Cerro del Borrego

Yesterday I decided it was time to do something new, something I have wanted to do since I got here.  I climbed Cerro del Borrego, locally known as 5,000 Escaleras. I paid for it today with tight calves and stiff knees, but it was fantastic!

Orchids and bromeliads grow in all the trees.

El Cerro is a mountain which stands alone within the city limits, detached from the ring of peaks that border the valley of Orizaba.  The mountain itself is lower than it’s sisters, but it offers spectacular views of the city and the outlying areas from its summit. It has both natural beauty and historical significance – it was the site of a battery of cannons intended to protect Orizaba from the French at some point, and nothing much has been cut or built on it since.  The entirety of the mountain has been set aside as a nature park and is maintained by the city.

Man, would I HATE to have that job!  The peak sits at roughly 5,500 feet above sea level,  and the only way to get there is the so-called 5,000 stairs trail.

The beginning of the 5,000 stairs.

Ha!  5,000 stairs my ass!  It’s more like 10,000 stairs with a patch of steep, rocky trail in the middle and a sharp drop-off if you slip.

Fire orchids! They only grow in volcanic soil.

It’s one of the most natural and popular attractions in the city, though, and it is fairly well maintained.  In the last year or so the city has been updating the stairs and is even building more so that, eventually, the nasty patch in the middle will be safer and easier to navigate.  So, in spite of my general distaste for climbing steep trails (Seriously, people!  I lived at or below sea-level for 30 years… I get out-of-breath and weak-kneed much above 4,000 feet!), it was a must that I climb it.

And boy did I climb.  And climb.  And climb.  I am not ashamed to admit that it took me at least an hour, and I stopped a lot to just breathe.  And to take photos.

It was completely worth it!  It was the first time I’d really been hiking since I got to Mexico, and

Have I mentioned before that I live in the bottom of a bowl?

This spider has a great view!

I don’t think I realized just how much I have missed fresh air and nature.  Orizaba is a concrete jungle.  There are trees, but they grow in walled-off gardens or out of gaps cut into the sidewalks.  Even the city parks are mostly cement walkways separated by flower beds.  Getting out of the city and into the forest was incredibly energizing and refreshing.  There were moments when I simply stopped to soak it in, glorying in the smell of dirt and trees and leaf-litter, the song of birds, and the scrabble of little things that live in the underbrush.  As tough as the climb was, and as much as my knees were shaking by the time I got back down several hours later, I couldn’t have been happier.  I will be doing this again.  And again.

Wait, I thought this was supposed to be stairs, not a 45 degree scramble!

The lookout point at the summit.

Butterflies were everywhere at the peak.

At the top, a variety of trails lead to other lookout points, caves, and just off into the woods. Yay!

The countryside to the north of the city.

 

A panoramic view of Orizaba from about half-way up el Cerro.

 

A Walk along the River

The river runs from one side of this valley bowl to the other.

Without doubt, my favorite thing about Orizaba is the river walk.  The rio comes down out of the mountains crystal clear and icy cold and, at some point, slips itself into the steep-banked, mostly paved path it has carved through the center of Orizaba, from one side to the other.  It’s a little surreal to see the water rushing over man-made waterfalls and around the foundations of buildings.  Along each side of the river are sidewalks, and nearly every street that ends at or crosses over the rio has stairs or ramps that take you right down to the path. Dotted here and there along the river walk, sometimes appearing unexpectedly around a curve, are large, well tended enclosures full of animals.  It’s a zoo!  Granted, I’d like for the deer to have some green grass to walk on and lie in, and the monkeys would probably be happy with a little more space to swing and play, but I almost always feel that way about zoos.  You can tell, though, that these animals are well cared for.  None of them seem shy of humans, none of them appear depressed or anxious, none of them are dirty or underfed, and the enclosures get a daily cleaning.  That says a lot about a zoo.

Also dotting the walk are small parks, picnic benches, and little chess tables just waiting to be used.

Walkways, rope bridges, and other foot paths allow walkers the occasional chance to cross the river.

Every bridge arches gracefully over river and walk alike.

