Pashupatinath Temple

Pashupatinath Temple feels just as complex as Nepal itself.  It is present day and ancient history rolled into one.   It’s exact origins are unknown, but the oldest dated inscription is from 459 AD.  People have been coming to this place as a holy site since then, and continue to make pilgrimages there today.

The picture above is from the entryway.   Most of the visitors were families dressed up for the occasion.  Whatever purpose brought people to the temple, everybody stopped and got a photo at the front.  For us, that was as far inside was we went- only Hindus are permitted past this point.

There was still plenty to see around the temple grounds.

The main deity of the temple is Lord Shiva, and he is often represented by the “shivalinga” – a stone phallus that represents the creative energy of Shiva.  There’s usually some sort of vaginal representation at the base- the representation is literally of the act of creation.

Pashupatinath, like many Shiva temples, is built around a “natural” shivalinga that is said to have been discovered there.  We didn’t see that one because it was inside.  They say that it’s part of Shiva that stayed on earth when he visited back in the day.  A shepherd found it when his cow kept spontaneously dropping her milk there.  The real one is said to be underground because it was too much for mortals to handle.

In another town, we visited a cave where you can put money in and have a cow statue drop some fake milk so you can make a wish, because of course you can.

Here is a whole row of shivalingam from Pashupatinath complete with the ashes and colors from recent offerings.

More shivalingam.  The ones that are missing were either stolen by the hippies back in the day or taken for use in grinding grain.

Holy Men

There are plenty of holy men around the site.  Shiva devotees wear orange, the color of marigolds, and perform a variety of different rituals and acts of self-mortification depending on the path they have chosen to follow.

We had heard lots of stories of foreskin stretching, rolling, and other extreme acts of self-mortification, so we were prepared for just about anything.  Nepal is a very modest country, though, so I guess they have restrictions on which days the holy men are allowed to be naked.  We were not there on a naked day.  The guy in the middle was wearing a heavy chain link chastity belt thing, so he might be one of the foreskin-stretchers on naked days.

The holy men cover their skin with ashes, another symbol of how they reject human taboos.

As a tourist, there was also the uncomfortableness of knowing that they were performing for you because that was their livelihood.  You visit the holy men, they bless you, then you give them money, then they ask for more money.  We had a guide with us who steered us away from some holy men and took us directly to these guys.  He had a lot to say about how different holy men charge for different things and making sure we saw the right ones.

The guy I sat by really wanted me to touch his dreadlocks.  Or he assumed that, as a tourist, I really wanted to touch his dreadlocks.  When I didn’t touch them after he held them out for me, he put them around my shoulder.

But we were tourists, we were there for a show, they were giving us what we wanted.  We were giving them the money that they needed.  Still, the whole thing felt very inauthentic.  Maybe that’s to be expected with a “see the major sights of Kathmandu in two days” sort of itinerary.  It felt exploitative.  But I don’t know what I would change.

Ritual Cremation

OK, so let’s talk about death.  Pashupatinath is built on the bank of the holy Bagmati river. When a Hindu dies, the body needs to be purified and returned to the elements.  The closer this is done to the temple, the easier it is for the spirit to travel there for reincarnation once the body has been cremated.  It is also important that this is done as quickly as possible.

So, a lot of the people in and around the temple were there mourning a loved one, or recognizing the anniversary of a death.

The reddish ramp is where bodies are washed in the river and prepared for cremation.  The red color is from saffron.

(Interlude- as a tourist, this was hard to get past.  People wash their dead relatives in this river, which flows from here into the city of Kathmandu.  Kathmandu, the biggest city in the country, with a population that is water-insecure.  The river is seen as purifying the bodies, but at the same time, the bodies are polluting the river.  On the other hand, the entrance fees go to river cleanup initiatives.)

After the body is washed and prepared, it is cremated.  The platform below is reserved for heads of state and other VIPs, because it’s the closest to the temple.

