Costa Rica is a country that obviously has more money than other Central America neighbours. First of all daily life is much more expensive than the surrounding countries. The supermarkets are full to the brim and have anything you desire, including luxuries from home. People dress well here, even in country towns women wear heels to walk upon dusty and uneven dirt roads with makeup and 'dress to impress' outfits. Everyone is very polite and customer service is very prominent, a little like in the U.S. Costa Rican culture seems to be a little less obvious with such a strong international influence, especially because there are numerous foreigners both who have decided to make Costa Rica a base as well as many tourists, more so than in other Central American countries. This is probably one of the reasons why Costa Rica is as expensive as it is. When we were there, the country was getting ready for elections and therefore had billboards, posters and groups of lobbiers regularly out and about campaigning for their respective political parties. Laura seemed to be a very popular candidate with busloads of loyal supporters happily cheering for her as they went around the city, drumming up support for their party (Partido Liberación Nacional, a social democratic party) and candidate. It proved to serve its purpose as a week or so later Laura became president.
As per usual, we stayed with some couch surfers in a town called Liberia, northwest of Costa Rica; a place that many tourists stop at, in between continuing onto the Pacific beaches that are only a short 40 mins away.
The town is pleasant enough and supplied us with a quantity of shops from which we needed to buy a few supplies at, before heading to the farm. The CS’s were an Italian and Tica (what Costa Rican’s are called) couple with a toddler. They had just moved from the UK to start a new life in Costa Rica. With Italian tendencies, no need to say that we ate like royalty with an abundance of condiments and delicacies. On our last day in Liberia, we stayed with another CS couple who were also mixed, this time from the states and Costa Rica. We spent the afternoon chatting about all sorts of topics from the Maya’s beliefs and predictions to shaman ceremonies that they had been to and even got a full tour of the house which they had designed and built, as sustainable as possible. They had a 6-year-old girl (Ana) who was gorgeous, confident and very imaginative. We went into town to buy a few groceries for the pizza that we were to make that night and Agustin and Ana walked around hand-in-hand with witch’s hats on. Ana had decided that a Santa’s helpers costume was the perfect combination to go with the hat and she skipped around with Agus concocting and devising witches plans. The next day we managed to get a ride in 5 minutes flat almost all the way to the farm in a short and enjoyable three hours, instead of the dreadful 6 or 7 hours that it would have taken us if we had gone with the bus. The man who gave us a ride, Martin, a big talker about all things, related to us about his kids, his job, travelling and his hitching experiences about picking up an exotic dancer who reeked after a full night of work, off to continue to another bar for the morning. “Pero era wapisima!” he said with a hilarious rising inflection! He told Agustin to get into the back squashed on a half seat that you find in a 2 seater ute and me in the front with ample room and wouldn’t accept any protest from me. Along the way he bought us mango ceviche, a cocktail of onion, garlic and vinegar that normally goes with seafood but that also works quite well with fruit I discovered.
In the two weeks that we were based on the farm, we managed to farm hop three times! The first ended up being a dud. They had portrayed themselves as being ecological minded but didn’t seem to do anything towards achieving this. The three areas that
they said that we would be working in (permaculture, ranger in the national park and sustainable construction) were nonexistent. I ended up doing two days of concreting (which I put myself forward for), filling in holes for the base of a back porch to the owners house. We used a wheelbarrow with a large hole in it to mix the concrete meaning that much of the concrete would fall straight through the hole, concreting the grass and slowly making its way to the plants and trees nearby. While at this farm, we went to visit another farm close-by, as I had a couple of friends working there. They weren’t there but we did get a grand tour of the farm and were blown away by its philosophy, structure in place, programs for volunteers and the materials used for sustainable construction. On the spot we asked if there was any space for us. We were told that we could start on Friday, that day being Tuesday. We let the other farm know that we were leaving Friday and told them the reasons. At first they took it well until the wife heard and kicked us out saying that they felt used and betrayed. Luckily we were pointed to another farm, this time being a chocolate farm, which accepted us instantly till Friday. We were set to work harvesting cocoa picking the yellow pods and leaving the green or red one’s to mature. We opened the pods on site and slid the white seeds off their tails and wrapped them up in a sack to take them back with us. We also harvested black beans, first making our way up a steep hill and then with out sticks, we pushed the dry bean bushes down the hill to the bottom. We laid down mats and battered the bushes repeatedly causing the beans to fall on the ground in an easy manner. Chocolate was handed around as snack food as we sat around catching our breath from the physical work. Heading back to the farm, we left feeling famished, multiple blisters appearing on my hands but feeling content with the work we had achieved that morning. The next day we were given the task of making chocolates by grinding the cocoa into a fine paste, extracting the excess oils, mixing it with raw sugar and then adding flavours to it such as coffee, vanilla, orange, peanuts and peppermint.
No need to say that we had an abundance of chocolate available for us to eat whenever we wanted. Sweet deal! The family on the farm consisted of four brothers and a mum and dad; a very welcoming and friendly bunch. They had taken over the remaining cocoa trees after the trees in the Mastatal area had suffered from a disease and many farms had to abandon their businesses. On Friday we started our week at Rancho Mastatal. We spent most of the week in classes learning about wood working, compost toilets and bio-digesters (a toilet which transfers the gases that are deposited to a gas stove for cooking with!), how to make soap, how to make fermented vegetables, how to make granola, how to build with earth, solar panels and wind farms and how to cook for 30 people! A big group of interns (15) were starting their three month internship and were being taught all of these things so as to be able to start applying these skills around the farm. The farm functions communally (i.e. taking it in turns to cook for everyone), with many volunteers and interns helping out as well as some long termers who came for the first time many years ago and keep on coming back every year for a few months (mainly from the states). The food is absolutely amazing, all home grown, home made (when possible), tastes incredible and lots of it! The hippiest part of the experience is the group circle which is done every evening before dinner. Everyone goes around and gives thanks for something that’s occurred that day; I always feel a little uncomfortable with these sorts of things and will them to be over as soon as possible, hoping that I don’t break out into giggles during the process. Luckily I didn’t! I met two Brits while there, Flis and Nips who were a nice breath of fresh air filling my time at the ranch with banter and giggles.
One of my new year’s resolutions was to learn new hands on skills. The ranch definitely is a step towards achieving that, therefore both Agus and I are thinking of going back in June to do the internship program for 3 months. Leaving the ranch I felt like I was stepping back into Costa Rica; the farm being a little segregated from the outside world and absorbing all of your time. I was well hyped for some festival goodness having heard about an electronic festival for that weekend in San Jose. I’d been looking forward to this festival for some time as music festivals are rare in these parts and I hadn’t been to any for a good year or so. Upon arriving at the site, there was no one around, no music, nothing apart from Sunday afternoon strollers walking around. We asked a shop attendant close by if she knew anything about the festival, she replied that it had been cancelled at the last minute as the council had not approved it. No need to say that I was a bit more than a little disappointed.
