Enroute (San Jose, Costa RIca)

Alright folks, so now begins another chapter in my adventures. Things have changed dramatically in my course of action... Let's see, I am still going up to Nicaragua to Isla Ometepe and possibly Granada after a night stop in La Cruz, Costa Rica, but I don't think I will make it up to Guatemala. I really would like to but I need to be back here in a month because I am going to go stay at a Joshua's co-op for a few weeks and if I like it I will be saving all my money this year to buy a couple shares of his land. It is an amazing piece of land and they have a lot going on up there. They have a government funded biodiesel project going on, tons of fruits and veggies growing, and a bunch of chickens for eating and there is a ton more stuff in the works. They have this beautiful are set aside for the future village where the shareholders will be able to build up their cabinas. I can't see anything wrong with being self sustainable in the middle of the jungle with scarlet macaws flying about. So we will see what happens.

New Years was a great time, we hung out, ate great food, watched some great bellydancing and firedancing, and generally made party (as my German and Dutch friends would say.) We woke up the next day and headed to another party where we played a ton of games with gringos and ticos all side by side, it was great to see and a lot of fun. We headed home all thoroughly exhausted from the previous thirty-six hours of fun. I awoke the next day and headed into to town somewhat depressed to be leaving my family I'd had for the previous seven weeks, but I will be stopping by to see them on my way to Joshua's place in a month or so. I caught the bus into San Jose and Tranquilo Backpackers, where I have been for the last couple days. I am going to be catching another bus in an hour or so up to the border town of La Cruz where I will spend a night and cross the border early in the morning up to Rivas, Nicaragua. From there over to San Jorge where I will catch a ferry to the fantasy world of Isla Ometepe. Estoy emocionado.

Anyhow, I will try and elaborate on my farm adventures a little more. You have to understand though that time was non-existant there, and it is all but a blur, so the order of events get's a little tough to recall. There was the week when I had Dengue Fever, which I will never forget. It started the day after one of the WWOOFers going away party and I was feeling pretty bad, but I figured it was just the alcohol punishing me. I went into town to pick up some groceries and things but I started feeling worse and worse, so I rushed back to the farm and informed Liz that I thought I was in for a bad cold... WRONG, I was in for something that resembles the flu except ten times worse including star inducing body aches and hallucinations. I was stuck up at the shack in the jungle for the entire week, with a hundred and four temperature, laying in my hammock tent wondering if the reaper would be unzipping the net and dragging me to the void everafter. I was plagued with terrible nightmares of killing people and animals, when I could sleep that is. I woke one morning to find my thoughts racing by uncontrollably and felt like I was in a fog. I had the idea that I couldn't move my body easily and thought I would have to spend the rest of my life relearning how to use it. After slowly walking around trying to shake this feeling to no avail I decided to lay down and try and sleep it off, luckily I awoke a couple hours later and the fear had subsided. Mike and Lizzy were rarely around. I fell into a deep, soul ripping, depression, I cried for an hour at a time. I just wanted to go home. After five days of this personal hell I came out of the jungle, I was told I was pale as a ghost and looked alot thinner. I stepped on the scale to find I had lost ten pounds that week. We all went to a shaman that Friday and did a sweatlodge, which was a great experience, but didn't do much for my state of health and it wasn't until almost a week later that I could eat normally and had energy to work again. Around that that time Mike, Lizzy, Tina, and another German, Julie, left. Liz told me I would be moving back down to the main farm to be helping out down there. I spent my last few weeks building a garden, babysitting the kids, riding horses, exploring the near by waterfalls, and counting down my remaining days. It was a really good time all in all at the farm, sometimes I was stressed to the point of exploding, but I was never bored and seven weeks raced by like an indy car. I will always consider Liz, Steven, Sam, Olivia, and the beasts to be family. Not to mention all the kind, generous, crazy ticos I met in the area. I'll be back, you can bet all your animal crap on that one.