Another fun feature of the river walk are occasional pieces of large-scale outdoor sculpture, like this angel hovering beneath a bridge.

I really, really wanted to rub his fuzzy horns.

Bunnies!!!! Squeee!

This big kitty rumbled and rubbed on the bars ’til his caretaker gave him a thorough chin scratch.

Even pigeons have a place here.

Newfangled Bird Alarm

Like jays everywhere, the magpie jays here are bold, loud, and defensive.

Not too long ago now, it seems, I stopped bothering with an alarm clock.  I didn’t bring one to C.R. with me, figuring that I’d have a year (give or take) to wake up whenever I darn-well felt like it.  And I have.  It’s glorious, given my former 5AM alarm-snooze habit and the hate-hate relationship I’ve always had with anything that dared interrupt my sleep (well, most things…).  These days, it’s usually the cat waking me up around 6 to be let out, then the sun waking me up again around 7:30.  I don’t mind the cat- I just reach up, open the window I can touch from the bed, and out he goes.  The sun is okay too.  It’s a slow-and-easy wake up call.

Aracaris letting the whole world know there is a thief in the jungle.

Recently, something rather loud and unusual woke me.  A cacophony of birds. Normally, birds wake up with the sun and get started making noise right away, but it doesn’t phase me.  I sleep like the dead.  One particular morning, though, they were not to be denied.  They screeched.  They cried.  They screamed.  They made noises no bird should ever make, especially not in large numbers at 5 in the morning.  After listening to them grumpily for about 10 minutes, the import of that kind of noise began to sink in.  I could recognize the ridiculously loud call of the blue magpie jays, and the crackly-croak of what I think is a type of grackle, the sweeter trills of some of the local song birds twisted in anger, the piercing cries of parrots and parakeets, and a strange clacking call that I recognized but couldn’t put feathers to.  That’s what really got me moving: the desire to see if I could figure out what bird made that noise.  And figure it out I did.  Sitting directly in front of my porch, in the tree that shades me as I write, was a strange congress of birds, including the elusive and gorgeous collared aracari.  There were three or four of every type of bird I mentioned gathered there.  It was bizarre beyond belief.

And then I saw why.

One BIG snake!

Curled up in the crook of that tree, right at eye level with me and my camera, was the biggest snake I have ever seen in the wild.  He was huge.  As big around as my forearm, and probably 6 feet long.  Maybe more.  It was hard to tell, since he was in ‘hide my head from those damn birds’ mode.  Fortunately, I’m not a wuss when it comes to animals, and I wasn’t scared.  It was a boa.  Until they’re as big around as my thigh and 15 feet long they don’t pose me much threat, and my cat is too smart to go get squeezed by one in broad daylight (or at the crack of dawn).

Even the songbirds were getting in on the action.

I watched and shot photos for at least half an hour as that group of birds, one or two at a time, dive-bombed the snake. They never quite touched him, but they made darn sure he knew they saw him and weren’t about to let him rob their nests without a fight.  And they were letting every other animal in the neighborhood know he was there, too.  Eventually, under extreme duress, the snake unwound itself and slithered back down the tree.  Once he was gone, the birds dispersed, though the jays kept coming back off and on all day to make lots of noise.  I think they were just checking to make sure he’d left the area and wasn’t coming back.

The boa wisely did it's best to hide it's head from the diving birds.

I was excited to see the aracaris.  They aren’t nearly as plentiful or visible as the parrots and parakeets, so that was a treat.  But more, it was truly fascinating to watch all those different species of birds, most of which don’t share the same level of the troposphere, acting together in concert against a shared enemy.  It’s Mama Nature at her finest, proving that we can all work together if we’ve got the right motivation.

Ready. Set. Go!

Kittyus Interruptus

Let me just start by saying that I love Yoga.  It’s part of my everyday routine.  It’s pretty much the first thing I do when I wake up each morning.  Get dressed, sweep the porch, roll out the mat, and spend an hour or so waking up my whole self, breathing deep, getting a little sweaty, stretching my body and my mind.  It just makes me feel good.  And it’s healthy.  That’s important to me these days.  However, it also comes with a heavy dose of humor.  Firstly, I’m not always well balanced.  Sometimes I wobble and end up on my ass.  That’s okay.  I giggle and move on, try again.