Yes, those are cremations in progress.  The sites get gradually less expensive as they get farther from the temple.

In the background you can barely see the chimney of the new electric crematorium that’s been built.  Its use doesn’t burn wood or pollute the river.  But it also doesn’t have the same significance for families.

The low houses in the background above are where the families stay if they don’t live in Kathmandu.  There are a variety of rituals that need to be performed in the week after the death.

Dust masks are common around Kathmandu because of the air quality.  At the temple, almost everybody wears them because of the smoke from the cremations.

A year after the death, you’re supposed to return to the site to have a picnic.

The monkeys try to get in on the picnic action.  The rest of the time, they climb around the area, through the cremation ashes, and are in and out of the river.

Walking away from the site, the temple starts to fade away and the rest of Kathmandu reappears.  Here’s a shop that was selling fabric dyes.

Overall, it was an incredible place to experience.  I know that we could only scratch the surface as far as its meaning and history, but it was an incredible experience nonetheless.

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Grand re-opening!

I started this blog to share my experiences chaperoning exchange students in Costa Rica, but didn’t think about how to keep it going.  I don’t travel all that often, but when I do, I’d like to be able to share what I find in one spot.

The photo above is the topiary near where I stayed when I went to Cusco, Peru about a year ago, and it’s the sort of thing that I like to share.  What are the ordinary things that you might just walk past in a particular part of the world?  Nobody’s going to put this dragonfly in a guidebook.  My kiddo and I can’t even agree on what animal it is (they think it’s a hornet).  But it’s still a neat little thing to notice and appreciate.

Sometimes you’ll get more touristy things, like this photo of the monument to Inca Pachacutec.  That was the next landmark that I would pass if I were walking from the apartment where I stayed, past the dragonfly, heading towards the historic downtown.

I may go back and add some posts about places that I’ve been but didn’t upload here, since this had been only a Costa Rica blog.

But the big upcoming news is that I’m going to Nepal in about two weeks!  So check back in to see more about that trip, and hopefully many more!

Photo of the Day- Part 4

Gold lobsters from the Museo de Oro

At Barva’s Parque Central

The hill at Parque de la Paz. One of my outdoor running routes is around (but not up!) this hill, although people do come here to do hill sprints! The path itself is about a half a mile and does have a slope to it as well, as you can see.

The Basilica in Cartago comes into sight after over 20 km of walking!

I visited a more upscale neighborhood that included some more modern houses. This neighborhood reminded me a bit of southern California.

We toured some more of the downtown parks today and took some photos

Translation- In this neighborhood we don’t have a single extra kid- drive carefully!

A wild sloth, or “kukula”, as the locals called it, was just a few feet from the cabin where we stayed!

A baby sloth at the sloth sanctuary

Driving through the Parque Braulio Carrillo- no, I did not take the photo, I was driving!

I don’t post a lot about it here, but a lot of my time is spent at “work” in some form or another to facilitate the program. This is a meeting I attended today. This photo features the universal “sit in the back and play with my smartphone” guy.

Volcan Poás, clearly still an active volcano

One of the hedges at Zarcero

Sloth Sanctuary

One of the things that my daughter and I did when we were getting ready for our trip was to watch videos taken in Costa Rica.  We happened upon some videos from the Sloth Sanctuary in Cahuita (on the Caribbean coast), and were enchanted by the adorable, slow, gentle creatures that lived there.  So getting to see a sloth in person was one of our goals.

It was a fantastic experience.   There are so many places around the country competing for tourism dollars, but every indication I got from this place is that it is the real deal- they are in the business of rehabilitating sloths to return them to the wild, and providing a safe and caring home for those who can not safely live in the wild.  They are also partnered with a US University to add to the research base about sloths.  They are solitary animals who live in a relatively small part of the world, so not much is known about sloths at this point.

