It´s the final countdown folks, after being at this farm for a month and a half I am leaving in five days to be exact. I might as well change the title of my blog while I am at it, I am getting out of Costa Rica next weekend and heading first to Nicaragua for awhile and then to Guatemala to check out the Mayan ruins. The reason for this change? A big part of it has to do with the fact that Costa Rica really isn´t that affordable, you end up paying close to American prices for food. Second is that it is now full blown tourist season and I want nothing to do with hoardes of ignorant tourists here to spend a couple weeks partying. Finally, after having researched and talked to many a person, I have realized that heading north will provide me with the adventures and further culture shock I am seeking during this journey. Point blank; Costa Rica is Americanized. Not saying I don´t love this country and it´s inhabitants, cause I really do, but I will just have to explore it more next time.
So many are probably wondering about my farm misadventures over this last month and a half and man oh man have there been plenty. After a week of spending time working my butt off at the main farm I moved up to another piece of their property with a nice couple that turned out to be from Portland as well. The other peice of property was literally a shack in the middle of the jungle and in order to get there or to get to civilization from there, you have to walk down and then up two steep hills divided by a large river. So I probably don´t need to point out that it took a bit to get used to. We had to haul up a couple goats, three horses, four chickens, two ducks, and a partridge in a pear tree. Merry Christmas by the way. Anyhow, it took a week or so to get settled in and in the swing of things up there in our temporary home we´d come to dub Camp Neverland. The nights were spent simply enough; preparing dinner, reading, playing UNO, bitching about our days. Days were spent working in the lemon orchard adjacent to the shack or repairing the broken water pipes or some other backbreaking sweat inducing job or defending ourselves from Mr. Darcy´s attacks. Mr. Darcy is the infamous male goat we had the misfortune of watching over, he just isn´t a pleasant animal. He likes to try and butt his head into you when you´re not looking and if that´s not bad enough, he smells horrendous! Male goats enjoy urinating on their own faces, no joke, it attracts the female goats, I don´t think I´ll be imitating nature anytime soon with that one.
Neverland wasn´t that bad though, there was a lot of time to explore the surrounding jungle full of rivers, waterfalls, beautiful birds, lightning fast lizards, and drunk locals. I learned a lot about my limits, living in close proximity to animals of various sizes, and especially that I hate roosters. They don´t just crow once in the morning like it is in the movies and television, no sir, they sometimes start at four in the morning and continue through out the rest of the morning sometimes as frequently as every ten seconds. Yes, I counted, I sure as hell wasn´t sleeping. They are mean to, I watched them pick on all the other birds on the farm, including an unforgettable while stoking the fire, I heard a commotion and looked up in time to see the small black rooster jump on the back of our white duck and grab ahold of the back of her neck in his beak, the alarmed duck started running around the farm flapping it´s wings with the rooster riding it the whole time! I didn´t know whether or not to interfere or stand and watch with my jaw dropped in astonishiment... I chose the latter. He finally had enough of his duck rodeo and jumped off. Welcome to the jungle baby!
Unfortunately I am running out of time for the day and need to run off and get my mandatory town trip icecream cone and catch my bus. I missed writing this blog and unfortunately didn´t have time to keep a daily journal so I don´t feel its been the most detailed account of my trip, but next time I will finish my farm stories, including my terrible week with Dengue Fever. I hope all is well friends.
Until next time...
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Okay, okay
So I don´t have time for a full entry, I´ve got to catch my bus. Everything went okay with the first weekend here and on our own, nothing died and the family came back to a clean house. I have had a lot of crazy experiences since then but I will have to wait until next time I make it into town to tell you about them. Only two more weeks of this madness. Happy Holidays everyone. Until next time...
Tremors
(From my Journal 11.13.09)
Today was a good day, a lot of hard work and a bit shaky. At about 1:30pm while I was excavating a bunch of mud and chicken crap from in front of the coop we were hit with an earthquake. At first I thought it was a heavy crash of thunder but as Liz said, ¨Did you hear that earthquake?¨ We felt a jolt that shook everything violently for a second. I remember thinking where the hell am I going to hide and was preparing to flee to the center of the field but luckily it was a short one. I´ve only felt a few in my life but the sensation of having a normally immensely sturdy object beneath you shift is a crazy one.