And then there’s Monday.  No, not the day, the cat.  He seems to think that Yoga time is play with mommy time.  So, there I am, Standing Forward Bend into Lunge, breathe deep and hold it a few breaths, then swing my foot back into Downward Dog… or try to.  Because somewhere between Bend and Lunge, a cat appeared in the middle of my mat.  So I push him away with my foot and slide it on back.  Ahhh, Downward Dog… Monday, doesn’t see Dog, though.  He sees Face In Reach, and is immediately back, flopped under my nose, patting me for attention and purring.

Sigh.

Downward dog into Plank, I can ignore him.  He’s under me, but not in the way until it’s time for Cobra.  He usually scooches over once his life is threatened, but he won’t leave.  The rest of my practice is like that.  No matter how many times I shove him over, pick him up and drop him elsewhere, or even try to get him interested in a toy… being in my way is just so much more fun!

My Tree is rooted by Cat on Foot.

My Warrior includes Kitty in the Middle.

My Corpse is weighed down by Purring Feline.

He’s inescapable.  And then, at last, came his pièce de résistance. Today, after I shooed him away for the umpteenth time, he wandered off in a huff, only to return 5 minutes later with a lizard dangling from his mouth.  A prize.  A treasure.  “I love you. Look what I brought you!”  And he promptly dropped it at my toes.  It wasn’t a dead lizard.  In .2 seconds it had scurried in terror first under the arch of my foot and then halfway up my leg in it’s attempt to escape the Furry Monster of Deadly Eating that is my Monday.  Yep, that’s my life.

Anybody want a Yoga Cat? He's free!

Carara National Park

Brilliant tropical colors

I live on the back nine of the ass end of nowhere.  Seriously.  I’m an hour’s drive from the ferry, and the ferry is an hour from the mainland. Needless to say, going on a trip is a hassle.  For this reason, I don’t get off the peninsula to do new things a whole lot.  Honestly, why should I?  I’ve got all the beaches, parks, and sunshine I could ever want, right here.  But I still want a change of scenery from time to time. You can only hike the same trails so long before the view gets old and you stop appreciating things quite as much.  So, this last week, Carlos and I hauled ourselves across the Gulf and around the coast down toward Jaco, for a day of hiking through the transition forests of Carara National Park.  (A transition forest here is one that eases from tropical dry forest to tropical rain forest, just FYI.)  I was super excited about the trip.  I love hiking, I love traveling, I love new adventures, but as before stated, I don’t go do new things nearly as often as I’d like. Carlos can’t often take a whole day off from work to go play with me, so that made the trip an extra treat.  Also adding to my excitement was the fact that Carara is home to quite a few Scarlet Macaws, a bird I’ve been dying to see in the wild, and I was crossing my fingers just hoping we’d see them.

The biggest dang gator I have ever seen. Holy crap! 12' long, at least.

I was not disappointed.

We caught the 6am ferry across the Gulf of Nicoya just like we’d planed, but we didn’t get to the park nearly as early as I wanted.  I’d packed food for both breakfast and lunch, and had planned to eat on the road, but Carlos isn’t a big fan of food-on-the-fly.  He wanted to stop and eat.  The restaurant we stopped at had just three employees working, and a tour bus pulled in right behind us.  Breakfast took forever.  But, it was a gorgeous day and we had the whole of it to spend, so I shut up and enjoyed my fresh pineapple juice and scrambled eggs.

A river through the forest

Boa, napping on a stump right in the middle of the trail!

This tree... nearly as big as my house, with a cave beneath it's roots.

We still made it to the park just before 9 and hit the trails pretty quickly.  It was cool with a light breeze under the shade of the forest canopy, and there were few other people noticeably on the trails.  As we hiked we saw birds of every size and description, bats dozing in a tree trunk, orchids in bloom, trees as big around as my house, and even a boa constrictor napping on a stump.  We chatted and laughed as we hiked, enjoyed one another’s company, and I took pictures of everything.  Well…almost everything.  We saw a trio of poison dart frogs in the leaf mold and I tried desperately to get a good shot.  Unfortunately they hop when they’re startled, and Carlos can’t stand still to save his life.  I was happy just to have seen them, but beginning to get disappointed about seeing no Scarlet Macaws.  That’s what I really wanted to see.