For our tour, we could either choose the 1-hour tour for $25, or the 4-hour “insider” tour for $150.  Although the insider tour was spendy, we were coming all this way to see the sloth sanctuary, and we wanted to get as much out of the opportunity as possible, so that’s what we opted for.  It was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

We arrived at the sanctuary, and first up was “Breakfast with Buttercup.”  Buttercup is the first sloth that they received, and the reason for the sanctuary’s existence.  She needed a home, and the grandmother took her in.  They learned through trial and error how to take care of her, and over time people brought more sloths to them.  That’s how the whole program got started.  Buttercup was raised as a pet, since they didn’t know any better at the time, and she now lives in a hanging wicker chair in the dining room.  She is 22 years old, and is still doing great!

Buttercup was asleep in her chair when we came in.

We had an hour to enjoy breakfast, get to know the others, and take pictures of Buttercup.  They served us cheese and tomato omelettes, fresh fruit, and toast.  Yum!  The whole mood at the place was so calm and relaxed.  Grandma was making and serving breakfast, her daughter was checking people in, and the grandson was the one who would be leading the tour.  Everybody there just had a very kind and relaxed air about them.  Even the dogs were mellow!  One was a puppy, though, and I accidentally got her riled up by petting her, so she got the zoomies and had to go calm down for a bit.  But even that was handled so gently.

Cypress in the dining room.

An hour seemed like a long time, at first, but then Buttercup woke up, and it was time for her breakfast.

She woke up and looked around at us.  Since she is a three-fingered sloth, she has a tail that was hanging down through the chair.  The two-fingered sloths are bigger, and don’t have a tail.

She got started eating her fresh leaves.

We all gathered around to watch her.  She would take breaks from eating to check us out, too, then swivel her long neck around to eat some more leaves.

After breakfast, we joined one of the “regular” tours to meet some of their resident sloths and learn a little bit of basic information about them.  These sloths were some of the ones who had been there the longest, and weren’t candidates to go back into the wild.  One of them had only three legs, for example!  When he came to the sanctuary, he had a terrible infection and gangrene, and the leg had to be amputated.  Another just didn’t do well at feeding herself when she was released, and would always end up sick and hungry after a few weeks.  This is probably because she came to the sanctuary as a baby, and they haven’t had success in teaching sloths who were not raised in the wild by their mothers how to survive.

We learned the basics about sloths, their diet, and their anatomy, and got to ask questions.  Three-fingered sloths are smaller and darker in color than two-fingered sloths.  And they are not as closely related as you would think.

One of the resident two-fingered sloths.

Although sloths are usually solitary, these two were a bonded pair, since they had grown up together. I also noticed that lots of sleeping sloths like to keep at least one leg hooked around a branch as they rested, even if they were on a platform.

From there, we went into the area where they keep the young sloths (but not the true babies!).  The star of the show was Jemima.  She was born at the sanctuary, but rejected by her mother.  Apparently, this is common when there is a deformity or other problem with the baby.  In Jemima’s case, she is growing very slowly, but appears healthy otherwise.  She is two years old, but is still the size of a baby, and needs a bit more care than the other sloths around her age.

Jemima coming out to get some food and for us to get a closer look.  The sloths really like having a stuffed animal or rolled up towel to hang on to.

They asked us not to touch the sloths, which I think is fair.  This is a rescue organization, not a petting zoo, and because of sloths’ slow digestion, any fragrances, chemicals, or diseases we brought with us could do them harm, especially considering how many visitors they get on a daily basis.  We did get a really up-close look at Jemima!  Here she is eating a hibiscus flower.

An iguana came running by the path.

Some of the sloths in that area also had injuries or other disabilities.  One had become a paraplegic after a fall onto coral during a strong storm, for example.  In the background, we also got to see several sloths out for exercise on the jungle gym.

After that, the “regular” tour group went on a canoe ride, and we got to go up to the nursery.   Without a doubt, that was the best part of the tour.  That was the room with their tiny, tiny baby sloths who had just come in, or who needed special care.  They each had an incubator, but today was warm enough that they were out in plastic tubs on the floor instead.  Apparently, they don’t climb out because they don’t like being on a flat surface.

