Adiosta Rica

I'm writing this from about 30,000 feet above probably Ecuador or Colombia, en route to Montevideo, Uruguay.  The flight is about 7 hours, and, with Central America in my rearview, at least for a while, this seems like an opportune moment to try to synthesize my thoughts on my time there.

First let's start with Costa Rica.  I was talking last night with my brother Art, and he asked me to tell him about the place, and I found I had a tough time explaining it.  I think we can agree at this point that I rarely run out of things to say, so I found it a bit surprising, but the truth, I think, is that the real Costa Rica is less tangible to a tourist than the real Nicaragua was.  Costa Rica is a beautiful country, with excellent people and a strong cultural identity, to be sure.  However, it at times also feels like a country that has given its identity over to tourists and expats.  I was trying to articulate this idea to Art, and I think the best explanation I came up with for how Costa Rica differs from other countries is this: visiting another city or country necessarily puts you into the midst of that region's culture.  Its food, its music, its architecture, and its language are all things that you cannot avoid--not that you should want to--and that are just part of the experience of being a tourist.  In Costa Rica, it seems to me to be distinctly possible to visit the country, see a number of places and things, and never once encounter authentic Costa Rican culture.

Tico culture is certainly there--and it's great.  But you have to look for it much more than you do anywhere else I've ever been.  In places like Manuel Antonio, La Fortuna, and, from what I've heard, Jacó, it almost feels like the local culture has quietly moved out of the way to make room for tourist culture.  Even the popular tica refrain, "pura vida"--which literally translates to "pure life" but is used more like "no worries"--is emblazoned on every crappy mug, t-shirt, and stuffed animal you see, making it feel at times like a phrase that belongs more to the country's visitors than to its residents.  I suspect this issue will only continue to grow, as many locals get priced out of their homes in developing tourist hubs like Quepos.

This is, without question, one of the downsides of having a tourism-based economy, and of creating a place in which any traveler can feel at home.  The news is not all bad, of course.  Costa Rica is easily the most stable country in the region, with a good education system and a leading environmental research university.  Many of the people I met were college-educated, with a number of them having studies abroad in Europe.  The lack of a military has allowed Costa Rica to spend on public services far superior to those of their neighbors.  I spent two weeks there without once being panhandled--something I could never say about New York.  A recent ranking system devised by Yale and Columbia placed Costa Rica third in the world in environmentally sustainable policies.  As much as there are any number of tourist services that take advantage of the appeal of the phrase "eco-tourism," there are many more operations that really take the idea to heart, and try to preserve the natural beauty that draws so many of the people who make the economy run.  It would be nice to see outside developers catch up, however.

The Costa Rican political situation is also pretty complex.  The lack of a military has earned it respect in the region and the nickname "the Switzerland of Central America."  President Oscar Arias tried to negotiate a resolution to the Honduran coup last year, although he ultimately failed when the military refused to restore the old presidential government--sort of an important point in those negotiations, I imagine.  There are plenty of domestic issues, as well.  A few of the presidents between Arias's first Nobel-winning term and his current less successful one have been convicted on corruption charges, with another having fled to Europe to escape his own comeuppance.  Interestingly, he political system was a straight two-party system for years, until Ottón Solís mounted an credible third-party push four years ago, narrowly losing to Arias as the candidate of the left-leaning Citizen Action Party (PAC).  This year there are four candidates.  Laura Chinchilla represents Arias's incumbent party, the National Liberation Party (PLN), while the other establishment party, Unidad, tries to overcome all of its convicted former candidates.  Their candidate, Luis Fishman, is running under the amusing and telling slogan "el menos mal," or "the least bad."  The other two candidates, Solís and Otto Guevara, are the surging challengers.  Guevara, the candidate from the Libertarian Movement Party (ML) is a Harvard grad with the most right-leaning agenda in the group.  Of course, in this case, that just means that he recently abandoned his thoughts of privatizing the healthcare and education systems, and he wants to lower taxes.  What's also interesting is that, even with four candidates, virtually no one I talked to seemed particularly inspired by any of them, and a lot of them felt resigned to just voting for their usual party, because they didn't know what else to do.

