BAM, back on the farm with three days left

So, I am back. And have been back for about two days now. I spent a week traveling.  Two nights in La Fortuna, three in Monteverde, and two in Manuel Antonio.  All of them were beautiful, different, and worthy of checking out.  Natural hot springs, cloud forests, and literally the most beautiful beach I have ever seen in my life. Also one of the strongest undertows I have ever had to deal with. Lesson learned about trying to body surf. I am back on the farm after a long bus ride in a hot cramped public bus next to a crying baby that was silenced by being breast fed by the mother. I got to experience that. With a full bladder to boot. When I got back to the farm, everyone there before I left was gone, and replaced by new faces.  Alas, that is the way of the farm and I can´t say that i care too much because I will be home in a few short days. I know that this blog was lacking in information, but of course, any time you see me, don´t hesitate to ask and I would be more than happy to fill in the numberous, numerous gaps haha.  I have learned quite a bit and I have also learned that next time I travel, I think i would like to go with somebody.  Thanks for reading and I will see you all stateside.

La Fortuna

Well, I suppose it is possible to mark this blog as a failure. I am just not very good about keeping it up to date.  I am currently off the farm and exploring this amazing country.  I am ending my second day in La Fortuna and will be heading for Monteverde come 8:30 tomorrow morning.  Though my stay here was pretty short, I did get to see and enjoy a lot and I expect Monteverde to be even more impressive than this place was.  On my first day here, I arrived, checked in and headed to the bar for some food. Before I knew it I was a few hours deep into a conversation with a very interesting old man who happens to be a published author.  His book, Hunter of the Cats.  Not really about cats he assured me but I suppose it could be worth at least looking into. In any case, he has promised me a free guest house if I ever come to La Fortuna again.  Emily is welcome too.  Realizing the sun was setting and I had not even left the hotel yet, I quickly made plans to visit the local hot springs.  There are plenty of hot springs here, and most come with a price tag.  I elected to go to the local spot, and also the free one.  I got hot faster than my cab was scheduled to arrive but it was ok, as a result of standing on the side of the road waiting, I got to chat with a security guard at a nearby hotel.  Since leaving the farm, I have spoken spanish nearly exclusively, with the exception of the hotel employees.  I am not sure I am improving that much, but I am gaining confidence.  Today was a milidly eventful day,  I went on a 4 mile hike up a mountain to an amazing waterfall.  The swim and the scenery were well worth the sweat I poured on the way up.  When I returned, I ate an amazing lunch at a local place, so much good food for so little money. I have found while here I much prefer a huge lunch and hardly any dinner. After that I went to a nature preserve, which was actually really disappointing. It was like a small zoo for just frogs and reptiles. Unfortunately, the entire country is littered with amazing and beautiful plants and animals, and I was duped into paying for things that in some cases I had already seen just walking through the jungle and what not. Which as a side note has become one of my favorite things to do on the farm.  Grab a machete, and roll into the jungle to pick oranges and look for ripe bananas.  Anyways, I have been eating some amazing food here. I have been looking for the less flashy places that the locals seem to like and it has paid off a ton. None of the food is that fancy, but damn it is good. I know this post has been scatter brained and is ending suddenly but I will end it by saying that I really love this country. And I expect I would love most of central america, but I am not the biggest fan of traveling alone. At least not right now.  Vamos a ver.  Por ahora, pura vida mis amigos. 

Never thought I would be excited to be back on the farm.....