It was heartbreaking watching all of those poor babies, most or all of them orphans!  But they were absolutely adorable.

 

 

 

Look at that baby fuzz!

 

Pria was the only three-fingered sloth baby.

 

The babies who were awake were all clamoring for attention.  When I went to see Pria, the three-fingered sloth, she was trying to climb out on to me.  She also really wanted to know about my camera.

At that point, I had to stop the video and apologize to her for not picking her up!

This next sloth was so new that it hadn’t even been named yet.

Finally, we had to say goodbye to the babies and go to the main area where the adults were housed.  Some of them were just being kept until they recovered from an injury and could go back to the wild.  The ones who can’t be released will either stay there, or go to a zoo.  We got to wash our hands, and feed some hibiscus to a couple of the adults.  The sloths definitely will do their best to get your attention and get you to keep feeding them one they know you have treats!  Their claws are better for hanging than grabbing, so you had to put the flower petals pretty much right by their mouths for them to be able to eat them easily.  The one I fed did lick me a little bit when he was trying to get the flower.

Another pair of sloths hanging out together.

Then, we got to see their medical room and xray equipment.  They also had several jars of sloth fetuses that had died in utero or were stillborn.  Again, the point is to increase knowledge of sloths in general so that they can be better cared for and rehabilitated.

Two-fingered sloth and placenta.

This three-fingered sloth died when almost old enough to be born! Compared to many mammals, sloths are pretty well-developed when they’re born.

From there, we got to go on a canoe tour of the property.  It was a good chance to get a feel for the lush, tropical rainforest that we were in!  There were little crabs all along the bank, and every tree was covered in other plants that were growing on it.  There were howler monkeys in the trees howling at us, but I didn’t get any good photos of them.

 

 

Bananas and their unique flower.

Quite a few of the rainforest plants are recognizable as houseplants in our area.

The bird of paradise, of course.

I have no idea what kind of flower this is.

This plant was in their garden by the riverbank.

Overall, it was a fantastic and really memorable day.  I highly recommend this place to anybody who is interested in learning more about sloths.

Photo of the Day, Part 3

Central park in Palmares, Alajuela

After finishing my half marathon.

Monteverde, day 1

Monteverde, day 2

One cool thing is that even the littlest urban park has some sort of play structure. This is in the corner of the park where I catch my bus downtown.

Lots and lots of statues are all over the city. I do like how the public art features people of a variety of shapes and sizes.

This would have been a fun place to play skee-ball, except that it’s not possible to play left handed, and games cost close to $1!

I got to see Cypress and her host sister!

My room in Sabalito. We got in really late, so I barely remembered to get a photo for the day at all. I tried to take one on the bus, but it didn’t really turn out.

Panama!

Coffee beans

Seana at the roller rink.

A flower from the rim of Volcano Irazú.

Life-sized lego guy at Avenidas Escazu.

I forgot my camera when we went out today, so you will have to make do with a picture that somebody took of me.

The Chicago Bulls are a great baseball team.

Monteverde

So it turns out that you can go all the way to Monteverde without ever setting foot inside the actual forest.  You also don’t need to know any Spanish, or even have any Costa Rican currency.

I knew something was up when I was at the soda by the bus station and there was a guy in there who was attempting to buy coffee using only English and paying with US dollars,  Then I walked over to the bus station, and it was Trustafarian central in there.  I don’t think that there were any Ticos waiting to get on the bus at all.  I’ve been talking to people around here about my plans to go to Monteverde, and while everyone agrees it’s a great place to go, nobody I’ve talked to who is from here has ever been there themselves.

