TravelStream™ news feed for member espriseme on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/espriseme en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:08:06 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1224104580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1224104580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1224104580/tpod.html Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:08:06 -0400 Puriscal, Costa Rica

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Boston, Massachusetts, United States

John was waiting for me at the airport. I had nearly forgotten how good he smells. He brought me back to my studio apartment, which I didn't have time to clean after packing before I left, and carried my heavy suitcase up the stairs. Then he showed me his new place in Inman Square. He moved into his last apartment two years ago, when we'd been dating for a few months and had just gotten serious. I helped carry the mattress up the stairs, and we sat on the carpet and drank Octoberfest, my favorite of the Samuel Adams seasonals. New apartments buzz with the exciting sense of possibility; even the mundane possibilities of putting the couch against this wall or that seem momentous. Now, that apartment is bloated with the weight of two years of our shared history, and this new one seems exciting and different. It's a free-standing house, not a cramped unit in a large building. He and his roommate are talking about fixing up the basement. It sounds like fun. I'd shown the kids in Costa Rica some pictures of autumn in New England. They were amazed, though the photos are a poor substitute. I timed my return just perfectly; it's cool and crisp--sweater weather, not jacket weather--and the leaves are just starting to turn. People look so classy in the fall, out of their sweaty summer tank tops and cutoffs but not yet burrowed into quilted overcoats and ski caps. The slapping sound of flip-flops gives way to the dignified click of heels on dry pavement for a brief interval, before being replaced by the crunch of leaves and snow. I've been out of touch, but I did manage to hear that the Red Sox were doing pretty well for themselves, even without Manny. The post-season excitement crackles in the dry air, which is redolent of leaf dust and last-chance barbecues. Days are getting shorter, but the sun still sets, rather than sinking into a cloud at four in the afternoon. All of New England has more or less the same beauty, but no other city comes alive quite like Boston; it is, after all, America's college town. Coffee shops are once again filling up with wide-eyed freshmen, and cross-country teams trample through the parks. I used to escape to the Common to call home or do my homework in peace. One of my fondest memories is taking a break from reading Plato's insufferable <i>Republic to watch some ducks dive for breadcrumbs in the pond, their little feathered duck tushes waving in the air. Someone told me, during my first semester, to cherish this unique experience, because I'd never have a New England autumn like my first. People grow jaded, and take the seasons for granted, and soon I would hardly notice it too. That person was half-right. Next week I'll be back at work, back in my belly dancing classes, back to worrying about money (or, rather, my lack of it.) I'm already back in my sweaters and back on my 99% vegan diet. But this week, I'm working on unpacking, making calls, restocking my fridge, and generally just putting my life back together. I had thought it would seem terribly drab, as it always does after a vacation (especially a long one.) And maybe once I start working again, it will. Today, however, I can't get enough of this beautiful city, and the beautiful guy I could hardly stand to leave behind. It's good to be back.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223845140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223845140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223845140/tpod.html Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:03:48 -0400 Puriscal, Costa Rica

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San Jose, Province of San Jose, Costa Rica

