Life in the mountains

So life here goes on, classes have started days are getting a little busier and we have started to get used to the lack of information stimulation. The local shop doesn’t sell newspapers but the owner gets one for his own personal use, sometimes he’s kind enough to give me what he’s finished with. Getting access to the internet is also difficult, a number of the hotels in the area have access via satellite so we usually go every two or three days and try getting our fix in one sitting. The few people who have connections in there houses are all using dial up, which is painfully slow. To be honest, I haven’t really missed not having a TV, mobile phone or any of the other stuff, but the internet is something I definitely do miss.

Today we visited Cloudbridge rainforest reserve, its 220 hectares of pristine rainforest and has great trails for hiking and taking in the scenery. In my opinion its probably one of the highlights of the area, you could kill a day hiking there and you are bound to see some amazing plants and animals. The area was bought back in 2002 and is used to study the biodiversity of the highland rainforests of Central America. If anyone is heading this way sometime soon be sure to check it out!

A few days ago I visited the local city, San Isidro de General. The city is about 45min from the village and is located on a plateau. It’s much lower than San Gerardo and therefore much hotter. It was my first time in a city for more than 2 weeks and the noise, heat and congestion were definitely a culture shock. The sensory overload was similar to the first time I visited Vegas or New York. It was weird seeing that it’s a city about the same size as my home town of Cork, but after been hidden away in San Gerardo for so long I felt the difference. I was glad to get back to base after my few hours in the city

You might have read in my previous entry that Dominical was “hellish”, let me explain. Dominical is a small beach town on the pacific coast, beautiful beach, huge waves basically a surfer’s paradise. Like a lot of places I have visited I think Dominical was probably amazing once upon a time. Unfortunately, it is slowly developing into just another “once beautiful now overrun with drunk tourists” beach town. I think there are more Americans living there now than Costa Ricans. It’s a town that could one day develop into something like Torromolinos or Benidorm on the Spanish coast. If you visit Costa Rica and are looking for a party town with lots of holiday makers this is a good place to go and if I was in that mood I certainly would have spent longer there, but to be honest after two days I had enough. What did it for me was when I saw a drunk tourist do wheelies on his motorbike down the main street while confused locals looked on. Looking back, it was kind of funny, but at the time I wasn’t too impressed; probably because we had just missed our bus. It’s a shame to see a town disappear like that but I guess it's development and money for the people of Costa Rica.

San Gerardo de General, Week two

As we reach the end to our second week in San Gerardo, it’s becoming more comfortable. The first week was a mix of planning classes, meeting with Jenny, the Director of Proyecto San Gerardo and becoming accustomed to our new waking hours of the day. In Costa Rica, the sun shines for about 12 hours, year-round, from 5:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Therefore, all of the daily activities begin earlier than we’re accustomed to. Breakfast is at 6:30, where we sit at the counter in the kitchen sleepily drinking delicious coffee that was grown in the back yard. Breakfast varies from grilled plantains (also grown in the back yard), to other fruits or breads, to beans and rice, which meals are centered around about 80 percent of the time. We’re incredibly lucky to have a great host family, with a wonderful cook as the matriarch. She worked as a cook on Chirripo, the nearby mountain, (the tallest in Costa Rica) which San Gerardo provides the access to. The Fonseca’s also owned a small hotel where Dona Fonseca did all of the cooking and cleaning. Each meal she comes through the curtain, which serves as the kitchen door with a plate of food fit for a king. Granted, we usually have a few minutes of explanation of what vegetable it is, because more often than not, it doesn’t exist outside of this region. I never knew plantains could be cooked in salt water and then mixed with anything from tomatoes, to spinach, to beets with mayonnaise. It’s all quite delicious. Needless to say, we’re not going hungry. Most is grown on the family farm, and the only time we’ve had chicken, it was walking around earlier on the neighbor’s property.

Rafa Fonseca, the father, is 65 years old and an avid mountaineer and runner. Yesterday morning he ran further than half way up Mount Chirripo to meet his daughter, a guide, who was descending from a trekking trip. The trip takes a ‘normal’ person about 6 hours to walk up the steep incline, Rafa ran up and was back down in 3 hours, in time for lunch and a nice afternoon siesta. On non-rainy afternoons (good luck finding one of those during this time of year) he runs to the nearby city, and by nearby, I mean 15 miles on a steep, rocky, dirt road. Kevin mentioned last night that there must be something in the vegetables!

We’ve started teaching this week and all is going well. We have everything from people that can’t speak a word, to children with American parents. The education system has really shifted in the last 10 years, because everyone before that basically finished elementary school and went to work on the farm. Most families in the previous generation had at least 6 or 8 kids, all who now have family houses on large farm plots where they all work. They work hard, hence the 7 p.m. bedtime most days.

I’m really enjoying the time here, and I think over the next 6 weeks, (we’ll be here for 8 weeks total) we’ll continue to not only teach, but also learn a lot.