Costa Rica recap
Trip Start
Jul 20, 2004
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17
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Trip End
Jul 20, 2012
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San Isidro,
Costa Rica
Saturday, October 16, 2004
agouti. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful hike with no people around and only the sound of rain and birds.
Costa Rica is like a culture shock for me, especially after coming from Guatemala and Nicaragua. The country's main income source is tourism and people here see you as a walking dollar sign. I prefer the independent travel I did in Guatemala and Nicaragua where tourism is only slowly developing in places like Antigua and Granada and where small mountain communities are virtually tourist free.
From Santa Elena, I went to Manuel Antonio National Park where I met up with my friend Patricia again. Though the buses in Costa Rica are much more comfortable and modern than the chicken buses in Guatemala and Nicaragua, they run less frequent and it takes pretty much and entire day for a distance of about 250 km. Manuel Antonio is the name of the town and the name for the
national park.
Manuel Antonio National Park is a gem among Costa Rica's nature reserves and one of the most popular tourist destinations in Costa Rica. A lush blanket of tropical green spills headlong onto several hidden and incredibly beautiful, jungle-lined beaches.
Boruca Masks
Within this magnificent dreamscape one may catch a glimpse of whimsical monkeys, loud and colorful parrots, giant toucans, three-toed sloths, and a whole host of rare plant and animal species. More than 350 bird species can be spotted in the park's small boundaries. Easy walking trails take in sweeping vistas of Costa Rica's dramatic coastline and meander through primary rainforest with over 300 species of trees. To give the animals a rest from human inundation, the park is closed on Monday. So, we relaxed on the beach on Sunday before it started raining for a couple of hours. On monday, we planned to explore Quepos, a 1/2 hour away from MA, but the rain started pouring down as soon as we got into the bus. On Tuesday, we left early to get to the park and hiked the 5 different trails in the park. We saw lots of sloths, some agoutis, a tame deer, howler, white faced and squirrel monkeys. The best part was watching a battalion of anteaters crossing the trail. One group of 4 adults and another group with 4 little ones. They are sooooo cute and the first thing one sees are the tails sticking out in the air.
From Manuel Antonio, we left for San Isidro to stay with another hospitalityclub member. Lobo is German and has been living near San Isidro for a couple of years. We left our packs with him and the next day headed for Boruca where we visited an indigenous community. Here, we stayed with Oscar and Yanet's family for 2 days. We also met up with Leo and his brother Pepe who rescued us from an 8 km long trip to the reserve.
Boruca Village
We explored the village, talked to the people, visited artisans, and drank the boruca moonshine called Chicha (which also exists in Peru), usually made from fermented corn, which has a yellowish, frothy, bubbly look to it. Twenty kilometers into the mountains south of Buenos Aires lies a welcoming and culturally rich community of indigenous people. Although the Boruca people have long since adopted modern dress and the Spanish language, some traditional customs persist. Women still use pre-Columbian back-strap looms to weave cotton textiles. Men still craft balsa wood carvings and masks, which are used every year in the famous Boruca festival, Fiesta de los Diablitos (Festival of the Little Devils) from December 30 through January 2. The celebration represents the indigenous struggle against the Spanish. Men wear carved devil masks and burlap costumes and fight a man dressed up as a bull, which symbolizes the Spanish. The representative fight/dance ends when the "bull" takes off his "face" and throws it on the ground, marking his defeat. This fiesta is one of the few indigenous festivals in Costa Rica, since the indígenas make up only about 1% of the population.
The Boruca people are eager to share their artwork with tourists, but highly value the relative isolation of their village. In fact, there is an emerging trend towards preservation of their original history, as children a few years ago began receiving intensive language instruction in the Boruca's native tongue.
Our friend Leo took us back to San Isidro with his trusty Korean car which afforded us an incredible scenery at 6:30am in the morning. Now back in San Isidro, we spent three hours at the internet cafe and will head back to our friend Lobo where we will relax for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, I will head to Alajuela which is located very close to the international airport. I will leave Costa Rica on Tuesday and will meet up with my friend Eva at the Lima airport. We have booked our Machu Picchu trip for October 23rd.