And then, in the early afternoon, we heard an ungodly loud noise.  “Monos,” Carlos said, after we paused a moment.

“No, no esta monos,” I replied.  Monkeys sound different.  When they make that kind of ruckus it’s the whole troop screeching, not just two.  “Esta aves,” I declared.

And sure enough, it was birds.  A pair of massive, brilliantly plumed Macaws were playing a strange game of tag in a tree just around the bend from us.  It was a distance off, so none of my photos turned out as amazing as I’d like, but it was the birds I wanted to see.

A pair of scarlet Macaws, high up in the canopy.

From that point until the end of our hike the Macaws were everywhere.  At one point the whole flock (we counted 9, we think) flew by overhead, squawking and screeching vociferously. For me, bliss!

Taking a break for some lunch

We called it a day around 2:30 and miraculously made it back to Puntarenas just in time to snag the last open spot on the afternoon ferry back home.   It was a perfect day!  I was reminded yet again why I love Costa Rica.  There’s such incredible beauty here, and such an intense amount of biodiversity.  The flora and fauna here is dense, lush, colorful, and is found in great abundance.  Even during the dry season the mountains are green and cool, and in spite of the humidity the heat is not overwhelming.  I can’t imagine a more perfect climate than this place during the summer.  It’s divine.

Mango Overload (Salsa Heaven)

Mango tree at the end of my drive

It’s Mango season down here.  You can’t throw a rock without hitting a mango tree, and the trees are  loaded down with fruit.  Mangoes are pretty much my favorite fruit ever, and there’s a massive tree full of them just at the end of my driveway.  Yay!  Right now, though, most of them are green, hard, and sour.  That’s problem number one.

Loaded with mangoes

The second problem is that mangoes are up high, in trees full of spiders and scorpions, and I’m a chicken.  The third problem is that the monkeys are greedy little buggers and you’ll never catch a ripe mango falling from a tree.  The monkeys will get there first.  Sigh.

One bite gone...wasteful monkeys!

What I’ve discovered, however, is that the monkeys are not terribly bright.  They pull off a mango, take a bite, and if it’s too green, toss it down, grab another, and repeat.  The foot of my mango tree is littered with one-bite-missing, hard, green mangoes.  Grrr!  This frustrated the mango lover in me to no end until I realized something:  They also pick and toss some without biting into them!  Plus, they’re howler monkeys.  Do you know how many times I’ve been bitten by howler monkeys working at the wildlife sanctuary?  Seriously…

So, because I can’t stand to see things go to waste, especially the ambrosia that is mangoes, I’ve started lurking at the foot of that mango tree in the late afternoon when the monkeys are in residence.  They drop them, I pick them up.  It’s a beautiful partnership.  I try to collect only ones with no teeth marks, but sometimes I can’t resist a big, green beauty with just a little nibble taken out (I can cut around that part!).

With dozens of hard green mangoes piled on my kitchen counter, I had to decide what to do.  They’re tasty when eaten, but you can’t eat a whole lot of them green before you make yourself sick.  My solution?  Green Mango Salsa!  I love mangoes.  I love salsa.   Put them together, and I’ve basically got a giant bowl of orgasm…that I can eat with a tortilla chip.  Helloooo, gorgeous!

So, I looked up some recipes, remembered my old roommate’s homemade salsa recipe, and started experimenting.  What I ended up with is just this side of heaven.  Feel free to try it out (if you can get to the mangoes before your monkeys do).

Ingredients:

Green mangoes, peeled (however many you want)

1 small red onion

2 large, ripe tomatoes

1 medium cucumber (opt.)

1 small can nibblet corn

1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)

2 tbsp cilantro (parsley, if you don’t like cilantro)

2 jalapeno peppers, grated

1 tbsp fresh lime juice (opt.)

