‘sterile’ instruments for measuring my vital organs (or similar).
...A private clinic at 100 bucks a pop-Not only can you get treated here, but you can also buy aromatherapy oils…and nailvarnish (which were lined up for your perusal on the Doctor’s desk). The Doctor (think Kim Kardashian-esque, uber glamerous, significantly curvaceous Costa Rican woman in her late 20s, complete with fake nails and fake eyelashes) after asking us to help her fish out one of the afore-mentioned unruly false eyelashes from her eyeball, then introduced us to her pet cat (called Snookums or something equally vomit-inducing) who proceeded to curl up on her emergency bag, from which she later produced her ‘sterile’ instruments for measuring my vital organs (or similar).
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| Better to be safe than sorry...I did my Google Translate homework before we left for the docs! |
From rather dubious first impressions however, she did proceed to give a convincing and thorough display of doctoring, gave me a reassuringly intricate physical inspection (door wide open of course), a gruelling interrogation regarding our previous movements over the last month (took about a decade) and a gruesome inquisition about the behaviour of my bowels and the nature of their contents (including the composition, colour, typical projection (!!) and indeed frequency), and concluded that I had acquired a friendly resident parasite in Panama (not Costa Rica of course)…all whilst simultaneously texting in her spare hand.
The solution?...Three different types of pills, 3x hydrolyte drinks and eat lots of fruit and veg….the latter being near impossible in our current state of 3x-rice-and-beans-per-day homestay setup (see below). The pills seemed to do the trick though, and I’m happy to say I’m now feeling much better J.
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| Not too many pills then...not sure whether I actually needed all these, or whether they just conveniently cranked up the bill (a grand total of $300)! Hurrah for insurance! (And hurrah for the NHS-thank God we don't usually have to think about health bills!) |
Rice and Beans
This being a community project, we decided that during our
stay in San Luis, we’d stay in a local homestay to get a more authentic
experience and so that our money was being fed back into the community. I have
to say that this was one of the most fulfilling experiences from our time in
Costa Rica. Armed with a reassuring grand-total of about 5 Spanish words
between us, Bro and I were introduced to our host family…who we were told spoke
not a word of English between them. This was going to be fun.
Queue two weeks of crazy gesticulating, amusing (and
surprisingly successful) charade-ing and horrifyingly inaccurate attempts at
constructing sentences using our meagre repertoire of Spanish vocabulary.
When stumped for a way of communicating something, and with
nothing useful in our paltry Spanish word banks, our favourite strategy was to
firstly try the French version (more fruitful than you might suspect), secondly to say the word in English but in a Spanish accent (of course
Brodie’s favourite…although inevitably sounding more Italian), and finally putting an
‘o’ on the end. Then combine the word with a marvellous jumble of Spanglish,
and accompanying gestures and it is absurd how much you can communicate.
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| Caroline, Jack, Bro and I having a drink in The Treehouse-apparently one of the "World's Top 10 Bizarre Restaurants"! (It has a tree growing in the middle of it!) |
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| Bro, me, Kriss, Yadira and Yadira's husband (he was only there at weekends and we couldn't figure out what his name was...until it got passed the point of being acceptable to ask so now he shall have to forever be Yadira's husband!). I know they don't look too happy, but I assure you they were. |
Every day we’d come home and try to relay the events of our
day at the Community Centre (or where-ever we’d been) and try as we might we
could not get the bloody Spanish word for community centre (“centro
comunitario”) into our heads...it would go something like…
“Hoy (pointing at the floor), nosotros (pointing at
ourselves) at the Centralo comuninityaryario (waving in the vague direction of
the community centre) saw (pointing at our eyes) un grande frogo verde (both
try to do a frog impression and making ribbit noises)” to the amuse/bemusement
of our polite hosts. If ever there were an example of the power of total
communication, this would be it.