So I was standing there feeling all superior to all of these rich backpacker kids from the US who didn’t seem to know or want to know about Costa Rica, they were just here to party.  But then I realized that it’s probably pretty hypocritical of me.  I mean, I am a tourist, too.  Just because I have a job to do when I’m here doesn’t make what I’m up to fundamentally different.  I mean, it shouldn’t be my place to judge, and they are bringing tourism dollars to the economy here, right?  But still, they were getting on my nerves.  How much of that was because the very act of going to Monteverde sort of lumped me in with them, at least for the next few days?

We got on the bus, and I dozed off for a bit.  When I woke up, we were at the same rest stop that we had stopped at on the way to Santa Cruz!  The bus driver announced that everyone needed to get off, and that we’d be stopped for 15 minutes.  One of the girls who doesn’t speak any Spanish is trying to ask the driver in English how long we’ll be stopped for.  He says, “quince minutos.”  She is asking in English if that means five minutes, and telling the driver all about needing to pee.  He just kept repeating “quince minutos.”

OK, I get that learning a language takes a long time, and that there are a lot of ways to get by when you’re traveling even if you don’t speak the language, but seriously, how much effort would it have taken to learn to count to 15 in Spanish before coming to a Spanish-speaking country?  That’s the attitude that was getting to me- the girl was acting like it was everybody else’s job to cater to HER, without her making any effort to figure things out for herself.

Also, it’s not like you’re going to be able to set your clock by a bus driver’s announcement of how many minutes we’d be there anyway.  It’s not like he was setting his stopwatch.  It’s good to keep an eye on the bus and on the driver, just in case.  Plus, you can figure out a lot by just watching the group and seeing what people do.  If they’re going through the line to get a full meal, chances are good that you’re not going to need to rush.  I know I said that there’s weren’t many Ticos on the bus, but that did start to change gradually, as we had picked up quite a few passengers at random stops along the way.

I had booked a package deal at a hostel that included two nights in a private room (with private bathroom), and two tours- a night walk through the forest, and a morning canopy tour, for $99 total.  The hostel turned out to be exactly what I was hoping for.  It was laid back and friendly, with some shared cooking, eating, and lounging space.  Wouldn’t you know it- the “quince” girl and her friend walked in a little bit after I had checked in.  But in this case, the private room saved me.  Most of the upstairs rooms had older couples and was a bit mellower.  For example, there was a couple from Italy staying next door to me.  And, unlike the US party kids, they were of course fluent in Italian, English, and one of them was also fluent in Spanish, the other had some conversational Spanish.

I spent the afternoon walking around trying to orient myself to town.  It was clear that I was in a tourist town.  Just walking around, I heard more English than Spanish spoken, and everything was priced in US dollars.  For example, the $99 hotel really was the price in dollars.  Since I only have Costa Rican colones at the moment, they had to convert their price from US dollars into Costa Rican colones to charge me.  It was like that all over town, except at the supermarkets.  Dollars seemed to be the “standard” currency.

In the evening, I had my night tour of the forest.  A lot of the “Monteverde” activities turn out to be run by private companies, and aren’t actually in the Monteverde forest reserve itself.  The companies have deals with all of the hotels so that you can book your tour (with pick up and drop off at your hotel) right at the hotel.  It sure is easier than walking around trying to figure out bus schedules and everything else, I must admit.  It also means you can get pretty good package deals when you combine your room with one or more tours.  But, I’m sure it also means that the hotels are getting kickbacks of some sort from the companies if they funnel more of their guests to one company or another.  And there are signs up all over the place warning you that you’ll get ripped off if you try to go anywhere else to book your tours.  Book here! (so we get the commission!)

But whatever.  I only have a couple of days, so I am going with the flow here.  The night walk and canopy tour that came with the hotel were both mentioned in my guidebook at had good ratings on trip advisor.  I felt like those were the two “main” things to do in Monteverde, and with the limited time I had, that it was a good choice.

So I wasn’t too surprised that the night walk took place at a privately owned facility that wasn’t in the official forest reserve.  And, after having walked around all day, I also wasn’t surprised that the guide was giving the tour in English.  Of the maybe 4 groups that were out at the same time we were, I think one of the groups had a Spanish tour, the rest were English.  But our guide knew many of the animal names in German, too, so he threw those in for the German couple in our group.  And at least I knew enough Spanish to be able to eavesdrop on what the guides were saying to each other on their walkie talkies.