1/2 tsp red chili powder (spicy Thai sauce is a good alt. flavor)

1 tsp diced garlic

white pepper & salt to taste

Directions:

Grate one of the green mangoes as finely as possible.  Dice all the other vegetables/fruit and add to grated mango.  Add canned ingredients and spices.  Mix all ingredients together and refrigerate over night.  Eat.  A lot.

You may worship thank me in the morning.

Doing a Little Volunteering

Volunteers from 7 countries, and a Costa Rican classroom full of kids.

It was a week or so ago, but about a dozen volunteers from the local animal sanctuary took the hour-long-drive over to Manzanillo on the opposite side of the peninsula from where I live.  We took two carloads, and half a van full of party supplies and threw the kids a ‘back to school’ party.  The school year here runs February to December, with ‘spring break’ around July, so they had only been back from summer break a few days.

We talked to them about sea turtles, nest robbing, and protecting the local wild life refuges.  The question of the day was, “To whom do the refuges belong?”  By the time we left they all could tell us the answer.  “It belongs to all of us!”  In Spanish, of course.

Joanna and Yda passing out stickers and chatting with the kids.

We made Valentines covered in animal stickers with them.  We acted out a play about looking for poachers and what to do if they saw any.  We shared snacks and drinks.  We even delivered a suitcase full of uniforms for the kids who can’t afford them, brought down from thrift shops in the States by yours-truly when I came back a few weeks ago.

“Citizens arrest” of a pair of “Poachers.” Thomas says he doesn’t want to go to jail!

We had as much fun (maybe more) as the kids did.  It was a gorgeous day, and the volunteers are always an awesome group to hang out with.  I’ve found that I love the international variety to be found in these groups, and I love counting countries as I look at the people around me.  All-in-all, good times were had and we did some good things.

Then we said goodbye to the kids and went to lunch at a restaurant with a view of the beach.  Does life get much better than lazing in the breeze, chatting with new friends?

Playa Manzanillo from my seat at the table.

House Guests or “What Happens When the Cat Fails”

I love Costa Rica.  I love the weather, the food, the language, the scenery, the bio-diversity, the not-Americaness, the challenge, the distance, the naturalness.  I do not,  however, always love the visitors who come to my house.  That’s why I have a cat.  He’s supposed to keep away the unwanted guests.  This week: Cat-fail.

Why do the tiny ones live all out in the open, but the eat-your-face sized ones move in behind the crap you never move?

9 Things in Detail

I spent last week on the farm of Carlos’ father, having loads of new experiences.  I blogged about it before, but promised further details.  Thusly:

Cows in the early morning fog stop to say hello on their way back to the pasture.

1)      Drinking coffee with milk fresh from the cow:  Fresh coffee- grown not 10kms from the kitchen where it was created and cut with milk still warm from a cow I said hello to later- was the best dang coffee I’ve ever had.  Strong, rich, smooth, and naturally sweet.  Probably laden with fat and certainly unpasteurized, and you know what?  Mmmm… good!  I could get used to somebody making me that kind of coffee every morning.

2)      Having beans and rice for breakfast: Gallo pinto is leftover beans and rice from last night mixed with newly sautéed onion, cilantro, and bell pepper.  It’s the typical lunch food of Costa Rica, and it’s tasty.  Throw a fried egg on top and you’ve got breakfast.  I thought “Good, God, no!  I can’t eat beans and rice for breakfast!” when I first heard of this custom, but when you’re in somebody else’s house, and somebody else is cooking, and its eat what you’re given or be rude… I guess the only approach to take is “when in Rome…”  In truth, I discovered that it’s actually not bad, even for breakfast!  Although, after 3 days of beans and rice 3 meals a day I headed to the market for some fruit and salad fixings.  Then I opted for the “I’m not that hungry, I think I’ll just have fruit,” approach for a few days to give my system a chance to catch up with the rest of me.