At any rate, Costa Rica is clearly very different from Nicaragua.  Before I left, Nicaragua had been described to me as "Costa Rica without the excessive tourism."  There is some truth to this, in the sense that there are a lot of cultural similarities--they even argue over who invented gallo pinto--and a lot of the natural landscapes are similar.  But Costa Rica is, in truth, a developed country with no military and a functioning--if occasionally corrupt--democracy.  Nicaragua is, by contrast, still just beginning to climb out of the hole it found itself in by the end of the 1980s.  Relations with the U.S. and its revenue stream obviously have a lot to do with this, but a lot of it can also be traced to the fact that while Sandinistas and Contras were killing each other in the streets of Nicaragua, Costa Rica was spending money on social programs and infrastructure.  A socialist government like Managua's FSLN isn't going to be able to do a lot for the populace if it's spending most of its money on beefing up the military and consolidating power.  Costa Rica has also historically done a better job of utilizing its natural resources.  Even before tourism became king, pineapples, coffee, and palm oil took turns as staple exports.  Nicaragua has the ability to produce all of the same things, but has been stuck dealing with internal turmoil for too long to do anything about it.  So it is no surprise that the two countries are positioned as they are.

The truth is that Nicaragua and Costa Rica remind me a bit of estranged siblings.  They share a great deal, but there is a lingering animosity between them.  Nicas say ticos* are "muy fresa," and ticos blame Nicas for recent surges in crime in the northern part of the country.  Ticos also point out--rightfully although less self-consciously than might be warranted--that Nicaragua does a poor job of protecting its natural resources and landscapes.  Whatever, the case, the countries need to find a way to coexist, economically and physically.  Right now, some 20% of  Nicaraguans live abroad, most of them just across the border in their employment-rich southern neighbor.  Perhaps some combination of Costa Rican investment and Nicaraguan policy change (e.g. less military spending, improved education and environmental protection) would start them down that road.  For the time being, however, it seems a long way off.  As long as one brother remains the second poorest country in the hemisphere, and the other remains the favorite son of all the other countries in the neighborhood, we can expect to encounter these types of issues.

Anyway, with that I move on to South America, where I'll have to learn (again) how to conjugate verbs when I'm calling someone "vos."  I also happen to be arriving barely a week into the month-long festivities of Carnaval, about which I'm incredibly excited.  Uruguay is one of the most developed countries in South America, known largely for its beaches and small old-world style cities.  It is a common vacation destination for Argentinos and Brasileños alike.  I'll have to make friends again pretty much from scratch, so I'm going to leave my misanthropic tendencies at the door.  For the time being, however, I have about 4 hours to kill on this plane, so I'm going to read and maybe take a nap.  If past history is any guide, it may take me a few days on the ground before I get to check back in, so enjoy the Super Bowl, and I'll talk to you all soon.

Saludos,
Seth

*If you're wondering about the capitalization, "Nica" comes from the country name, whereas "tico" comes from the diminutive form used in Costa Rica's countryside, where, for example, a baby might be referred to as "el chiquitico."

Scholastic fantastic

I'm in Panama City, Panama for the night and thoroughly exhausted from a long day of mangrove-seeing, flying, and blogging, so I'm going to head to bed.  My flight tomorrow is 7.5 hours long, so with any luck I'll be able to use it to be semi-productive.

This does seem as good a time as any to plug the two schools where I've so far taken Spanish classes.  In Granada, Nicaragua Mia has an excellent and capable staff, and offers great cultural activities as well.  They set me up with a wonderful homestay, and were very helpful in my efforts to navigate Nica culture.

In Quepos / Manuel Antonio, Academia D'Amore has a small but highly qualified staff, connections to lots of local tours, and also set me up with an incredible host family.  They are very dedicated to their students' learning the language and the culture of Costa Rica--two things American tourists in the area often undervalue.

The philosophy is different between the two schools.  Nicaragua Mia emphasizes private lessons whereas D'Amore prefers small groups, so that students can learn to notice each other's errors and improve that way as well.  I don't know where I fall in this argument, as I think there is a lot of benefit to both approaches.  So, I'll just simply say that if you ever decide to go to one of these two places, I highly recommend the two schools above.

And with that, it's bedtime.  I'll leave you with the youtubed version of my video of the sloth outside my school.

Saludos,
Seth

I don't practice Santamaría

Lest anyone doubt Costa Rica's emergence as a sort of unofficial 51st state, I am currently sitting in Juan Santamaría International Airport in San Jose opposite a Church's Chicken and a Schlotzsky's Deli. Moreover, I partook of a Cinnabon about an hour ago (I hadn't had one years, and vacation calories don't count anyway).

Anyway, while I await my flight to Panama, where I'll be staying for less than 24 hours, I figured I'd take the opportunity to let you know that my Quepos album is now posted in its entirety, and that I have pictures up from last night's trip to the Wildlife Refuge run by hotel Sí, Como No, and this morning's boat trip around a mangrove swamp. Both were really amazing in completely different ways.