At dinner we were informed that the family would be leaving for the weekend, which means we are going to be in charge of the farm... What could go wrong?
Today was a good day, a lot of hard work and a bit shaky. At about 1:30pm while I was excavating a bunch of mud and chicken crap from in front of the coop we were hit with an earthquake. At first I thought it was a heavy crash of thunder but as Liz said, ¨Did you hear that earthquake?¨ We felt a jolt that shook everything violently for a second. I remember thinking where the hell am I going to hide and was preparing to flee to the center of the field but luckily it was a short one. I´ve only felt a few in my life but the sensation of having a normally immensely sturdy object beneath you shift is a crazy one.
At dinner we were informed that the family would be leaving for the weekend, which means we are going to be in charge of the farm... What could go wrong?
The Dog Says WWOOF! (San Rafeal, Costa Rica)
(From my journal 11-12-09)
It has been a bit over 24hrs since I began my WWOOF program. For those who don´t know, WWOOF (Worldwide Oppurtunities on Organic Farms) is a volunteer program where you stay on an organic farm and work in exchange for room and board, you can do it all over the world and I am now doing it in the middle of the rain forest in a non tourist mountainous area surrounded by waterfalls and lush jungle. The farm is called Barking Horse Farm, it is amazing here and I am now doing this writing in a treehouse which is my bedroom. I am surrounded by palm trees and the noises of animals, birds, and insects of all kinds, and the pouring rain. As the name implies there are a dozen or so horses here, a dozen dogs, including seven puppies, they also have goats which they milk for cheese, a plethora of chickens, a gaggle of geese, some ducks, too many cats, and three kids (baby goats.) There are also two human kids, Olivia, 15, the resident goat keeper and Sam, 12, who is the resident tree climber, frog catcher, and torturer of his sister, Liz and Steven are the owners of this fantasy property, and finally the three WWOOFers, Tina and Frances, Germans, and me, American. As you can imagine it´s a bit of a madhouse around here and always something needed to be done. I arrived yesterday just in time for the afternoon torrential downpour, so we sat around and talked while the clouds emptied their bladders. After the rain stopped I was given a tour of the property and by the time that was done it was time for evening chores, mainly consisting of feeding the animals and cleaning. I then helped Olivia with the milking and it looked a whole lot easier when she did but by the end I was getting the hang of it. Afterwards we had dinner with the family and then the girls and I went up to the treehouses for a glass of wine and to get to know one another better and then it was time for bed. Speaking of bed there is a huge tarantula named Fang that lives in the beams above my bed. Stay up there and we will have no problems.
The next day began at six as every morning does around here and we began feeding the numerous animals and then hiked twenty minutes through the jungle and across a river to where there is another small house that they own as well with another three horses, a cat, and a goat who is off right now impregnating some females at another farm. We got back in time for strawberry pancakes and yogurt and drank starfruit juice, and discussed the days projects. I had to make a run down the road with the neighbor to collect 100lbs+ of rocks and gravel to fill in some holes around the farm, after a bit of hard labor the rains started and so we stopped working and laid around in hammocks until night chores and dinner. Now I am laying in under a mosquito net with a headlamp writing this entry. A simple life, but I don´t mind it much. For now. Goodnight Fang.