3)      Seeing chocolate before its chocolate:  Believe it or not, chocolate doesn’t come in bar form from the get-go.  It’s actually a plant, the beans of which become chocolate.  The fruit looks strange- large, heavy, and ugly (think yellowish green, slightly fuzzy acorn squash that turn black before they drop off the tree).  It’s full of promise though, and the ripe fruit does, indeed, smell a bit like raw dark chocolate.  Not strongly, but if you’re up close you can catch the slightest hint of it.  If given the choice, though, I’ve got to say I think coffee in the raw is much prettier and smells better.  I was amazed that something so divine as chocolate came from a plant that ugly!

These ancient petroglyphs can easily be seen from horseback. Carlos says they're a map of the area and points out the mountain and river in front of us .

4)      Horseback riding in the mountains:  I’ve been in the mountains.  I’ve ridden horses.  I’ve not done both together until last week.  There were hills to be surmounted, fast-flowing rivers, cliffs,  and waterfalls to ride along, and wide vistas of green valleys and distant peaks, all made a bit more exciting by the scent of horse and the change of perspective being up higher gives you.  I was pretty pleased that my riding skills, not much used since I was a girl, came right back to me.  I didn’t need a boost into the saddle and I had no problems guiding my well trained steed where I wanted him to go at the pace I wanted to move.  Dismounting was a breeze as well, but walking afterward?  That was a bit painful!  Those horse riding muscles are a little out of training, it seems.

5)      Getting my 4-wheel-drive truck stuck:  We drove down a mucky, steep, narrow mountain track from one vast, muddy tropical farm to another.  We had no problems getting there, but on the way back  the upward incline was steeper and the hill we’d nearly slid down before was too slick with clay-mud for my truck to go back up.  It slipped.  It slid.  It bogged down.  My engine whined and got hot, and we tried the “stick some rocks under the wheels” approach.  That didn’t work.  We tried the get out and push method.  That didn’t work either and all I managed to do was go backward.  We were muddy, hot, sweaty, out in the middle of nowhere, and I was nearly in tears.  I don’t deal well when I can’t think of a solution and don’t have a clue what to do.  Then Carlos disappeared for ten minutes and came back with a local friend, discussing whether or not a few horses hitched to the front might be able to pull the truck up.  Ultimately what it took was figuring out that my 4-wheel-drive only engages when I lock the front hubs(!), and 3 guys pushing, to get us going again.  If nothing else, now I know.  My truck’s tougher than I thought; I just have to actually engage the 4-wheel-drive!  I also know that when there’s a problem Carlos just smiles and says, “We’ll figure something out, this is no big deal.”  That’s a pretty refreshing revelation.

6)      Being hugged by a 96 year old woman:  Carlos’ abuela is tiny, adorable, and possibly the oldest person I’ve ever met.  She lost one husband to WWII (yes, Costa Rica sent men to Europe to fight in WWII).  She has been married to her second husband for twice as long as I’ve been alive.  She was a school teacher, and now lives on a farm perched high on a tropical mountain where, if it doesn’t rain today, it will rain tonight- guaranteed.  She wasn’t entirely sure who I was, given that she’d never seen me before, Carlos only visits a few times a year, and she’s got dozens and dozens of grand and great-grandchildren to keep track of, but she hugged me happily all the same.  She’s incredibly sweet: I was wet because, of course, it was raining outside, and 45 seconds after hugging me she was back to hand me a towel.

The iron stove has been tiled over to add insulation, beauty, and to help prevent burning yourself.

7)      Cooking on a wood stove:  This was a bit of a challenge, and at first I was worried that I’d make a complete disaster of it.  With a wood stove you can’t guarantee an even temperature- the first things you cook take forever, in the middle it’s hard not to burn things, and by the end it’s back to waiting.  You have to keep track of the fire, making sure it’s actually burning under the areas where you’ve got food cooking and adjust it if it’s not.  You also can’t touch the outside of it without burning yourself.  It’s hot.  Every pot and pan you use will be blackened on the bottom from the fire, and you’re guaranteed to have dirty fingers afterward.  But the food… ¡que rico! There’s a slight hint of smoke which lends everything a richer taste, and you can’t beat the sense of accomplishment you feel when it’s all over.  I made salad and fresh tortillas (which I’ve gotten pretty good at since I bought a Costa Rican cookbook my first week here) while Carlos made gallo pinto.  The first tortillas were a mess- unevenly cooked and stuck to the pan since at my house I use teflon and no butter.  Once I figured out the lubrication-to-temperature ratio and threw those first two tortillas to the cat and three dogs waiting by the door way, it went pretty smoothly.  I had to shoo Carlos, his dad, and his brother away from the stove and make them wait for dinner.  They were wandering by and eating tortillas faster than I could cook them!