Perhaps even more surprisingly is that we actu
The downside to our homestay? It’s no secret that Tico’s
love their rice and beans. I didn’t realise quite how much until we stayed with
Yadira…you get rice and beans for breakfast (sometimes with scrambled egg on
top), rice and beans for lunch (occasionally with chicken) and rice and beans
for dinner (if you’re lucky, with spaghetti…yes you have carbs on top of your
carbs). I’m not even exaggerating…. I’m not ashamed to say that that my
digestive system is not the most chilled out department of my body at the best
of times…throw in the fact that I was pretty ill for the first week of our
homestay…with the associated side effects….and you perhaps get an idea of the
extent of how much I now ABSOLUTELY HATE RICE AND BEANS! Which bodes well for
our remaining 2 months in Central America!
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| Our little home in San Luis |
Despite language and bean related obstacles, we loved our
stay with this marvellous family. They were so incredibly welcoming, and made
every effort to make us feel at home, and we felt like we had our most
authentic Costa Rica experience yet.
Work
Of course the reason for being here was to work. So to give
you a taste of what we were up to, Bro spent the entire time filming and
editing and a video to advertise the Sendero Pacifico trail. I, as I said
before, did a little of everything. I helped Brodie film, was the usual runner/dogsboddy for his interviews, I translated documents for the Community Development
Association, I put together an activity pack for an American group of
volunteers who were arriving from the Appalachian Trail, and I helped organise
the group when they finally arrived, including trouble shooting back in the
office, organising trips and getting stuck in with their trail work. It was
great working with Nat, Caroline, Jack and Hugo and I think we made a pretty good
team in that remote little Centario comuniunitarioario.
I have to say the American group who arrived about 5 days before we left were perhaps the most absurd collection of human beings I’ve ever encountered in one place!...I swear that country is a breeding ground for extreme personalities and I’m ashamed to say that they unfortunately did a superb job of reinforcing all of my stereotypes of Americans which I’ve been trying so hard (although failing dismally) to shed. Still, it led to some entertaining conversations (participating in or eavesdropping on…) which shall remain with me for a long time to come, and I'm pleased to say that I don't believe any of them were Team Trump...That said, huge kudos to them for giving up their own time for a worthy cause and for working so hard-I was amazed at the progress they made each day and the positive spirit in which they embraced the challenge....and I did have Caroline, Nat and Jack to remind me that not all Americans are crazy.
I have to say the American group who arrived about 5 days before we left were perhaps the most absurd collection of human beings I’ve ever encountered in one place!...I swear that country is a breeding ground for extreme personalities and I’m ashamed to say that they unfortunately did a superb job of reinforcing all of my stereotypes of Americans which I’ve been trying so hard (although failing dismally) to shed. Still, it led to some entertaining conversations (participating in or eavesdropping on…) which shall remain with me for a long time to come, and I'm pleased to say that I don't believe any of them were Team Trump...That said, huge kudos to them for giving up their own time for a worthy cause and for working so hard-I was amazed at the progress they made each day and the positive spirit in which they embraced the challenge....and I did have Caroline, Nat and Jack to remind me that not all Americans are crazy.
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| Bro, me and Nat |
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| With Caroline, Nat and Jack in the Centerio Communitararario |
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| Goodbye hugs! |
Giant Fig
We climbed a giant strangler fig. Up the middle of it. 50
meters. To the canopy. And ate crisps. I don’t think I need to say any more
than that apart from the blatantly obvious…This was fantastically, insanely, petrifyingly
AWESOME!
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| A rather elegant pose by Bro! If you look carefully you can see Caroline peeping through at the top! |
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| Thanks for the photo Jack-this hopefully gives you a sense of the scale of the thing...I was pretty damn scared at the top! |
So that was our experience in San Luis in a pretty giant nutshell.
This is such a wonderful community who, without meaning too sound clichéd,
really are an inspiration and made such a big effort to make us feel welcome
that we felt quite bereft to be leaving. If you’re ever in Costa Rica and take
a trip to Monteverde, look up San Luis and give them a visit, and perhaps even
go on the hike-you won’t regret it!
Thank you to Yadira and family, Noe, Hugo, Magdelena, Eugenio, Marcos, Giovanni and all of the other wonderful members of the San Luis Community for welcoming us into your family!
Thank you to Yadira and family, Noe, Hugo, Magdelena, Eugenio, Marcos, Giovanni and all of the other wonderful members of the San Luis Community for welcoming us into your family!
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| An inquisitive red-legged honeycreeper-what a little beaut! |
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