As much as I have written, there's still so much that I've left out. Memory works in strange ways; this trip has brought to the surface several things I'd forgotten, but there are other things--even, already, things from this trip--that I only remember by reading what I wrote about them. So I feel a vague sense of panic at the thought of all the things I didn't write about slowly slipping from my mind, perhaps never to be found again. Just in the last week, I forgot to mention that I tried (and liked) guaro, Costa Rica's signature liquor made from sugarcane, and some of the local coffee liqueurs. Or that, after extensive taste testing, I found I prefer Pilsen to Imperial, because Pilsen has a little more bite to it. I didn't write about any of the great conversations I had floating in the hotel pool in Tortuguero with my dad, or walking along the beach or through the butterfly garden with my mom. I never told you that one of the "nothings" I did in the hotel room in San Jose was watching a movie in Spanish. It gave me a little thrill to realize I understood almost every word of dialogue. Maybe I've picked up more than I realized. I took pictures, but never wrote about the weekly salsa classes at the Home Base, or the historian that gave a lecture the first week. I also took a picture of a dirty, soaked, stuffed rabbit in the gutter that I passed every day on the way to school (a route I can legitimately describe as "uphill both ways.") It looked so forlorn. And then there were the bugs; those bizarre fuzzy caterpillars that looked like lint balls, giant hairy spiders, and moths the size of parakeets. I also noticed but forgot to mention in my summary of observations that Puma seems to be the most popular brand around here; apparently it's the most affordable. One of the books I'm reading mentions the phenomenon of "middle class" Ticos spending a month's salary on Reebok shoes. I wouldn't spend an entire Saturday night's worth of tips on a pair of shoes, but then, I am cheap. No matter how obnoxious it was, I will probably soon forget the dissonant symphony of barking dogs every night, or the humidity that turned my cough drops into a pool of cough syrup at the bottom of my medicine bag. Almost every afternoon the dampness gave way to rain, which sometimes fell with such force, the drops bounced a foot off the ground. Occasionally it stopped before sunset, and a rainbow emerged. I never took pictures of those kids who came by for help with their English homework, or the way the volunteers always arranged ourselves at the dinner table, or the place where we took our laundry. I have a few of the old church with its broken windows and sunken foundation, but they don't do it justice. I got some of the "NO TLC" graffiti in San Jose, but I still haven't looked up what that means. I should have written about the fun we had playing Taboo or making late-night ice cream runs. Or the time we got stopped by the police for a drug search on the way back from Manuel Antonio. Or sharing one last bowl of popcorn and talking about boys with Anna, or those godawful microwaveable chicharrones (pork rinds, for you gringos.) Alli's pickup soccer games with the local teams, the bracelets Caitlyn was always weaving, Sarah's uncanny ability to deduce meaning from context, Brian's repertoire of Disney songs, Caroline's bartender stories, all the other volunteers, especially the Canadians (who turned out to be pretty cool, after all), Marta's special vegetable soup for when any of us got sick--these things were always around, so I never got around to writing about them. I had a Word document with a bullet-point list of stuff I wanted to weave into my entries at some point, and even now I've only just scratched the surface. There will always be more to reality than there is to the story. Good writers make choices; instead of trying to cram everything in, they carefully select as few details as possible to make the narrative come alive. I never quite figured out what I wanted this to be--a good story that even strangers would enjoy reading, or a thorough and honest diary that just happened to be public? Even now, as my plane is about to touch down in Boston, I'm hamstrung by the twin conceits of thinking my blog is art, and thinking everything I experienced is important.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223758620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223758620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223758620/tpod.html Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:58:58 -0400 Puriscal, Costa Rica

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San Jose, Province of San Jose, Costa Rica