It has been a bit over 24hrs since I began my WWOOF program. For those who don´t know, WWOOF (Worldwide Oppurtunities on Organic Farms) is a volunteer program where you stay on an organic farm and work in exchange for room and board, you can do it all over the world and I am now doing it in the middle of the rain forest in a non tourist mountainous area surrounded by waterfalls and lush jungle. The farm is called Barking Horse Farm, it is amazing here and I am now doing this writing in a treehouse which is my bedroom. I am surrounded by palm trees and the noises of animals, birds, and insects of all kinds, and the pouring rain. As the name implies there are a dozen or so horses here, a dozen dogs, including seven puppies, they also have goats which they milk for cheese, a plethora of chickens, a gaggle of geese, some ducks, too many cats, and three kids (baby goats.) There are also two human kids, Olivia, 15, the resident goat keeper and Sam, 12, who is the resident tree climber, frog catcher, and torturer of his sister, Liz and Steven are the owners of this fantasy property, and finally the three WWOOFers, Tina and Frances, Germans, and me, American. As you can imagine it´s a bit of a madhouse around here and always something needed to be done. I arrived yesterday just in time for the afternoon torrential downpour, so we sat around and talked while the clouds emptied their bladders. After the rain stopped I was given a tour of the property and by the time that was done it was time for evening chores, mainly consisting of feeding the animals and cleaning. I then helped Olivia with the milking and it looked a whole lot easier when she did but by the end I was getting the hang of it. Afterwards we had dinner with the family and then the girls and I went up to the treehouses for a glass of wine and to get to know one another better and then it was time for bed. Speaking of bed there is a huge tarantula named Fang that lives in the beams above my bed. Stay up there and we will have no problems.
The next day began at six as every morning does around here and we began feeding the numerous animals and then hiked twenty minutes through the jungle and across a river to where there is another small house that they own as well with another three horses, a cat, and a goat who is off right now impregnating some females at another farm. We got back in time for strawberry pancakes and yogurt and drank starfruit juice, and discussed the days projects. I had to make a run down the road with the neighbor to collect 100lbs+ of rocks and gravel to fill in some holes around the farm, after a bit of hard labor the rains started and so we stopped working and laid around in hammocks until night chores and dinner. Now I am laying in under a mosquito net with a headlamp writing this entry. A simple life, but I don´t mind it much. For now. Goodnight Fang.
The Exciting Conclusion of Tale´s of a Vagabond
Where were we....
After eating the massive amount of icecream we went home and changed before heading out to find a peso dinner. We walked around being pointed here and there before we were all fed up and decided to go into Old Havana via local bus, as we were all running out of money. We were herded onto a packed bus and rode for awhile before getting off when we recognized one of the many beautiful statues we had seen earlier in the day. We walked through stopping here and there for beers and checking out the menus, almost everyone refused to let us eat off the posted menu and said there was a special menu for us which always turned out to be five times as much. We were all understandably getting tired of people constantly trying to take our money because we were tourists. We stopped at a place with live music playing, tired of walking. The girls ordered chicken, I ordered shrimp. My food was terrible but I ate it quickly and angrily, sick of the same story every night. The girls chicken was cold and they did the smart thing and sent it back. We decided to leave and not bother with trying a different dish. I paid for my shrimp and we informed the waiter we were leaving. He gave us some bullshit about how the front table was French and they were loving their food, as if somehow the French know great food. We left there still hungry and wandered around trying to find something cheap, quanity over quality becoming what we had to settle for. We found a place with mediocre food and filled our bellies. We all returned home, but I decided to head out to a divey peso bar I´d seen earlier where beers were only 40 cents a piece and rum was 20 cents, wishing I had known about it in the beginning. I entered into a basically empty room and sat down at the bar with the cigar Rob had given me the night before. An old man was tending bar and he spoke good enough english and we began to converse. I was a bit weary at first, as I learned to be when conversing with Cubans, but quickly warmed up discovering that he was merely an old lonely man and enjoyed my company more then anynthing. His name was Pepe and he had just turned seventy, he had been in Cuba all his life aside from a bit of travelling he did when he was young and times were better, at least monetarily. We spoke about Cuban-American relations and he confided in me early on that he felt it was time for change in their government. I was happy to hear this and began to ask the questions that had been bothering me the previous few days. The answers he gave and the things he told me brought me to the verge of tears at times. As a retiree he makes less then six dollars a month, which is why he works in the bar, the much younger bartender was paying him an undisclosed abount to work from midnight to six in the morning so he could run off and do God knows what all night. He told me that Cuba is a country where people save money in order to purchase food... FOOD! I asked him about the government supplied rations and he said they were given but meagerly. He said in general that there is just not enough food to go around, in his words, ¨people are searching for food.´´ Which I saw first hand, shops with empty shelves, restaurants with only half the menu available. It was all very sad. He said he dreamt of the idea of private property and a country where the people who had more were the ones who worked harder to get ahead. I explained, as he already knew, that Obama is working on lifting the embargos and travel restrictions, which would surely bring cheaper products and Americans with deep pockets into Cuba. Chewing on the end of his glasses he only replied, ¨ We are all waiting...¨ I left the bar that night with a lump in my throat.