8)      Eating homemade cheese for lunch:  Fresh cheese is about the best thing ever.  It tastes like cheese, but not like any cheese you’ll find in stores back home.  Apparently, it’s not hard to make (if you have a few cows).  You just milk the cows, leave the milk in the bucket (covered, of course) for a few days, and wait.  Once the solids have separated from the liquids (a process that results in a bit of a sour smell, but if you’ve ever sniffed real cheese you know that already) you pour the whole thing into a cloth-lined press.  Use the press to squeeze the solids together, effectively ridding them of liquid in the process and the result is fresh cheese in the press and buttermilk if you collect the liquids.  Then you eat it.  Really.  No salt, no fancy flavoring, just the rich flavor of fresh cheese.  I’d be the size of a house if I lived on a farm.

9) Waking up to toucans outside my window:  One morning I opened my eyes and right outside the window was a brightly colored blur.  I’m blind without my glasses and don’t sleep in contacts…  I scrambled for sight and as soon as my glasses were settled on my face that blur resolved itself into a toucan perched in a tree outside my second floor window.  He stared at me, I stared back, and I realized: my life is nothing like I expected, and I love that.

Doing 9 Things I’ve Never Done Before

9 Things I’d Never Done Before*

1)      Drinking coffee with milk fresh from the cow.

2)      Having beans and rice for breakfast.

3)      Seeing chocolate before its chocolate.

4)      Horseback riding in the mountains.

5)      Getting my 4-wheel-drive truck stuck.

6)      Being hugged by a 96 year old woman.

7)      Cooking on a wood stove.

8)      Eating homemade cheese for lunch.

9)      Waking up to toucans outside my window

There’s nothing wrong with the picture, it really is just that foggy a lot of the time.

Last week I mentioned to my new friend, Carlos, that I was a bit bored in Montezuma these days, and he had an idea.  It’s October- the month of rain- and there’s no tourism, so his job is effectively pointless.  He might make enough money to buy himself groceries, but that’s about it in October.  He usually goes to visit his dad, who lives on a farm in the south, during the rainy season.  Why not, he suggested, go with him?  There would be a big house with plenty of room.  It would be a vacation from my vacation, a change from the ‘not much new’ going on in Montezuma right now.  I considered it for a bout 10 seconds and agreed.  Why not?  This is, after all, an adventure.

The clouds sit right on the mountains, and the valleys are greenly cultivated. The air is cool.

So, Tuesday morning, we loaded up in my truck and took off.  It was a long drive, from ferry to beach to mountains and beyond, and we ended up a stone’s throw from the Panamanian border, on a finca (farm) approximately in the middle of nowhere.  It’s gorgeous.  It’s cool in the mountains.  In the south the roads make a tiny bit more sense.  They’re still bad, but at least they ride along the ridge-lines of the mountains rather than being blasted straight through them and then badly built up like in the center of the country, where the news has been filled with stories of collapsed roads and landslides caused by the bad construction.  There are no tourists in the south, either.  Things are cheaper, more “native,” and there’s an abundance of wildlife.  The population is less dense, and the farms are vast mountain-straddling places.  There are reservations of native “Indios” there, many of whom can be seen walking around town, going about their daily lives in traditional dress.

I had a profusion of new experiences there, and am glad I went.  I’m home now, of course, but this adventure of mine continues to boggle me.  I’m writing.  I’m learning.  I’m stretching.  I’m not sure what’s next or what the universe intends to do with me through all of this.  I simply know that, for now, I’m continuing to open myself to whatever growth and understanding, experiences and changes the universe offers me.  Life, I must say, is interesting.

*Details to come later.