If you're wondering who Juan Santamaría is, by the way, he is a Costa Rican national hero, who was killed setting fire to the quarters of invading troops. Who was invading? William Walker, one time dictator of Nicaragua and the original "filibuster." With all the idiocy that's been going on in the senate in the last year, it's interesting to know that "filibuster" originally meant invading a foreign country as a private citizen. Walker hired an army (with covert US support) and invaded and controlled Nicaragua for years. As he was losing an uprising, he retreated, burning Granada to the ground, and placing a plaque that said "Here was Granada." Fortunately, the Nicas are more resilient than he realized, and built the city back to its original splendor. Walker then tried to invade Costa Rica, where Santamaría and others caught his troops off-guard by bringing the battle to them. After a decisive defeat here, Walker turned his attention to Honduras, where the populace decided he was sufficiently dickish to warrant his death by hanging.

They're announcing my flight now, so I'm going to get ready to board. I'll try to check in later with some final thoughts on Costa Rica, and all her pura vida wonder.

Saludos,

Seth

The Guy-O Más Gallo

There's a chain of electronics stores in Central America called El Gallo Más Gallo. Literally translated, this means "the rooster most rooster." More accurately, it's something like "the most macho rooster," because the word for rooster ("gallo") is also used to mean "tough."

One of my concerns before heading down here was the realization that in hot climates like the ones I have been and will continue to be visiting, scorpions are known to pop up from time to time. Most just give a really painful sting--though I've also heard of it giving people a metallic taste in their mouths for a few days, or giving them partial numbness. Occasionally, if not frequently, the stings can be fatal, especially if you turn out to be allergic to them.

I have no idea if I'm allergic to scorpion stings, but I was endowed by my creator(s) with a fairly acute sense of my own mortality. It's not so much that I'm afraid of death as that I would really greatly prefer to continue living. I'm only a month into this adventure, and there's a whole lot more that I want to see.

So, heading into this trip, I anticipated that I would likely experience my first face-to-exoskeleton encounter with a scorpion in the wild. And I truly had no idea whether I would stay calm and deal with it, or scream like Ned Flanders and run away. Score one for my animal instincts.

Last night, while packing up to leave Quepos (and subsequently, Costa Rica), I was pulling my shirts out of the dresser. To my surprise, I picked up my black cotton tee to reveal the friendly fellow pictured above, probably about three inches head-to-stinger. I should add that, although I had prepared myself for the probability that this trip would include a scorpion, I had not encountered one yet, and had in fact been told by my host family that they had never had one in the house in the many years they'd lived there. So this wasn't one of those "I should be careful in case there are scorpions" moments (of which I've had many). This was a "holy shit, that's a scorpion!" moment. My only immediate reaction was to say "whoah!" a little loudly--though fortunately not loud enough to wake Doña Haydee or Don Victor.

So, I looked at the little bastard, and thought for a moment. And I realized, well, obviously I need to kill it. But first, I totally have to take a picture. So, the last thing little Scorpius saw was a flash bulb immediately followed by a hiking shoe--a shoe guided by my swift right hand of justice. He squirmed after the first attempt (again, I didn't want to wake my hosts), so I gave him another shot.

I have to say, I'm not accustomed to killing a type of insect big enough to completely retain its shape after it meets its demise, so I stared at it good and long to see if it would move again. When it did not, I scooped it onto the sole of my shoe and flushed it down the toilet.

As you would expect, I spent the rest of my night shaking out every piece of clothing and luggage I had. I did not encounter any of his friends, although I did find several pieces of exoskeleton that he had shed in one of my luggage cubes (including an earlier version of his stinger).

We're not really sure where he came from. The best guess is that he snuck into my backpack somewhere and found his way into my luggage. He was there long enough to molt and grow a new exoskeleton, so it's hard to say when it would have happened. At any rate, I have by no means won the war. But today I hold my head high having won the first battle. Gallo Más Gallo, meet Guy-O Más Gallo.

Saludos,

Seth

Slothful

I ducked into a little smoothie place to escape the heat, enjoy a fan, and take advantage of the free wi-fi. I thought I'd use this opportunity to check in with some notes and thoughts. I'm off to Panama City for one night on Saturday, and then I have a seven and a half hour flight down to Montevideo, Uruguay on Sunday. The trip from here to there is the rough equivalent of crossing the U.S., distance-wise, so it's not a short one. Sadly, this means I'll be missing the Super Bowl. I will, however, be discovering exactly what South American airline food is like, so that's a plus.

Today's been a bit of a lazy day for me, which is what the title's all about. The Spanish word for sloth, "perezoso," is also the word for lazy. I realize that this is true in English as well, but for us "sloth" is a less common term. In Spanish, "perezoso" is the main word you use for lazy.

• Thought one is that I love fresh fish, and I will miss the abundance of that here. Mahi mahi being one of the cheaper items on the menu is a really amazing thing. Ceviche is everywhere, as is grilled fish, and it's just been heavenly. It allows me to convince myself that even with all the butter, it's still pretty healthy. It's almost certainly not, but shh, don't tell anyone.

