A little about Rancho Mastatal

After another bus adventure, this time with a driver who had a contagious respiratory illness (nice guy though, I was practicing my spanish with him, and he helped me out when I unknowingly made some lewd comments), to our home base-Mastatal.

Mastatal is located near La Cangreja (the crab) National Park. It's located in an area that is thick with diversity, and most of Costa Rica's most dangerous snakes. Our group stumbled in to the small town of Mastatal, which boasts a single intersection, and spent our first evening freaking out over the plethora of scary bugs.

There are a lot of bugs, and they are HUGE! Most look like they were the inspiration for the Alien series, yikes. The first night I felt a bit anxious about sleeping with all of our new neighbors, but I was completely exhausted, and ending up sleeping really well. We also had a couple of geckos and lizards, so I figured that they would even out the odds of a bug ending up in my bed.

I have woken up with cockroaches in my sheets and in my hair, and a couple of spiders. This trip has definitely increased my capacity for handling large bugs!

The rancho is run by a couple of ex-Peace Corps volunteers, Tim and Robin. They bought a bunch of land together about 5 years ago, and then turned it into a protected area. Now they are building (using sustainable building techniques) an entire research compound with the help of a continuous cycle of volunteers. They also do work in the community, building bus stops, meeting areas, working in the school, etc.

Our group is using Rancho Mastatal as a home base. We'll be working with the volunteers once a week, and also doing our own work. Tim will be teaching us a class on sustainability as well.

The first week was relaxing. We helped Susan with her research by doing stream measurements, worked with the volunteers (cooking, building, gardening and more) and relaxed. It's been interesting meshing with the tight-nit group of volunteers.

Robin is big on cleanliness and good vegetarian cooking. We've definitely been eating well!

I spent my day working with the 'builders'. It was hard work! I flattened a log on one side (setting a record at 5 hours), and then dug a bunch...The digging was intense, the dirt here has a lot of clay.

We also had a day of games, honoring a past volunteer. We did relay races, tug of war and the necessary game of soccer. Since we played in the community soccer field, Ticos (Costa Ricans call themselves Ticos) came to cheer us on and join in the festivities. My team lost at everything but the tug of war. We won the last game of soccer, but only because a Tico-Marcos, my Spanish Teacher-carried the rest of the team.

The locals are all fantastic soccer players. There was a 6 year old, teenagers, adults and and a really old man playing, and they all played better than all of the gringos put together. It was a fun day, and it was a great way to relax. Afterwords I jumped into a waterfall that is about .5 mile from the rancho. Amazing!

I haven't seen any snakes yet, but am being really careful. The anti-venom for the most intense snake, the Fer-de-lance, is at a hospital that takes a few hours to get to, so I'm trying not to be put into that situation.

I have seen toucans, monkeys, lizards, spiders and poison dart frogs, so I'm not feeling deprived. I've started taking Spanish lessons with one of the locals, Marcos. It's going well, and my Spanish has already improved. He's an amazing guy, he's only 23 but already has a thriving Spanish school (largely due to the steady flow of English speakers through rancho mastatal) and owns and runs an organic farm. He also learned to speak better English than most people I know in 8 months. He's been very patient so far, and I'm looking forwards to continuing classes with him.

Next Saturday, the town is hosting a dance for a bunch of small communities in the area. It is a big event, and it is the first thing the locals ask when they see you. It's a little intimidating, they all dance so well! But I'm looking forwards to it. We learned to dance some of the local dances in Durika, and I think we'll be able to keep up with the locals. Maybe...