I was given a piece of advice by some very good friends before I left on this trip.  Don´t say no to anything. Soak up everything and experience it all.  Well, I have just returned from a trip that began last night around 8:00.  Taking me not only to the capitol, San Jose, but a bit beyond, to an area outside the city and a metal bar, where I spent the past 7 hours or so in the midst of the costa rician metal scene.  Who would have though that the first metal bar i went to, and metal shows i went to would be in costa rica? First mosh pit? Costa Rica.  needless to say it was an exceedingly interesting night that will provide me with plenty of stories.  An hour of that time was pretty cool i would have to say. Getting to see something i had never seen and probably would never do in the states, but the subsquent six hours that followed dealing with a multitude of situation that followed all the way into ciudad colon and up to two hours ago, was not the ideal night out i had been dreaming of.  Though the only sleep i have gotten since 6am of yesterday is the quick 40 minutes on the bus from san jose to ciudad colon, i am feeling better than you would expect and actaully planning on going out to get some work hours in right now.  With the week starting that means Wednesday is right around the corner, and another opportunity to get off the farm. This time until july 13, when i will be out traveling around this country that i have not gotten to see much of yet.  I have all the natural feelings one would expect leading up to a trip like this but I know that it will be the highlight of my time here.  I got a funky back tan casuse I am minus the perfect set of hands that typically helps with that so i have been trying to cover what i can on my own. Perhaps today i will even that out some.  Thinking of you all.

Storms

Last night finally brought the rain. It hadn´t rained for about two or three days and it really made up for it yesterday.  Took out the power for a few hours in fact. That was all well and fine until the sun totally went down, and then, the hunt for candles began. After finally finding some, the majority of us sat around the kitchen and played some games. The rain had stopped by the time I went to sleep but I had trouble comfortably sleeping last night for whatever reason.  Today as an early start and a long work day.  Work on the clay oven is coming along well, and today brought a ton of progress.  The structure of the oven is earth bags, which are simply woven fiber bags, filled with a mixture of dirt clay and gravel, layed flat and pounded and stacked to the height desired. with all of those in place, we began to put the outer layer on the front of the oven which is made up of empty glass bottles and cement.  Everything utilized in the process is in an attempt to use less cement and take advantage of materials already on hand.  I was impressed with how much progress was made today on it and though 4 of us worked almost only on that project, it is definitely possible for it to be completed within a few days.  I did neglect some of the plants I have been trying to nurse back to health so I will have to make it a point to do that tomorrow. In addition, I had wanted to clean the bathrooms today, and did not get around to that. Which is causing suffering now because this computer is right near a bathroom, and it literally smells as though there is a nice pile of shit right under my feet. Dirty hot human poo. so gross. You are not able to flush toilet paper here, so there are bags in all the bathrooms full of just dirty tp, so that is no doubt what is causing this smell that i am having a tough time getting over. Oh well. Sorry for complaining. I hope things are going well in your lives those who are reading this sad little blog. More updates to come as interesting things happen.

UPEACE

So yesterday was a pretty cool and relaxing day.  Started off with a fast breakfast and rushed to pile everyone into the car so we could get to the bus stop for the free shuttle that takes you to the United Nations University for Peace, a graduate school located just outside of Ciudad Colon that was created by....the United Nations.  The idea behind it was that we have so many schools to teach about war and fighting, (ie naval academy, military schools, things like that) but there is no school to teach about peace.  So now there is a school that teaches about peace.  Anyways, riding up the mountain to the university it got to a ponit where all you would see is just hundreds, maybe even thousands of coffee plants, just covering the mountain side all the way up.  Once we got there, we went on a small tour of the school though for some reason, everyone got stopped up at the library and everyone grabbed a book and sat down to read for a bit.  After that, one of the other wwoofers here decided that he really wanted to sit in on a lecture. So we found a professor and made that happen. The lecture was on the subject of Terrorism in the Muslim Context, causes developments and things of that nature.  It was very interesting.  After that, we had lunch at the cafeteria. It was the first time I have had any meat in costa rica and I guess i kind of had been missing it. Though not I hadn´t noticed I was.  After that, some people decided to go back to the farm and work myself along with a few others settled on hiking up the rest of the mountain to a lookout point.  The hike was pretty easy and the view from the lookout point was amazing.  After taking in the view, we headed back down, deciding to take the jungle path rather than the more easy path we took up. The path was very cool and allowed for some nice pictures of some plant life and things like that. We got turned around for a bit but managed to make it out in time to catch our bus back to Ciudad Colon.  from there we walked around town a bit, had a beer, and walked back to the farm.  all in all I would have to say that it was a pretty good day.  I am still in the process of planning my trip but every time I get off the farm, i get more excited to get off the farm for a longer period of time.