• I got to try octopus ceviche at long last. It was really pretty tasty. Per my father's request, I posted pictures of it.

• Sloths are absolutely my new favorite animal. We had one show up at school today, a young one, and it was just preposterously and unreasonably munchkintastic. Seriously, I have no idea how evolution has permitted these animals to persist, because they move like molasses, but I'm so very glad they're still here. Interestingly, the mothers raise their young in a certain neighborhood, and then move away when the child reaches adulthood, leaving the child to continue living in an area with which they're familiar. I imagine that's the longest goodbye in the world, because it must just take a day for the mother sloth to get two trees over. Seriously, check out the Quepos album for pictures and videos.

• On the subject of adorable creatures, Junmei, the three year-old great granddaughter of my host parents refused to let me leave the house the other day until I used her scissors to cut her an elephant out of paper.

• I haven't mentioned this yet, but Costa Rica's presidential election is this Sunday. I've been very interested, watching a debate and discussing it with many of the ticos I know. However, I'm still having a hard time discerning the actual differences among the candidates. I'm sure there are some, but being so unfamiliar with the issues, it's really hard to tell. Based on things that have nothing at all to do with actual politics, I'm partial to Laura Chinchilla. In addition to having a last name that is the same as a pet I had in middle and high school, she has an extremely catchy theme song. She is also one of two sitting Vice Presidents under current president and Nobel laureate Oscar Arias. Other candidates are Ottón Solís, Luis Fishman (not the most Costa Rican name ever), and Otto Guevara. Laura started off as the bigtime frontrunner, but has lost a lot of ground to Guevara. She still leads the polls however, and seems poised to win on Sunday. I know that she has the vote of my host mother Doña Haydee.

• God bless the internet. The only TV I care about keeping up with is Lost, and I managed to watch the newest episode only a day after it aired. I also learned today that I'll be back home for the last episode, which makes me really happy, because I can watch it day of with other lunatics like me.

I think that's all for the moment. I'm gonna grab some dinner and figure out how to spend my last day here tomorrow.

Saludos,

Seth

Blogue Manuel Antonio

I've posted some pictures from yesterday's guided walk through the national park, available here. The guide showed me how to put my camera lens up to his telescope, so we got some pretty cool up-close pictures of animals, such as that above. We saw two sloths (one two-toed, one three-toed), several capuchin monkeys and howler monkeys, two nutria, some iguanas, and several spiders and birds.

There are also some new pictures from Quepos, including my sighting of several amazing scarlet macaws (above), as well as pics of the host fam, available here. This album should also include two sloth videos that apparently didn't upload properly before.

At some point I'll write some more about my experiences and thoughts on Costa Rica, in particular the comparison with their neighbors (and rivals) up in Nicaragua. But for the moment, I'm off to try some octopus ceviche.

UPDATE:

Apparently a sign saying "Special: Octopus Ceviche" actually means "we had octopus ceviche the last few days, but don't have any left, but haven't changed our sign." Bummer. I'm going to try again tomorrow. This is important, dammit.

Saludos,

Seth

Rancho Margot Blogo

I'm now back in Quepos, excitedly awaiting my lunch of sauteed local grouper, and this seems an opportune moment to reflect on my last two days at Rancho Margot. I originally intended to go to the Arenal area to see the volcano, and with the hope of finally glimpsing some lava at the third volcano of my trip. Instead, I got completely taken in by the incredible world that is Rancho Margot, in tiny Pueblo Nuevo, west of Arenal.

As I mentioned in my last post, Rancho Margot is a sustainable organic farm and ecotourism operation. What I did not realize at the time, however, is the extent to which Rancho Margot surpasses the high expectations with which I approached it. The farm tour was a truly remarkable experience. My initial instinct would be to describe the farm as something of a circular chain, in which every point has some sort of output biproduct that is used elsewhere as another input. A circle, however, is not complex enough, and I'm thinking it is a bit more like a web.

 