My camera is just not able to take good photos in the forest after dark, but I will say that we got to see a ton of animals.  Most importantly- I saw a sloth!  Not up close, of course, but definitely a sloth, hanging on a branch, eating some leaves.  So that was really exciting for me, because I do think that they are really fascinating creatures.

The next morning was my canopy tour.  And here is where my naivety really showed.  I had thought that a “canopy tour” with ziplines would be a really good way to see the forest.  After all, most of the life in a cloud forest isn’t on the ground floor, it’s up in the treetops.  So naturally, in a canopy tour you’d use ziplines to travel from treetop to treetop, checking out all the cool things to be found in a forest, right?

Hah!  Apparently ziplining is all about the adrenaline rush and the thrill seeking.  The forest didn’t have a lot to do with it.  I’ll probably do a separate post to talk more about it, because it was fun, but also maybe something that I don’t need to do again now that I’ve tried it once.

So I was in the van on the way back from the canopy tour, and I realize that I have nothing else scheduled, only a half day left in town, and I still haven’t been inside the actual “Monteverde” forest!  I had fallen into the tourist trap instead!  I don’t know if I’ll ever have a chance to get back up this way, so I wanted to fix that!  The problem was, I didn’t know anything about the bus schedules or how to get up to the “real” forest.  My guidebook also mentioned that you DO want a tour guide, because otherwise you may just end up clomping through the forest without even knowing what you’re looking for or how to find it.

As much as I didn’t trust them, with time being limited, I decided to get the hotel desk to help me get to the forest.  I asked them about getting to the Monteverde reserve, and was told that I could get a bus at 1:00, return at 4:00, and would be able to hike around the forest on my own during that time, because there were no guides available.

Or, I could go to the Santa Elena Cloud Forest reserve.  For that one, there was a bus leaving in 5 minutes (at 10:30), and I could stay all day and come back at 4:00.  Plus, there was a 2.5 hour guided tour available.

Given that those were my only two options, I chose to go for the Santa Elena Cloud Forest.  It was still a forest reserve, not some fancy “OMG Awesome Extreme Adventurezzz!!!1” company, and the ecosystem would be the same.  Maybe I fell for a line at the hotel desk, but I did get to go out and into the forest.

My tour ended up being a private tour with the guide, because nobody else had signed up for it.  This also meant that even though it was supposed to be a group tour of the forest in English, that the guide was more than happy to do the tour in Spanish since I was the only person.  It also meant that we could cover more ground than the “usual” 2.5 hour tour, because we weren’t waiting for people who were unused to hiking up and down switchbacks or dealing with roots and mud.

But, it did sort of put me on the spot.  Usually in those sorts of situations, I will fade into the background and let other people from the group take the lead and do most of the talking.  But here it was just me, so I had to keep coming up with interesting stuff to say.  When really, it wasn’t like I was dead set on seeing any one particular thing.  I just wanted to enjoy the forest.  So, I alternated between asking questions about the forest and the things we saw, and sort of chit chatting with the guide.  He was from Liberia, Guanacaste, but after growing up in that more arid environment, was enthralled with the idea of a forest that could be “eternally green”.  He also was more interested in animals, particularly the mammals, rather than plants, although as a guide he did know what could be found in the area pretty well.

And it was gorgeous.  The air was one big white cloud, but it was cool enough that it felt soft and friendly, rather than muggy.  It was raining a sort of misty rain the whole time, but that’s what raincoats are for, right?  We did not see a lot of animals.  Daytime really isn’t the best time for most of the forest critters, anyway.  We did see several birds, although I don’t know birds well enough to even remember which ones!