Our tour ended yesterday with a tortuous (and torturous!) drive back to the Hotel LeBergerac in San Jose. This time, I only just barely held it together, gastrointestinally speaking, on the winding mountain roads. I was tempted to ask our driver to stop so I could take a picture of myself wrapped around a "Curvas Peligrosas" sign, but between the DEET stains on my jungle pants, my connect-the-dots mosquito bites, and the inevitable result of not wanting to shave any body part covered in mosquito bites (that would be all of them, now) I've never in my life felt less able to pull off a silly-sexy pose. We hit brutal traffic when it started pouring, and arrived several hours later than expected. On the way, we passed crowds of people waiting for late buses, looking significantly less cheerful than the awaiting passengers I'd admired on the way in from the airport six weeks ago. I picked out something on the traffic report about streets being closed due to flooding, so perhaps this was a bit out of the ordinary. My parents had expressed some interest in taking a coffee tour. I knew Cafe Britt was nearby and worth visiting, and I didn't mind seeing it again, so I suggested we go there today. We had to take a cab; they pick people up at their hotels in San Jose, but as we made our plans at the last minute, their shuttle was all booked up. We chose the deluxe tour, which included lunch, a lesson on making coffee drinks, and a field trip to their husking and drying facility in addition to a whimsical costumed performance that's part of the standard package, but which had been pared down for CCS's private mini-tour. (For the record: in my September 3 entry, "Me Gusta Cafe," I erroneously identified Cafe Britt as a coffee plantation and processing center; it is in fact only a processing and packing plant. They buy all their coffee from small farmers, all of whom adhere to at least shade-grown (semi-organic) and many to fully organic standards. The coffee plants on site are for demonstration purposes only. I regret the error.) If you can afford a few extra hours and an extra twenty bucks per person, I recommend the deluxe tour; lunch was fantastic, and I learned a lot more this time around. Some new fun facts: caffeine breaks down at high temperatures, like those in the oven that roasts coffee beans. So, while a darker roast (which, by the way, just means more time in the oven, not higher temperatures) produces a stronger flavor, it yields a weaker stimulant. Espresso may not be the way to go, then, if you have to pull an all-nighter, unless you can drink it straight, and the only limiting factor is the volume of liquid you can consume before your bladder explodes. Also, the ideal altitude for growing coffee is between 1200 and 1500 meters above sea level; apparently, cold builds character even if you're a coffee bean. ("Cold" by tropical standards, of course; we're talking something like 65 degrees Farenheit. Brrrr!) Whole bean coffee does keep longer than ground coffee, especially once the bag has been opened, due to the lower surface area to volume ratio. The tour operators, however, still recommend buying ground coffee unless you have a professional-quality grinder because having an even grind is critical. I've been grinding beans in my dinky little Magic Bullet food processor and it tastes fine to me, but perhaps my coffee palate is not yet sophisticated enough to tell the difference. I sampled all the coffees again and found I still preferred the house dark roast, by a wide margin. They were all a little watery by U.S. standards (but typical for Costa Rican coffee) and this actually seemed to make the differences in flavor more pronounced. Fortunately, it doesn't take much caffeine to turn me into a jittery ball of rodent nerves, so I should be all right drinking the weaker stuff. On the recommendation of a previous CCS Puriscal volunteer who also kept a blog, we paid a quick visit to Galeria Namu, a tiny storefront stocked floor to ceiling with indigenous artwork. The owner is an Irish expatriate and former literature teacher who came here not speaking a word of Spanish or knowing anything about Native American crafts, but like so many first-world refugees, found her calling and has been here ever since. There were intricately woven baskets, some of which had taken years to make; animal figurines and jewelry carved out of vegetable ivory, a type of palm nut; drums, stamps, paintings, purses, and the usual array of knick-knacks. The masks in particular dazzled me; if I had two hundred dollars and three square feet of wall space to spare, I would have bought one. (If I had two thousand dollars and an empty room to spare, I would have bought them all and opened my own gallery. But if I've learned one thing from this trip, it's that I'd rather be too poor to take pretty things home with me, than have a beautiful home I never see because I'm always working.) My mom bought a woodcut and two watercolor paintings, and I settled on two batik cards. My parents are of the opinion that the laid-back tree-hugging pura vida lifestyle here will sooner or later (but probably sooner) succumb to the temptations of industrialization and free-market capitalism. I hope they're wrong, but even I haven't been here long enough, or read enough on the subject, to make a meaningful prediction one way or another. Okay, hands up if you thought that would stop me. Ha, ha! It's curious that Costa Rica is transitioning so quickly from an agrarian economy to a service economy, without having gone through an industrial manufacturing phase. The marketability of ecotourism seems to depend almost as much on the surrounding nations' failures to preserve their scenery and wildlife as it does on Costa Rica's success in doing so. Whether, when, and how to proceed with such proposals as paving certain roads heavily traveled by tourists, opening or keeping open to the public fragile wetland areas, and allowing potentially damaging (and likely exclusive) resorts to be built on beachfront property is a topic of great controversy in local politics. There may be limits on how many nature lovers' dreams the land can fulfill before the ecosystem collapses under the strain. My father and I had a long conversation at dinner (actually, it outlasted the meal) about how the current economic crisis at home is, according to him, the predictable outcome of a long tradition of expecting standards of living to improve for each generation, without an actual increase in real national wealth. I agree that the U.S. has been living on borrowed time since the term "manifest destiny" was coined, though I do think that relatively recent poor economic decisions (the deregulation of the lending industry and the financing of schools with local property taxes in particular) are more responsible for the sub-prime mortgage crisis than the human desire to achieve progress despite finite natural resources. From what I've read, it seems clear to me that six billion people is already too many; some estimates put the maximum infinitely sustainable human population as low as one million, and to maintain our current (American) lifestyle, that may not be too far off the mark. I wonder if we can rein ourselves in, stop multiplying fruitfully like it's God's will, stop draining irreplaceable energy reserves to make ourselves more comfortable, stop denying the imminent crisis, before it's too late. I'm not terribly optimistic.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223567460/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223567460/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223567460/tpod.html Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:56:45 -0400 Puriscal, Costa Rica

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Arenal Volcano National Park, Province of Guanacaste, Costa Rica