Part of a tributary of the nearby Rio Cano is diverted to two turbines that provide hydroelectric power to the entire site, inluding the bungalows, which in turn provide the funding that pays the workers who operate the farm, which contains chickens for meat and eggs, cattle for milk (and meat, I think, though it wasn't on the menu when I was there), and pigs for meat. They're not fully self-sustained in terms of the chicken or beef yet, but they expect to be soon. Animal waste is separated into liquids and solid. The solids are placed in bins with thousands of worms, who over the course of a few months digest it and turn it into soil. The liquid is diverted to a pipe system that harnesses the methane gas for use in the kitchen, and the remaining liquid is used as fertilizer. Fertilizer and soil is also combined with compost piles housed in two enormous containers, which, perhaps most impressively, have seemingly endless coils of pipe running through them, so as to use the naturally heat-producing biodegrading process of the compost to provide hot water for the rest of the complex--meaning not just hot showers but a hot pool in which to swim and relax. The compost and fertilizer are used to grow a massive range of plants, trees, herbs, fruits and vegetables, all which are used to feed both people and animals, and ultimately generate compost. Uneaten people food goes back to the animals, and uneaten animal food goes to the compost pile. Excess grease from the kitchen is converted into soap for the bathrooms. Pesticides are all natural, and produced on site, ranging from microbes originally harnessed from nearby mountains and cultivated in vats to pungent basil plants meant to draw the attention of insects away from more important plants nearby. To keep insects from developing any immunity, the farmers constantly rotate through the various pesticides (which, it's worth noting, keep insects away, rather than killing them). Even the drinking water flows from a nearby spring. For more detail on the farm side of things, check out this recent article from triplepundit.com.

In addition to all that, the ranch has an animal rescue program, which works to train animals rescued from black market trade, and ultimately release them back into the wild. There's also a reforestation program, which is designed to restore nearby patches of razed rainforest to their former glory. I am certain that I've forgotten something, because their accomplishments are pretty numerous. They have earned four of five leafs from a sustainable tourism rating program. According to Tom, Juan's childhood friend who runs a lot of the day to day operations of the ranch, the only thing keeping them from the fifth leaf is adequate handicap accessibility, something they are working on, and are hoping to have accomplished before the next inspection.

Lest that last statement sound like this is some blind chase of accolades, it is clear from walking the grounds and talking to the people that Rancho Margot is a labor of love. Juan seems to be one of those rare people Malcom Gladwell might write a book about, who possesses a unique combination of brilliance, creativity, charisma, and funding. He opened the first Burger King ever in Europe, which remains, according to Tom, the most successful Burger King in the world today. So, it is worth noting that even the funding flows directly from Juan's own ingenuity. In Rancho Margot, Juan has managed to follow through on his lifelong dream, teaming and working closely with a number of scientists and engineers from Costa Rica's EARTH University to figure out all of the incredibly complex details involved in setting up the infrastructure for this operation.

Almost as remarkable as the farm itself is that they have done all of this in less than six years. If that sounds impressive in writing, a tour around the facility reveals it to be nothing short of staggering. Last night I mentioned to Juan's son, Freddy, who runs the volunteer program, that I was amazed that they had gotten all of these things up and running in such a short period of time. His response, to his and all of their credit, was, "well, it's up, I don't know about running." He was still feeling the heat from the 90 distance runners who camped out last night on the facility's soccer field. The small paid and volunteer staff had to deal with serving what seemed to be the longest buffet line the area (and probably any of us) had ever seen. Although Tom was a bit concerned that they might appear overwhelmed, the truth is that from my perspective, they really seemed to take it all in stride, and handle it quite well, with everyone chipping in to help out wherever it was needed. Though, I should add, I certainly do feel for the kitchen staff, who had to stay late serving food last night, and who started making breakfast around 3 this morning so that the runners could eat at 4 before running 38 miles.

I guess the thing that impresses me the most is the attention to detail by the people at the top. Juan and Tom clearly have tabs on everything, and their presence is felt to a very reassuring degree. Both of them make a point of talking to all the guests, and getting to know people a bit. Yesterday at breakfast, Tom informed me that he enjoyed my last blog post, which showed up in his Google Alerts. Rigo, who runs the website among other things, did the same. I know they'll end up reading this one too, so I'll take this moment to say: hi guys, thanks for making my brief stay an excellent one. Hopefully I'll see you again soon (I'll get to that in a bit). The hands-on approach, it's worth noting, extends far beyond simple appearances and image concerns. Yesterday, during the tour, I noticed Juan climbing down a rock wall to personally inspect a water pump by the hot pool.

So, needless to say, I came away incredibly impressed by Rancho Margot. For as much as I have seen parts of this country's tourim industry moving too fast or thoughtlessly, Juan, Tom, and team provide a striking counterexample of the good that can be done. It is very clear that they are constantly re-assessing and seeking ways to cut down the incredibly limited amount of waste that is produced at the ranch. On the "moving too fast" side of the ledger, I will admit that their plans to add condos and hotel space in the near future are the kind of thing that generally would have me concerned, but I remain confident that the area is in highly qualified hands. The staff is entirely comprised of buena gente (Spanish for "good people"). The volunteers I met were all really smart and interesting, and great company, not to mention that Ian, the bartender, whipped up a pretty stellar mango concoction out of the blue, so that I could have something tropical to sip while swimming in the hot pool.

