Update from the coast

¡Hola Chicos!

I´m writing from a small beach town, Dominical. It´s crowded with gringos like me, which is a bit overwhelming after spending the past week in remote areas.

First we traveled by bus to the town of Santa Maria del Dota. The bus ride was scary, but the roads were not too dangerous. We stayed in a cabin on a remote biological reserve called Los Santos. It´s up in the mountains, around 6,000 feet, and was absolutely beautiful. We spent our time there hiking around the reserve and getting fed huge meals (rice and beans in various combinations) three times a day. A local organic coffee farmer, and passionate sustainable Costa Rican, showed us the local coffee mill and his own plantation. It was great. We hiked around, drank coffee (I payed for it later) and learned all about the coffee trade.

Listening to the farmer, Arturo, and another speaker, Gabriel, speak about living sustainably was really interesting. They spoke passionately (lots of arms waving around and Spanish exclamations) about living simply and slowing down globalization and the destruction of the forests. It was an amazing experience. When I have more time, I will try to pass on some of the things they said.

After Santa Maria del Dota, we headed to a small community (30 people) who live in an extremely remote area. 15 years ago, they decided to purchase a plot of land and build a community that was `in balance with nature´. There were no roads to the location, so they had to carry in the supplies for their community of their backs. While they built their cabins, they camped out. Crazy! And this is in the tropical rain forest, although it´s a little bit more mellow since it´s at a higher altitude.

At first I was a bit skeptical because it sounded like a hippie commune. It´s still a hippie commune, but the hippies are protecting a lot of land. You can check them out, I'm sure they have a website, the name of the community is Durika. Not only do they have goats, teach yoga, police their biological reserve and teach indigenous people organic agriculture methods, but they also have a holistic health center. It was actually pretty weird walking into a massage room, an acupuncture room and a dentist's office. I'm not exactly sure why they have that stuff, but they made it sound like it was for the tourists.

My favorite moments were spent hiking through their reserve, jumping in a waterfall and doing yoga on a mountaintop. It was beautiful.


Yoga on the mountaintop

I also milked some goats, and it's a lot harder than it sounds!! The goats knew that we were new, and liked to step in the milk buckets (which ruins the milk). This happened to me twice. Also, the whole milking part is a real challenge. I sprayed myself quite a bit, and the 13 year old who taught us (a milking pro) either choked the entire time or was laughing at me...hmmm...

Amelia and I laughing-I mean taking measurements near Durika


Jen and Amelia working hard

We left Durika for the grungy surfer/pot haven on the coast, Dominical. It's hot, dirty and sunny. Not my idea of a good time. Also, the water is warm!! Most of the class loooooves the water, but I'm not a fan. I'd much rather be back in the mountains, hiking and jumping into waterfalls. *sigh* Luckily I'll only have to suffer through it for a day. We're leaving today at 10am for Mastatal, and our remote rancho.

I'm looking forwards to unpacking, and getting to run regularly. I've been a couple of times, but at high altitude (and with a nasty cold I picked up) it wasn't pretty. It's been pretty hard getting our course work done with all of this traveling, and I'm hoping it will improve once we stop traveling. There are a few volunteers there, and I'm looking forwards to meeting them. At this point, I've gotten a little burnt out on some of my classmates, and think that we all would benefit from a few new people.

At Mastatal, we'll spend the week getting to know the rancho and the village. At the end of the week, we'll be traveling again.

I'll let you know how it goes!!