Yesterday afternoon we made it to La Fortuna, where we have our own mini cabin with front and rear porches several yards from our nearest neighbors, who happen to be the other American couple we're traveling with, anyway. We had a round of Imperials sitting outside, looking up at the volcano. It's one of "only" five active volcanoes in Costa Rica, according to our guide this morning; it constantly spews smoke and lava, but because the lava is "only" a thousand degrees, it's "only" visible at night. (Lava must be three thousand degrees to be visible in the daytime, it turns out. At least from a safe distance.) We saw more animals on the ride up to Arenal yesterday than we did on the brutal 2-hours-plus walk along the Silencio Trail this morning. Our driver pointed out some toucans (the Froot Loops people did a surprisingly accurate rendition, almost as good as the artists at the Wild Turkey distillery), a sloth (three-toed, apparently, since it was wide awake and nibbling leaves) and a howler monkey. The most interesting creature on this morning's tour was a juvenile (more poisonous than the adult) yellow (they change colors with age) Eyelash Viper (yes, they have eyelashes.) It was curled up in a bush and looked like a flower; that's the scam they run to lure hummingbirds. We also chased a cute anteater around the hills, but I couldn't get a decent shot of him on my camera. Other than that, well, the views were nice, and the trail boasts an astonishing concentration of mosquitoes. If I ever come into possession of Department of Defense Top Secrets, my kidnappers can just put me back in that forest and I'll commit treason faster than you can say "DEET is Lucifer's most empty promise!" I had more fun zip-lining this afternoon, going faster than the bugs can fly. My dad got a bit of a dud for a pulley; the wheel didn't spin as freely as the rest of ours, and he had to pull himself the last few yards on all but one line. I tried to get him to swap for at least one turn, but I think he had more fun figuring out how to conquer his faulty equipment than he did picking bugs out of his teeth. He's a hang glider design engineer and test pilot, so he's no stranger to flying at 40 mph. These zip lines were definitely longer and faster than the ones at Monteverde, but they seemed marginally less exciting--maybe because they were almost all above the canopy (I'm less afraid of heights than of getting whacked in the face by branches) or maybe just because it was my second time doing it. But it was definitely worth doing again. We hired our zip line driver to come back that night and take us to the southwestern side of the volcano, where the lava flow was more visible (it changed direction fairly recently; most of the hotels are built on the "wrong" side.) It was easy to see with the naked eye, though even at night, the thousand-degree lava was too dim to pick up with my Cannon Powershot. We sat in the rubble by the side of the road, among a horde of other tourists oohing and aahing as if watching a fireworks show. The volcano had been dormant for four centuries until July 29, 1968, when it blew its top and buried the villages of Pueblo Nuevo, San Luis, and Tabacon. Now, the area known as La Fortuna has blossomed under the flood of tourist dollars, and a few foolhardy hikers have been killed trying to climb the still-belching mountain. (This activity is now prohibited by the government, although that's unlikely to stop a truly determined fool.) A sophisticated seismograph network provides an early-warning system to allow the even more foolhardy area residents to evacuate in case of a major eruption, though in some ways an active volcano is safer than a "dormant" one. (I shouldn't talk; I grew up a stone's throw from the San Andreas fault, in a house built on top of decaying orange grove roots. Not that I had any say in the matter.) We watched the lava spill and tumble down the side of the mountain for the better part of an hour, until it started to rain. At that point, we were very glad to have paid our driver to stick around until we were ready to leave.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223480820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223480820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223480820/tpod.html Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:51:06 -0400 Puriscal, Costa Rica

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Sarapiqui, Province of Heredia, Costa Rica

The last time I went white-water rafting was in Sun River, Oregon. I was nine years old, so I wasn't exactly an active participant. We bought an overpriced photo of ourselves getting tossed around in Class IV rapids, in which I am sitting on the back of the raft, head thrown backward, laughing with the kind of carefree glee that is the unique blessing of people whose years are measured in single digits. This time, of course, I had my own oar in the Sarapiqui river, as we bounced and bobbed through Class II and III rapids of Hueco Gringo, Confusion, Superman, Montana Rusa, and Fuerza Aerea between La Virgen and Chilamate. It was a warm, clear day, just hot enough to make the water irresistible. My dad and I took the opportunity to cannonball from the banks where they told us it was safe to do so, when we stopped for fruit and the same coconut cookies my first snorkeling guide served in Cahuita. (They seem to be pretty popular here, at least as tourist treats.) Even with the life vest, I hit the water with so much force that my earlobes got folded up inside my helmet. I wish I'd had time to go twice. In between the rapids, I had a chance to chat with our guide. He and my father are in agreement that the enormous soaring birds I keep seeing are vultures, and not, as I'd blindly guessed, hawks. I'm not sure why that disappoints me. After all I've learned here, is there some part of me that still regards hunters as superior to scavengers? At our guide's urging, we raised our oars and clacked them together in a toast to "pura vida" every time we survived a run of rapids. He asked us what we thought of the term, and how to say it in English. I tried to explain, in Spanish, that while "pure life" is the direct translation, there's enough of a cultural barrier that "un dicho equivalente no existe en ingles." You have a culture of "pure life," I told him; we have a culture of work. He laughed, but I wasn't kidding.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223358660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223358660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223358660/tpod.html Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:46:19 -0400 Puriscal, Costa Rica

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Sarapiqui, Province of Heredia, Costa Rica