I'd also like to take a moment to discuss the food, which is quite simply unreal. Saturday's pig made two encore appearances yesterday, with another leg for lunch, and then the other two legs and the ribs for dinner (90 distance runners can go through a lot of pork). The vegetables were as good as any I've eaten, having come out of the ground as recently as that day in some cases. I was actually discussing with one of the volunteers, an American named Matt, that it seemed like an ideal place for a high end restaurant with farm fresh ingredients. Were I the type of person to meddle in the lives of others, I would point out that my friend John Adler, who loves both slow food and Costa Rica, would be a perfect fit for something like that. But I'm really not that type of person, so I won't point out that my friend John Adler, who is a truly remarkable chef with a preponderence of relevant experience and a very sophisticated palate, would really be a perfect fit for something like that. Granted, I don't really want John to leave Brooklyn, where I get to hang out with him and occasionally eat his food, but that's another issue entirely.

I suppose I should also just briefly touch on something that is more relevant to my own travels, and say that yesterday I went horseback-riding for the first time in my life, with my guide Jimmy. My horse was a bit ornery, and clearly not thrilled to have a beginner astride him, but he took me for a nice ride. I learned that galloping is, in addition to being totally fun, less painful than trotting, which involves more bouncing than one generally likes. Anyway, there are some pictures of me in a very handsome yellow helmet sitting on a big animal. Jimmy was also a really nice guy and a super interesting kid. We enjoyed some good conversation about psychology, politics, and other things. I also take this as a sign that my Spanish is progressing very well, because although he often responded to me in English (everyone wants to practice what they're learning), I managed to convey my relevant points in Spanish.

So, all told, the Rancho Margot experience was phenomenal. I completely skipped my plans to go to the butterfly garden, volcano observatory, and hot springs, and I am thrilled with that decision. I'm very seriously considering trying to work a two-or-more-week volunteer stay there into the back end of my trip. I'm hoping they could use someone with computer, analytic, or organizational skills. And I'm hoping I can find a way to squeeze it in among the many other fascinating places and countries I'm trying to visit before I return to my normal life. At the very least, amid the fun crazyness of the last few weeks, Rancho Margot provided a perfect vacation from my vacation.

And with that, I've finished my meal and I'm off to get some strawberry-vanilla-lime swirl ice cream to help me handle this high eighties heat (sorry NYC).

Saludos,

Seth

Fotografía:

Rancho Margot

Blogue de Lluvia

Because the best jokes are the ones you need to explain, the Spanish term for "rainforest" is "Bosque de lluvia." So that's where the title of this post comes from. The reason for it is that I'm currently writing from the middle of the rainforest in the Arenal region of Costa Rica.

More specifically, I'm writing this post from Rancho Relaxo, a bit west of El Castillo. Okay, it's actually Rancho Margot, but I'm planning to lobby them for a change. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm out here to check out (from a distance) Volcán Arenal, one of the ten most active volcanoes in the world. In preparation for coming here, I scoped out my sometimes trusty Lonely Planet guide, and saw their glowing recommendation for Rancho Margot. Basically, Rancho Margot was founded by Chileno Juan Sostheim and his family in an effort to promote sustainable agriculture and community development in the Arenal region. It is a large (and stunningly beautiful) organic farm on the southwestern side of the Volcano, and houses a number of bungalows and bunkhouses, in the latter of which I'll be staying for the next two nights. All electricity is generated on site (I think it's hydroelectric, from the nearby river) and the meals feature ingredients--both animal and vegetable--raised on the farm and in the surrounding area. Tonight I had some incredibly fresh vegetables, as well as an unbelievable roasted pig (one of the volunteers here told me they slaughtered it this morning). I suppose I should add that, on top of all that, I'm writing this from a hammock, and I'm surrounded by the natural beauty of the rainforest. I should also point out that when Juan asked what I do and I told him that I would be heading to Berkeley in the fall, he mentioned that he's been in contact at various points with Berkeley prof (and noted foodie) Michael Pollen.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll get the full tour of the farm, so I expect I'll have more to report then. In the meantime though, I thought I'd talk a little more about Quepos and Manuel Antonio. I wanted to keep things fairly light in my first post yesterday, but there's certainly plenty to talk about over on the Pacific coast. The major issue in the area (which, of course, not everyone realizes) is sustainable eco-tourism. Costa Rica has taken great advantage of the concept of eco-friendly travel, but--in many cases--has unfortunately done a much better job of exploiting the label than it has of applying the philosophy. The national park system is excellent, and has protected a lot of important ecosystems. However, there are a number of places in the country where there has been little thought given to longer term sustainability, and Manuel Antonio is definitely one. It has also been generally detrimental to the area's inhabitants. The serious boost in tourism has brought a lot of money to the area, but resulted in prices that are, no joke, sometimes on par with what you see in New York. It's hard to get lunch for under $10, and a beer is never cheaper than $2. I know that's not horrible, but it's obviously a drastic change from the rest of Central America. As a New Yorker, I find New York prices less shocking than most, but it means that a lot of locals are getting priced out of the area. Even Quepos, which was historically just a small fishing town, is now too expensive for many of its inhabitands. My Spanish teacher, Sandra, is originally Quepeña, but has since moved to the slightly more remote town of Parrita. As far as I can tell, the locals view Parrita the way the British view Slough.