I woke up the next day depressed and ready to get back to Costa Rica, so we headed back to the travel agency. After waiting awhile to be seen we discussed the situation and told the lady we wanted to head out the following morning so we could fly out with Leo. Unfortunately there were no seats and we would have to wait until Monday. I wasn´t very happy after this and told the girls I would just see them back at the hotel and began walking along the waterfront to clear my head. I walked for a couple hours before looping back around to the hotel. I stopped at a produce market and picked up a couple avocados at thirty cents apiece. I dropped them off at the room and wandered further down our road to find this pizza shop I read about in Lonely Planet. It´s called Pizza Celina and it´s prepared on the roof of a three story building. You have to yell up your order and after about five minutes he lowers it down in a basket and you throw your money in, roughly thirty cents. It was decent, or at least seemed to be after all the crap food I had eaten in Cuba thus far. I headed home half way satisfied and took a nap. I awoke and found the girls dressed to go out. I sat down to try out one of the avocados, which wasn´t the best I ever had, but I came to realize that I could travel around Cuba for ever and never once use the expression, ¨That was the best ____ I´ve ever had.¨ The girls really wanted me to go out with them and despite being determined to stay in I obliged. After it all it was Leonora´s last night before she was off to London. We went out to a couple places and they bought me a drink. Nothing too eventfull happened aside from a really bad Brazillian soap opera playing at one place. We decided to go out to the peso bar I was at the night before for a night cap. We talked to a couple older Cubanos who were infatuated with the girls, a couple ladies came in who were friends with them. One was a cute younger girl who was the neice of the other. Leo and Maya decided to go home shortly thereafter but I decided to stay and talk to this girl. I soon realized that the aunt was forcefully trying to sell me her neice and so I made up some excuse in Spanish and rushed out of there. Getting down the street I had another random girl literally begging me to pay her for sex. As soon as I turned the corner I started running straight home. I had some weird dreams that night.
The next day it was down to Maya and I. We went top the roof pizza place for lunch and then went souveneir shopping. We went home and napped before dinner, went out and ate, and came home to watch a movie on my Ipod. We were both broke! The rest of the weekend went the same, there was a terrible rainstorm that stayed overhead the whole time which was the tail of a hurricane in Nicaragua. By that point I was actually looking forward to going to San Jose. That week was by far the most stressful and eye-opening of my trip thus far. In summary; I think that Cuba is a beautiful country, despite it´s many faults, it is full of beautiful people (especially the women) and an interesting history. Did I enjoy my time there? Sure, at least I think so. Will I come back? Definately. Would I do it differently? In many ways. The US has it´s problems and I will be among the first to point them out, but after spending time in Cuba... Well...
After eating the massive amount of icecream we went home and changed before heading out to find a peso dinner. We walked around being pointed here and there before we were all fed up and decided to go into Old Havana via local bus, as we were all running out of money. We were herded onto a packed bus and rode for awhile before getting off when we recognized one of the many beautiful statues we had seen earlier in the day. We walked through stopping here and there for beers and checking out the menus, almost everyone refused to let us eat off the posted menu and said there was a special menu for us which always turned out to be five times as much. We were all understandably getting tired of people constantly trying to take our money because we were tourists. We stopped at a place with live music playing, tired of walking. The girls ordered chicken, I ordered shrimp. My food was terrible but I ate it quickly and angrily, sick of the same story every night. The girls chicken was cold and they did the smart thing and sent it back. We decided to leave and not bother with trying a different dish. I paid for my shrimp and we informed the waiter we were leaving. He gave us some bullshit about how the front table was French and they were loving their food, as if somehow the French know great food. We left there still hungry and wandered around trying to find something cheap, quanity over quality becoming what we had to settle for. We found a place with mediocre food and filled our bellies. We all returned home, but I decided to head out to a divey peso bar I´d seen earlier where beers were only 40 cents a piece and rum was 20 cents, wishing I had known about it in the beginning. I entered into a basically empty room and sat down at the bar with the cigar Rob had given me the night before. An old man was tending bar and he spoke good enough english and we began