Today was mostly a travel day, but we did get a chance to feed some bats. According to our itinerary, this evening we were to visit the Tirumbina Biological Reserve for a two-hour "night walk," during which we would learn about such nocturnal creatures as frogs, insects, spiders, sloths (two-toed, I presume), kinkajous, porcupines, opossums, and "others," though "a bat tour is also an option." Since it was raining opossums and kinkajous when we arrived, they gave us the bat tour--inside. First there was a Powerpoint presentation on myths and facts about bats (turns out they're NOT related to vampires after all!), different species and their position on the animal family tree (they are very closely related to primates, though!), and their ecological importance (I wonder if I can keep one of the mosquito-eaters as a pet...) Then they brought in two wild bats they had trapped in the nets outside. The nets are woven of such fine thread, it's almost impossible for bats to detect them through echolocation--when it's dry. Bats can also see quite well, albeit in black and white, but the nets are nearly invisible--again, unless beaded with water. In this kind of rain, we're pretty lucky to have gotten a male and a female fruit bat. The female had been lactating recently; her nipple was visible (halfway down her torso, on her side, of all places.) The guide wore a sturdy leather glove, which the male bat attempted unsuccessfully to chew through. Before putting them back into the bags to be released back into the wild, he let us feed them some spoonfuls of sugar water, and stroke their heads, which they also seemed to like. Maybe they're not so wild as we'd thought. They were surprisingly cute, and looked a little like winged reincarnations of my erstwhile pet Siberian Dwarf Hamster. (Rest in peace, little Puff.)He told us that, when released back into the night, they often sit for a moment to get their bearings before taking off. Neither of ours did, but the female probably should have. She crashed into the window of the gift shop before fluttering off, dazed, into the trees. Now I wish I'd gotten a better look at those possible bats swooping overhead at the hostel in San Jose on the way to Cahuita. Maybe they saved me from getting bitten.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223271900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223271900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223271900/tpod.html Sat, 11 Oct 2008 01:48:42 -0400 Puriscal, Costa Rica

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Tortuguero, Province of Limon, Costa Rica

I'm finally getting caught up on my blog; this is the first entry in a while I'm writing on the actual day listed. (I am, however, posting it almost a week late. Sorry about that.) Saturday I met my parents in San Jose. I'd been thinking about taking a day trip to Cartago, to see the legendary statue of La Negrita that, according to lore, has been stolen many times but always reappears in its rightful spot at the Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles. Or maybe I'd take in a museum or two in San Jose. I had a free ride in the morning with Alex to the Hotel LeBergerac, where I was to meet my parents that night, and I figured I could drop my luggage and go do something productive with the day. But when I got there, it was threatening rain, and to my surprise I was able to get into the room almost right away. Since I'd had so much fun doing nothing the previous weekend, I decided to do it again. We're on the tour with a couple my parents' age from Texas, and for the first leg of the tour in Tortuguero we're also with a (literal) boatload of other tourists, many of them from Spain. There's one particularly obnoxious couple that can't seem to go twenty minutes without a cigarette; they lit up at the breakfast table yesterday morning (right under the bilingual-with-a-picture "No Smoking" sign) while I was still eating, and again on the riverboat through the wildlife preserve known as the Biological Corridor, which recently linked the once segregated ecosystems of separate national parks in an effort to minimize inbreeding (but which has become a delicate ecosystem of its own as species encounter each other for the first time in many generations.) When reminded by the guide that smoking was not permitted (duh!) they grudgingly pitched their butts into the water. I would have liked to do the same. It seems nature can take out the Eurotrash itself, though; this morning, on the jungle walk I skipped, I hear a wasp got into her hair. It was a non-stinging variety, and the guide told her so, but she was still pretty freaked out. Apparently he remarked that "it is said they only attack people with bad thoughts." I'm a little sorry I missed that. I decided to skip the walk because I was exhausted after getting up at five a.m. the last two mornings (Sunday was the drive up to Tortuguero, and this morning was an asscrack of dawn wildlife boat tour) and I needed a nap more than I needed another slog through the jungle. We did a lot more nothing this afternoon, mostly hanging out in the pool, and tonight we went down to the beach in search of sea turtles. We were warned to keep our expectations low. The thirty-dollar per-person price tag did not guarantee us a turtle sighting, they said. Also, it was raining shortly before we left, so I was bracing myself for two hours of sitting on the beach getting wet and seeing nothing. They've recently implemented a spotter program, however, that increases the odds. Instead of leading a long line of tourists in a blind search that scares away most of the turtles thinking about nesting on the beach, they now have a network of trained locals who explore the beach with dim red flashlights and radio back to the central area when they spot a turtle digging. Once she's chosen a spot, a turtle is less likely to abandon the nest, and will only do so if she feels the threat is imminent. Through good fortune and this ingenious program, we were able to see just about everything there is to see in the whole process. We observed, in silence and in shifts by the dim glow of a flashlight, a turtle laying eggs into the hole she'd dug. The eggs looked like soft, slimy ping-pong balls, and she was dropping them at a rate of about one every five or ten seconds. Our guide tells us that each turtle lays between 80 and 120 eggs in each nest, and nests about five times per season. Ninety-nine percent of eggs hatch and make it to the water, but only one or two out of every five hundred survives to adulthood, so that's about one reproducing individual per female per season. It takes about thirty years for a turtle to reach reproductive age, and no one knows exactly how long they breed or live after that. The turtles hatch about sixty days after the eggs are laid, but the season is long enough that, in one night, we were able to see eggs being laid and hatching. Well, we didn't actually see them hatch, but we did catch one baby turtle scuttling back to the sea. They usually go together; the first ones wait for the rest before they all climb out of the nest and journey en masse to the ocean, so this one must have been a straggler. It was tiny. The normal dimpling of the sand made for a mountainous trek, but the baby turtle scampered over it with surprising speed. At one point, after it had reached the sand smoothed by the receding tide, it appeared to be home free, until it hit the heel impression of a footprint running parallel to the shore. The little turtle fit entirely within the width of the heel, and struggled mightily to climb back out; for a second, it looked like it wasn't going to make it. But with its flippers spinning like toy propellers, it heaved itself out of the hole and into the waves. We were then herded over to another mama turtle, who had finished laying her eggs and was in the process of camouflaging and aerating the nest. They like to cover the eggs with lots of loose soil so oxygen can still get in, and they typically dig them right where the sand meets the fertile soil, so they're partially in the shade. First they cover the nest with sand using their hind flippers, then they smooth and fluff the whole area using their longer, stronger, more flexible front flippers. We were warned not to stand directly behind them, lest we get a faceful of dirt. As it was, I had clumps of it hit my legs up to my knees. It was pretty cool, actually. How many people can say they've been hit with dirt thrown by a green sea turtle? Satisfied with her nest, the turtle began the trek back to the ocean. At 300 pounds, she had a tougher time of it than the baby; she would push herself forward with her flippers for about ten feet, then stop to rest for a few seconds before continuing. We crept behind her, our eyes straining into the near-darkness as the guide kept the faint red light trained on her backside and I caught an occasional glimpse of her head bobbing in the moonlight. She had to keep on like that even after she reached the first shallow lick of waves, until the water was deep enough to submerge her. Then she disappeared.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223012220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223012220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1223012220/tpod.html Sat, 11 Oct 2008 01:44:12 -0400 Puriscal, Costa Rica