Mostly, I was just impressed by the different kinds of plants and flowers that grew around there, compared to the forests in Oregon.  The one similarity is that both forests have a lot of ferns.  But in the cloud forest, there are giant ficus trees.  Moss grows all around the trees in all directions, because the sun’s rays don’t change with the seasons here.  There were long vines hanging from the trees, too.  Leaves are giant, and bright green.  There were also quite a few orchids, although not many of them are in bloom at this time of year.

By the entrance, they had an orchid garden where I did get to see a few orchids in bloom.

And that was it!  Time to head back to my hotel and get a little bit of downtime before getting up to catch that 6:30 AM bus back to town!

The bus ride back was mostly uneventful, BUT, the funny thing is that we were at the rest stop this time along with a “Tralapa” bus (which you might remember from an earlier post).  That bus left before us, but we passed them on the road a little while later!

Coming back into San Jose felt really good.  I’m getting familiar enough with the city that I do feel sort of grounded here.  I just feel like I have a better sense of the “flow” of downtown, of how to move through the crows, the cars, and the streets.  I’m also getting a sense of what routes I prefer when walking from one side of downtown to the other.  So, overall, the feeling is much more relaxed and comfortable than it had been in my first few days in the city.  Hooray!

The road to Monteverde

The road to Monteverde

The road to Monteverde

My room at the hostel

View from the hostel window looking down on to Santa Elena

The upstairs kitchen

My first try at cooking green plantains. Success!

Nice common areas!

More hostel view

Some kind of deadly viper

Here is the platform that I jumped off of. They said it was something like 40 meters high.

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

This leaf sort of reminded me of a giant Totoro leaf.

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

This little berry is apparently some kind of tomato relative.

What the postcards don’t show you is how tiny the frogs actually are.

And the orchids are tinier.

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

Santa Elena

This is called a “school millipede” because it looks like a school bus.

Santa Elena

The insects had chewed enough of the leaves to make a cool lattice effect.

Santa Elena

 

Photo of the day- Part 2

Here is the fruit stand where I bought the watermelons for the picnic.

John Lennon statue downtown.

The corner where I was waiting for a bus back home after the picnic.

San Jose at night from up in the hills.

Dancing at the “turno”

I’ve been enjoying my afternoon meetings and coffee with Seana!

This dog reminded me of Zoe.

Underwater selfie!

Masks for the celebration for the world cup team- 3 of the stars plus the coach.

A “suicide shower head”, very common here since most houses do not have a hot water heater. These sometimes heat the water up a little bit warmed than freezing cold. You will note the wires right there, always fun to think about when you’re standing in water.

Getting out of the city

This week was my first time venturing out of the city, and it was a great adventure! There is one student in the province of Guanacaste, in a city that’s about a 5 hour bus ride from San Jose. I wanted to get out to visit her, especially because it sounded like her host brother had been away in San Jose for part of the time, and I wanted to make sure that she was doing well out where she was.

We have an account that we can use for travel, but need to be fairly frugal to stretch it as far as we can. I didn’t want to invite myself to stay in the family’s house, so I planned to head out there on Tuesday, have one overnight in an inexpensive hotel, and come back the following day.

So on Tuesday morning, I caught the bus out there. There are two bus lines with service to that city. One was listed as “4-5 hours”, the other as “4 hours”. I couldn’t find much information about either company online, so I assumed that, everything else being equal, the 4-5 hour one was likely the better bet. That bus line was “Tralapa”, which reminded me of “Trololo”. That should have been a warning!

Anyway, I got on the bus, headed to my assigned seat, and all was going well until we stopped to pick up a few people. A guy sat down in the seat in front of mine, which instantly fell into me. It turned out that the seat was broken and that there was no way to hold it up! I used my bag to sort of wedge a little bit of space for my knee. It was a full bus, so there was nothing to be done. Luck of the draw.

Then it started heating up. Guanacaste is known for being very warm. I don’t know if it’s cooler in San Jose because of the elevation, or just the mountains holding the clouds in, or something else, but it was getting hot now that we were out in the country!