to converse. I was a bit weary at first, as I learned to be when conversing with Cubans, but quickly warmed up discovering that he was merely an old lonely man and enjoyed my company more then anynthing. His name was Pepe and he had just turned seventy, he had been in Cuba all his life aside from a bit of travelling he did when he was young and times were better, at least monetarily. We spoke about Cuban-American relations and he confided in me early on that he felt it was time for change in their government. I was happy to hear this and began to ask the questions that had been bothering me the previous few days. The answers he gave and the things he told me brought me to the verge of tears at times. As a retiree he makes less then six dollars a month, which is why he works in the bar, the much younger bartender was paying him an undisclosed abount to work from midnight to six in the morning so he could run off and do God knows what all night. He told me that Cuba is a country where people save money in order to purchase food... FOOD! I asked him about the government supplied rations and he said they were given but meagerly. He said in general that there is just not enough food to go around, in his words, ¨people are searching for food.´´ Which I saw first hand, shops with empty shelves, restaurants with only half the menu available. It was all very sad. He said he dreamt of the idea of private property and a country where the people who had more were the ones who worked harder to get ahead. I explained, as he already knew, that Obama is working on lifting the embargos and travel restrictions, which would surely bring cheaper products and Americans with deep pockets into Cuba. Chewing on the end of his glasses he only replied, ¨ We are all waiting...¨ I left the bar that night with a lump in my throat.
I woke up the next day depressed and ready to get back to Costa Rica, so we headed back to the travel agency. After waiting awhile to be seen we discussed the situation and told the lady we wanted to head out the following morning so we could fly out with Leo. Unfortunately there were no seats and we would have to wait until Monday. I wasn´t very happy after this and told the girls I would just see them back at the hotel and began walking along the waterfront to clear my head. I walked for a couple hours before looping back around to the hotel. I stopped at a produce market and picked up a couple avocados at thirty cents apiece. I dropped them off at the room and wandered further down our road to find this pizza shop I read about in Lonely Planet. It´s called Pizza Celina and it´s prepared on the roof of a three story building. You have to yell up your order and after about five minutes he lowers it down in a basket and you throw your money in, roughly thirty cents. It was decent, or at least seemed to be after all the crap food I had eaten in Cuba thus far. I headed home half way satisfied and took a nap. I awoke and found the girls dressed to go out. I sat down to try out one of the avocados, which wasn´t the best I ever had, but I came to realize that I could travel around Cuba for ever and never once use the expression, ¨That was the best ____ I´ve ever had.¨ The girls really wanted me to go out with them and despite being determined to stay in I obliged. After it all it was Leonora´s last night before she was off to London. We went out to a couple places and they bought me a drink. Nothing too eventfull happened aside from a really bad Brazillian soap opera playing at one place. We decided to go out to the peso bar I was at the night before for a night cap. We talked to a couple older Cubanos who were infatuated with the girls, a couple ladies came in who were friends with them. One was a cute younger girl who was the neice of the other. Leo and Maya decided to go home shortly thereafter but I decided to stay and talk to this girl. I soon realized that the aunt was forcefully trying to sell me her neice and so I made up some excuse in Spanish and rushed out of there. Getting down the street I had another random girl literally begging me to pay her for sex. As soon as I turned the corner I started running straight home. I had some weird dreams that night.
The next day it was down to Maya and I. We went top the roof pizza place for lunch and then went souveneir shopping. We went home and napped before dinner, went out and ate, and came home to watch a movie on my Ipod. We were both broke! The rest of the weekend went the same, there was a terrible rainstorm that stayed overhead the whole time which was the tail of a hurricane in Nicaragua. By that point I was actually looking forward to going to San Jose. That week was by far the most stressful and eye-opening of my trip thus far. In summary; I think that Cuba is a beautiful country, despite it´s many faults, it is full of beautiful people (especially the women) and an interesting history. Did I enjoy my time there? Sure, at least I think so. Will I come back? Definately. Would I do it differently? In many ways. The US has it´s problems and I will be among the first to point them out, but after spending time in Cuba... Well...
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