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Puriscal, Costa Rica

I taught the kids how to play the game described in Tuesday's entry, and gave Stephanie the cardboard clock I made. I should have taken a picture; it came out better than I'd expected. The kids loved the game, although it took them a while to understand the concept despite having Stephanie explain it to them in Spanish. Then, too, we had some cheaters who tried to play dumb, but it was pretty easy to pick them out of the bunch. I think they liked it; they certainly got very involved and competitive. Anyway, I had fun. I got a bushel of handmade cards, too, and some extra-long hugs. I'm going to miss them. I had my last meal with the group at lunch (mmm, chalupas...) since the newbies had to leave this afternoon. I'm going to miss eating so well. At every meal, there's freshly cut watermelon, pineapple, and papaya, freshly blended fruit juice, rice and beans, salad, and a meat and a vegetarian main dish. I might have been able to pull off a vegan diet here after all, except when they put cheese in the rice. The cheese is always the same; a mild white locally produced cheese with a texture somewhere between sushi and tofu. Sometimes they mix chopped hearts of palm in the rice, too, a move that can only be described as "genius." I may have to get a rice cooker when I get home; I've grown rather attached to the stuff, and I never manage not to burn it when I cook it in a pot. I've been hounding Ismael for one last jam session before I go. Today we managed to squeeze it in. I asked him to teach me a song, and he started picking a familiar pattern on an E minor chord. "House of the Rising Sun?" I guessed. He said he didn't know the name, but when he played a couple higher notes I recognized it as "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica. Funny he should pick that. I tried learning the riffs once, and gave up, but I have a bit of history with the song. Anyway, he played the more complicated lead and I played James Hetfield, backing him on guitar and singing. I remembered all the words, but not the order; I think I sang the second verse twice. That's OK, though; it bears repeating: <i>Trust I seek, and I find in youEvery day for us something newOpen mind for a different viewAnd nothing else matters. He then asked me to teach him a song, which made more sense since he's a much better guitar player than I am, and he can pick up or follow along more quickly. He had never even heard of any of the songs I chose, but he came up with fitting strums and pluckings for "American Pie," "Reason to Believe," and "Blowin' in the Wind." We had time for one last song, and I thought about reprising "Hotel California," which we do so well together. Or maybe "Dust in the Wind," which he does so well and I'm finally learning the words to. I flipped through my notebook and loose leafs of music. The problem is, I don't enjoy the casual sort of open relationship most people have with music. I get involved with songs, with artists, with movements. All right, I get obsessed. I can only handle so much of it, and this limits my tastes. The music I like is all tangled up in memories, until everything becomes so fraught with meaning I can hardly stand to listen to it anymore, and move on. It was hard to pick just one last song to play. I finally settled on "Sweet Baby James." There's a story behind that song, too, of course. My parents met in a bar when they were teenagers in college, and I was born exactly fourteen years later. So when I had my Sweet 16 party on the actual day of my birthday, it was the 30th anniversary of the day they'd met. Since we were going to rent a DJ and a dance floor for the party, they asked me, a few days before the party, if they could have one dance together. I recoiled in horror. My parents, sharing a spotlight waltz in front of all my friends? <i>So not cool. I told them, "no way." But after a day or so, the idea began to grow on me. Also, I realized, it was pretty bratty to refuse them one measly dance, at a party they were paying for. I decided to surprise them. We had no musical tastes in common back then, so I raided their CD tower and picked out a James Taylor album with a few titles I recognized, one of which I'd heard my dad play on the guitar, and slipped it to the DJ. I'll never forget the look on my dad's face when the DJ announced that it was a special night for the birthday girl's parents, too, and asked everyone to clear the floor. I think the term "bug-eyed" would be apt. He had a mouthful of submarine sandwich and the rest of it in his hand; he gulped down the bite in progress, looked around in vague panic, and handed the remaining half to me before grabbing my mother and sweeping her out onto the dance floor. My mom was wearing a simple green knee-length knit dress, and her skirt flared out as she and my dad whirled around the polished wood square taped to the grass in our backyard, by the light of the moon and two dozen tiki torches. Many of my friends' parents were divorced. My own grandparents were hardly a model of happily ever after; my paternal grandfather left my grandmother before I was born, while my maternal grandparents stayed together and bickered like good Catholics. Although I lived daily under the stable shade of my parents' love, it was suddenly inspiring to see that, after thirty years (nearly twice my lifetime!) they still looked at each other like that. Ismael caught on easily, even as I tripped over the B minor chord a few times. He'd never heard this one, either, but pronounced it "bonito." I gave him my capo, because he doesn't have one and ought to, in my opinion. Then we said our goodbyes. I put off packing and then drew out the process as long as possible. I couldn't fit all the coffee and chocolate-covered coffee beans I bought at Café Britt into my suitcase, so I may have to ship some stuff home. In the meantime, I'll be able to leave the bulk of my luggage at the hotel in San Jose while I travel to Tortuguero, Arenal, and the Sarapiqui River with my folks next week. It makes me sad to think I'll never see most of these people again. I've done a lot of traveling in my life and met a lot of interesting people along the way. Saying goodbye only gets harder, and I still think of people I knew once, only briefly, and haven't seen since. They give everyone a CD with some pictures, recipes, and other memorabilia of their stay here, and I haven't looked at mine yet. It'll be one last present to save for myself, for when the memories of Daniel's hilarious laugh, Marta's sly smirk, Sarah's barely contained enthusiasm, LaVerne's incredible prison stories, Anna's tenderness with small creatures, Brian's stunning self-awareness, and Alli's fun spirit, begin to grow dim. As if a few snapshots and some rice pudding could bring them back.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1222922700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1222922700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/espriseme/1/1222922700/tpod.html Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:46:05 -0400 Puriscal, Costa Rica