Another issue is that the rapid influx of luxury hotels and condos has outpaced legislation and management of the drawbacks that accompany such things. So there is no water treatment facility, meaning that most of the waste from the hotels is piped out to the ocean. As a result, though the beaches in Manuel Antonio are some of the most beautiful I've ever seen, the beach in Quepos is contaminated, and not a place one should even consider go into the water. Not all of the hotels are problematic--one called Si Como No is particularly noteworthy for its green approach. But generally speaking, the focus appears to be on cashing in while the getting is good, rather than building something that might last. The local government does what it can, keeping the regional transit hub over in Quepos, away from the parkland. The lack of nightlife on the Manuel Antonio side may well also be a result of noise regulations or something else I don't really know about. Camping overnight in the park is not permitted, and entry is limited to a certain number of visitors. So, suffice to say there is a lot that is done to protect the nature here.

Unfortunately, tourists, often unwittingly, remain a major problem. A particularly prevalent issue is interaction with the monkeys. The Central American Squirrel Monkey, which I mentioned yesterday, has very few natural habitats left, and this is one. A frustratingly common sight is a tourist giving a banana to a squirrel monkey. This is a very bad thing for a few reasons. First and foremost, the human hand carries bacteria that can be very harmful to the monkeys' digestive system, and sometimes even fatal. It also increases monkey reliance on human handouts in place of actual foraging, and moreover makes the monkeys much more aggressive than they otherwise would be (I saw one jump onto a woman who was holding a banana and take said banana out of her hand).

A large part of the problem, of course, is that people have no idea that it's bad to feed the monkeys, and they're completely adorable, so who wouldn't want a picture of their kid holding out a banana to a tiny five-fingered hand? But there needs to be a much greater effort made toward educating people about this issue when they get here. It doesn't help that the locals seem to think that telling people not to feed monkeys might cost them business. Almost none of the tourists I've encountered knew how seriously problematic an issue this is, and I only know about it because I happened to read it in the LP guide, and in Quepolandia, the local magazine for tourists (all in English). Quite honestly, it would not be hard for hotels to place a small sign in rooms just letting people know the risks, or placing signs at places that monkeys tend to congregate (like the wonderful Hospedaje Costa Linda). So instead the mechanism is just that those of us who do know see someone feeding a monkey, and can only tell them after they've already done it, thus making them feel like a huge jerk. The rapid pace of development doesn't have a quick or obvious solution, but it seems to me that a little bit of education would go a long way toward curbing the monkey feeding issue.

There's also a related issue with dolphin and whale watches. Unlike in the states, they are almost never run by qualified naturalists, and numerous tour operators have encouraged their guests to get in the water with the animals. Though they don't much mind boats, these particular dolphins and whales apparently get very skittish about people in the water, and this has, in some cases, disrupted their mating cycles. As a result, a lot of the animals are moving to calmer climes, meaning the fledgling whale watch industry here is already in decline.

Based on what I've seen (and read) thus far, this situation seems to be pretty pervasive throughout the country. Costa Rica has financially catapulted ahead of the rest of Central America in large part due to a combination of their lack of military spending and their massive tourism boom. The two, as it happens, are related, because the absence of a military means much more funding for police forces, a big part of why it's such a safe country, which feeds the tourism. But it appears to me at the moment as though current efforts to keep the ecotourism sustainable have the right idea, but in many cases are insufficient. This, as it happens, is a big part of why I wanted to come out here to Rancho Margot. Arenal is one of the most aggressively touristy areas in the country. The main hub of La Fortuna literally swarms with tour operators, both legitimate and fraudulent. Plush hotels with names in English dot the landscape, without involving themselves at all in the lives of the people who actually live here. So to come to a place that is not only actively trying to change the way people interact with their surroundings, but is reputedly having a great deal of success doing so, is really quite encouraging. I feel a little bad that my expectations are almost unfairly high right now, but the little I've seen so far has me thinking I've come to the right place to find what I'm looking for.

And with that, I'm off to catch up on some z's after three late nights out with my Man Ant peeps.