Lazy days

So the past two days have been relatively uneventful.  Typical work days on the farm, for me at least consist of weeding beds, watering plants if it hasn´t rained, perhaps planting some new seeds that have been germinating in the greenhouse, which is not like a green house as the definition states, more of just a kinda covered walkway with lots of young plants growing.  Two people left sunday which is a bummer because i had really come to enjoy their company and they were certainly some of the hardest workers on the farm.  They did give me some advice for the trip i am planning on taking but that hardly mitigates their departure.  They left sunday, and two new people just arrived yesterday.  A frenchmen and a girl from texas.  Everyone that comes through here has a very interesting story and in almost every single case, a very interesting story of where they just came from, or where they will be. Except for me. For instance, the new guy, Nico, from France, has been traveling around for a few months already and plans on continuing to travel for rougly two years.  He has and plans to cover most of the globe from the sound of it and has been getting to each new place by way of boat.  All the travlers here are extremely savvy when it comes to transportation and aside from an occasional flight here and there, they all get around by rideshare, couch surfing, wwoof, or just straight up hitch hiking.

When the work day is finished, the day we pass the time by cooking, eating, playing soccer, reading.  There is so much cooking that happens here and you can almost always find someone in the kitchen, and most always mooch some food off them. My culinary skills are definitely not as advanced as some of the others so i am more than happy to slide my way into their meals.  As for soccer, my legs are sore and my shins bruised but with how frequently we play there is no way I won´t improve, which is good news for next years tournament.  We are supposed to go and visit the United Nations University for Peace today so I am real interested to see that. There is also apparently a cool lookout point that you can hike to from the university. The rash on my hand is just about completely gone thank goodness but i did manage to cut a finger while cutting up a pineapple for everyone on sunday. Oh well. Nothing major.  I shall keep the updates coming!

soooo.

Naturally I haven't been on here a while but I will try to get better about keeping this more updated, and more frequently.  I am adjusting to farm life pretty well I would say. Though I have belabored the point to some, my only complaint is the rash I have developed on my hand.  It is called Phytophotodermatitis. Kinda wild, and hopefully gone within a few days.  Life in a hammock is growing on me.  It rained all last night and I would have to say that it probably helped me sleep more soundly.  The peaceful steady drum.  Ahhh, though I do hate when I have to get up to pee in the middle of the night, it is annoying. Anyways, this blog is not about some jackass in a hammock, so, the plants grown here are so numerous that in some instances, even the owner of the farm doesn't know what is growing.  There is a myriad of vegetables and root plants, as to be expected. Radishes, beets, sweet potato, yucca, guanacaste trees, squash,  mango trees, cashew trees, bamboo, tons of pineapple, lemons, limes, sweet limes, which you can just peal and eat, though they are still quite sour, string beans, white beans, and plenty of herbs as well.  Dill, rosemary, parsley, and some others that I can pronounce, kinda, but can't spell not to mention all the ones I cannot remember. I will try to get out within the next few days and take some pictures to show the layout and look of the farm.


I finally got to go into town today and I really loved it. It was exactly what I needed.  I got to use a little Spanish, but I haven't used it nearly enough to strengthen my skills. We went to the local market, which was under a cover smaller than a football field, but where tons of local farmers sell all kinds of things. Some we grow, and some we don't.  It was cool though. Then, we went to a small organic juice bar called, organica, which has AMAZING drinks and smoothies (batidos more specifically). It really liked being in the town and look forward to going again and spending more time there.  I will stop now to keep it from getting too long, but I will try to update it more often.