Without AC and a full bus, hemmed in by people and my bag, I really felt like I was in the tropics. There was a window that I could open, but then I got the full blast of wind in my face. At first, I was opening the window when the bus was stopped (cars, construction, people getting on/off, or WTF why are we stopping again), and closing it when we got going. Finally I figured out the trick of leaving the window open but the curtain closed. This let the air in, but it didn’t blast you in the face. I did still spent quite a bit of time looking out the window to see the scenery, even with the wind.

We had one stop by a little cafe, which was a nice chance to stand up and cool off a bit. I got some plantain chips and a soda, and got to catch just a little bit of that day’s world cup match before heading back to the sardine tin. (It turns out later that the locals call this bus line “Tralata” because you are packed in like you’re in a can, or “lata” in Spanish).

When I arrived, the family called just as I was getting off the bus to ask where I was. It turned out that the bus line I had taken was so bad, they didn’t even think to ask if I had been on that one, they just assumed I’d taken the good bus and would be there (an hour earlier) in the other station. Oops! Live and learn, I guess. The other bus line is faster (though their itenerary is more honest, which is why it looked like the longer line on paper. I think it’s even cheaper, too. I suspect that it costs more to run old, broken down, less fuel efficient buses.

After getting a quick tour of the town, I got the the family’s house. I instantly felt more relaxed after a couple of weeks in the city! They live just a few minutes out of town, but on a farm where they grow watermelons, cantaloupe, and corn. The cantaloupe and corn were just ready for harvest.

The family offered to let me stay there, which was so kind of them. They wanted to take me to the beach the next day, and since I wouldn’t have the hotel expense, it made sense for me to stay 2 nights so that I wouldn’t have to rush back. I did want to be back in San Jose by Thursday, because I wanted to connect with some of the more local kids before they headed back in to school next week (the past two weeks are the mid-year vacation for students here in Costa Rica).  Getting in at night isn’t a good idea, because getting from the bus terminal to my house is either expensive (by cab), or sketchy (a combination of walking and city bus).

The next day, we took the bus to Playa Conchal, which was about an hour and a half away. It was hot, but there was a breeze, so it didn’t feel too bad! And Conchal was gorgeous! The sand is made up of small bits of white shells, which are lovely, and the water is very clear and light blue.

I am not usually much of a swimmer at the beach, but the other really nice thing about this spot is that the waves are hardly there at all. I knew that the water would be warm, but after getting used to Oregon and California beaches, I didn’t realize that the ocean could be so calm! You could go out into the water and float if you wanted. It was so relaxing!

Of course I hadn’t packed a bathing suit since I had only been planning on staying for the one evening, but again the family was so hospitable and I had borrowed one from the mom. Their warmth and generosity was just so wonderful!

We got back in that evening, had a final dinner together, and we went our for granizados. Those are sort of like a milkshake combined with a snow cone- crushed ice, fruit flavor, evaporated milk, and powdered milk (we got the “dos leches” variety, I don’t know what other kinds there are). Yum!

The next day, I got up in time to catch the 3:15 AM bus. That had been the family’s suggestion since I wanted to be back in San Jose by Thursday. They only live 5 minutes from the bus station, so the suggestion was to pack the night before, get up and head straight for the bus, get on, and go back to sleep. By morning, I would be in San Jose and have gotten at least a reasonable amount of sleep.

I’m happy to say that it worked! The Alfaro bus was much more comfortable and friendly. Sleeping on a bus isn’t the easiest thing to do, but that combined with the sleep I had gotten before getting to the bus was enough for me to be ready for a full day back in the city. The nice thing is, I only had to do it once. Some of the people on the bus were clearly commuting to work that way. They got on and went to sleep, and as we got closer to the city they woke up, put makeup on, and were clearly preparing themselves for work or some other busy day. For me, it was just travel, not day to day life.

All in all, I am very happy that I had this opportunity to get out into the country!