Saludos,

Seth

Fotografía:

Quepos and Manuel Antonio

Arenal and Rancho Margot

More monkeys than a barrel of fun

I apologize for my recent absence from the blogosphere. I've been hanging out in the spectacularly beautiful coastal towns of Quepos and Manuel Antonio, in Costa Rica. Manuel Antonio and Quepos are on opposite sides of a large hill, with a bus that runs between them every half hour. Manuel Antonio is home to the beach and the park, and is where pretty much all the tourists go, with Quepos being a waystation between here and other cities. Almost none of the locals live on the Manuel Antonio side, or even on the hill in between. Oddly, even though all the tourists stay on the Manuel Antonio side, all the nightlife is either on the hill or on the Quepos side.

Once again, I'm staying with a lovely host family that takes good care of me, but doesn't have internet. I'm fine with that, as it means I'm more inclined to be out of the house or, when I am home, reading or playing guitar, or practicing my Spanish. My host parents are Doña Haydee and Don Victor. Don (and Doña, its feminine equivalent) is a Spanish term somewhere between "Mr." and "Sir." We don't really have the equivalent in English, but it's a term of respect that one uses with one's elders, and in formal settings. It's not very common in Nicaragua, but it's a big part of the culture here. At any rate, Doña Haydee and Don Victor are incredibly sweet septuagenarians who have welcomed me into their home. They have five children, each of whom has children of their own, and lives in the neighborhood. They also have two adorable great granddaughters who live next door, Meiying and Junmei (their mother is of Chinese descent). I've spent a good deal of time playing with them. Junmei, the older one, is three, and our ability to speak Spanish is roughly equivalent at this point, so we've had some very fun interactions. She delighted in giving me her my little pony doll, and having me do voices for that doll's interactions with a stuffed giraffe. She also likes to point at pictures of animals and identify them, e.g. "eso es mono" (this is a monkey), or "eso es tortuga" (this is a turtle).

Another reason I've been a bit out of the loop is that I reunited with my friends Ben and Sam, from Nicaragua, and we've spent the better part of my post-class days hanging out at their hostel or out on the beach. There's not a whole lot to do here other than walk through the park (which I have not yet done actually) and go to the beach (which I have). I'm okay with this, as I'm still recovering from the volcano trek. I planned this part of the trip to be a bit of a relaxing beach vacation in the midst of some more aggressive travel, so I'm okay with it. Tomorrow I'm going to Arenal Volcano, which is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. This is one you look at from a distance, as it sends up almost nightly displays of lava, fire, and smoke. The town also has hot springs, which are fed by the volcano, so I'm expecting to spend some time enjoying that as well. I've heard it's one of the most beautiful regions in a country that's full of them, so that should be pretty great.

Sam skipped town yesterday morning, but Ben is still here, and we've been having a lot of fun hanging out with a group of German girls we've met, Anna, Valerie, and Olive (the latter of whom also left yesterday). Last night the director of my Spanish school, David, invited me to come with him to a friend's house for a guitar jam session, so I brought the crew. Thomas, another good dude I know from classes, also came long. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. Almost all expats and travelers, and too many guitars (I think I counted six). There were almost no times that we were all playing the same song, so it sort of devolved into little groups of people playing and singing. It was mostly a lot of fun, though there was a weird moment when an extremely drunk expat got a bit aggressive and unpleasant (I'll write more about that later, I think). The primary point, for the moment, is that the people here are great, and life is tranquilo. Pura vida, as they say here.

The two reasons to come to Manuel Antonio are the beaches and the wildlife. I've only been to two of the four beaches, but they were pretty spectacular. Three of the beaches belong to the Parque Nacional, which requires a $10 entrance fee. I got in at the end of the day with a friend's used ticket, so I didn't have time to make it to the last two beaches. I'm expecting to get to do a bit more of that next week when my friends skip town. The wildlife, however, has been incredible even without having yet ventured into the park. Look through my pictures and you'll see two types of monkeys (including the unreasonably adorable squirrel monkey), a three-toed sloth, and various lizards. More remarkable than the presence of these animals is their ubiquity. I've seen squirrel monkeys so many times that right now there are literally over ten of them about 20 feet away from me, and I'm just sitting here typing instead of going over and taking pictures--they are crazy precious though, like little people.

The sloth, or perezoso in Spanish, is a relative of the bear. I honestly have no idea how evolution has allowed these animals to continue to exist, but I'm glad it has. It is undoubtedly my new favorite animal--it looks like an animatronic plush toy. They move very slowly. I definitely recommend checking out the pictures and two videos I took of the sloth.

Right now, however, Anna is bugging me to stop typing and go to the beach, and I think she's got the right idea. So I'll try to check in from Arenal this weekend, but you may not hear from me again until next week (I get back Monday). Pictures of Quepos and Man. Ant. available here.

Saludos,

Seth