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Puriscal, Costa Rica

I've been making notes on all the miscellaneous things I've noticed about Puriscal that I haven't written about yet. I want to get them in here before I forget. Back home, zoning regulations would prevent the layout of this town. People operate little candy and snack shops out of their homes, and there doesn't appear to be much of a separation between commercial, school, and residential areas. Cars with giant speakers on the roof drive around blasting advertisements, which would probably annoy me if it happened in Boston, but I just feel so mellow here. There are no traffic lights, and the red octagonal signs printed with the word "Alto" are seen as mere suggestions. Seatbelts also appear to be optional, lane dividers are nonexistent, and the ubiquitous van-swallowing potholes are sometimes marked by branches buried in the rubble. People are friendly. This probably has more to do with being a small town than with being in Costa Rica, but I'll take it. Women carry their babies and toddlers; I've seen maybe one stroller. Girls usually get their ears pierced when they're infants. Women also often carry umbrellas, but I haven't seen many men do the same. The word I learned in Spanish class for "umbrella" is "el paraguas," though I also remember being told that this was one of those things that went by a different name in every Spanish-speaking country. Xinia tells me that here, only a man's umbrella is "el paraguas"; a woman's is "la sombrilla" (which according to my Spanish-English dictionary is "parasol." Granted, they are used as sun shades as often as rain shelters. This gender distinction serves as an interesting counter-point to the apparent lack of an equivalent for "purse," that is, a single word for a type of bag carried only by women.) Kids get free breakfast, snacks, and lunch at school, and the schools I visited had a junk-food canteen as well. They're trying to get rid of those in U.S. schools to fight childhood obesity; they're pretty much nonexistent at the elementary school level as it is. These kids seem to be constantly eating, and often not healthfully. Caramel, chocolate, and lime-flavored chips and candies are popular here, as are unmarked (probably homemade) knotted sandwich bags of frozen juice. Hardly anyone is overweight. They do eat a lot of rice and beans here, but they also eat plenty of beef and cheese. Food is cheaper (and so is booze) but clothing is priced about the same, and electronics are more expensive than in the U.S. That might explain why clothes are line-dried, and home dishwashers are rare. Dishes are usually washed with sponges and tubs of solid detergent in cold water. I imagine clothes are, too, but somehow the stains always come out, even the green gutter slime. Much as I've come to enjoy the rice and beans, we all felt it was time for a break tonight, so we got some pizza. Between shunning cheese for the last 6 months, and working in a restaurant that serves fancy gourmet pizzas, it's been a while since I've had a slice of plain cheese. The slices were pretty narrow, and I ate six of them. Then we ganged up on Brian and shaved his beard. We've been trying to get him to let us do it almost since we got here. Most of us have nothing against his facial hair, but it's become something of a game for us. He was a good sport. We took turns trimming it first with, then without the attachment, and Anna did the scary part with the actual razor. She grooms dogs for a living, so she was probably the best choice. He couldn't stop laughing as she tried to do his upper lip (apparently it tickled) but she still managed not to cut him. The newbies are all going to Cahuita for the weekend, while those remaining from the original group are staying at the Home Base. It's been weird this week not to be involved in planning the next trip. I'm glad I have one more week to travel with my folks, so it's not completely over yet. Well, once again I've managed to ramble on far longer than I intended. Someone--maybe Sarah--asked me at one point how I found the time to write so much. Being antisocial helps. But really, for me, writing less would take longer. I could capture the most salient points in a punchier, wittier, more succinct account, but that would take a couple of rewrites, and I'd rather be out there having more experiences than polishing coal in search of a diamond. Or, if I may steal a line from Mark Twain, I apologize for the length of my blog, but I didn't have time to write a shorter one.
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Puriscal, Costa Rica

I gave my Powerpoint presentation on American music today. I was up until one o'clock in the morning finishing it, and I wasn't terribly happy with how it turned out. I didn't think it would be so hard to find pictures of the most well-known musicians on the internet, even sufficiently high-resolution pictures to go full-screen on a laptop, and I never realized quite how pitiful my pop collection was. Further hindering the process was the fact that, for reasons too complicated and boring to go into here, I couldn't use any of the music I've purchased on iTunes, which rules out almost everything I've bought in the last three years. But the kids seemed to like it anyway. I've noticed English-language music is pretty popular here, though the scene appears to be at least a few years behind the curve, so it shouldn't surprise me that very little of what I had to show was new to them. They knew almost all the artists in the categories of rock, hip-hop, and of course Latin. I don't think they knew any of the country songs, but they certainly recognized the style; based on the many ringtones I hear coming out of Stephanie's cell phone every day, I suspect she's a fan. I included "The Sign" by Ace of Base in the pop category; it's pretty old (I was about their age when it was released!) but it was one of the biggest hits of the '90s, and it pretty well encapsulates the prevailing style of the day. It drew some looks of recognition, as well. The folk music was completely foreign to them, though. I wish I could have made it louder, so they could hear it better. I tried to explain what it was about, but I wonder how much sense the concept of anti-war protest songs could make to a group of kids whose grandparents might not even remember when there was an army in Costa Rica. "Child's Song" could also potentially cause a bit of disconnect, I realized as I tried to give a summarized translation of the lyrics, in a culture where children often remain at home until marriage. And I must confess I'm still not entirely sure what Cat Stevens was singing about half the time. They really liked Tracy Chapman, though in one photo they identified her as Bob Marley. It's an easy mistake to make. In a sufficiently pixilated image, all dreadlocked rock stars begin to look alike. After lunch, we had a field trip to a farm that's been in continuous operation in the same family for three generations. We learned how molasses is made, and each had a chance to feed a stalk of sugarcane through the waterwheel-powered crusher, and sample the extracted juice. As a conscientious almost-vegan, I learned that white cane sugar is technically verboten, because it's typically filtered through charcoal made from animal bones. At the time, it struck me as unconscionably bizarre; why on earth would they <i>do that? Now that I've seen the dishwater color and consistency of raw cane juice, I get it. It tasted just fine, but it looked about as appetizing as gutter runoff.
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