finally out of the pueblito

¿Qué pasó con Michael y Shannon? Bueno, we arrived in Costa Rica January 6, shedding our layers of Chicago clothing to adjust to the San Jose wall of humidity. From the airport, we took a bus into the city, took a taxi to another bus station, and then took another bus to Cartago in order to flee the capital. Turns out Cartago is pretty ugly and uninteresting, so don´t go there. However, our experience was good and largely uneventful. We really went there as a place to adjust to being in a new country before we headed on to our primary destination, a supposed farm/school/climbing team in the middle of nowhere at which we planned to volunteer. We thought we could go to Cartago, and from there catch a bus heading in the direction of our destination. Well, of course there was not a bus, so we rode an early morning bus on the 8 of January back to San Jose, ate breakfast, took a taxi to an altogether different bus station, and from there hopped onto our desired bus by about 8:30 am. Bueno.

While riding the bus, I had to ask the driver to let us off at a place called Ojo de Agua, which is about halfway, basically a little rest stop on the highway, about 3000 meters elevation, next to Parque Nacional de los Quetzales. After an hour and a half on the bus, we get to Ojo de Agua. From there the idea is, according to directions provided by the host of the place to which we are going, we must walk about 11 km (the sign said 13 km, all in all is about 7 miles) down into the valley to a village called Providencia. And thus we do. It really was a beautiful walk, mostly downhill, with stunning views of steep green mountains and high elevation forests. Finally, we get to the bottom of the descent and start walking along a beautiful stream with boulders strewn throughout and callalilys growing along the bank. A gorgeous natural area indeed. And we continue on.

Finally we see a woman and a child, and so I ask, - ¿Donde está la casa de Eric? (pronounced Ehreek, Eric is the host). The answer is to continue to the center and then go up and to the right. Ok. So after another 1-2 km, we finally come to the center of Providencia, which consists of two small stores (tiendas), some houses, a school, a church, and (as a later found out) about 400 people in the whole village, which covers many km2. So again, I ask my question, this time to an older woman, - ¿Donde está la casa de Eric? - Va por esta calle arriba. (go up that road). Okay, so we go up. Then a couple young guys walking down the hill. I repeat my question. The answer: - más arriba. Then another guy, after walking a few more minutes, with the same answer: - más arriba. Then we see a little garden and think maybe this is the house. Of course it was not, but the owner pops his head up and so I repeat the question to him. His answer was: - más arriba and the third house on the right. Well at least we got a little more clarity that time. Third house on the right, no problem. Nearly another km later up the steep hill, we arrive at our destination, tired, hungry with no food, thirsty but with a bit of water left, and relieved. Only to find out that no one was home. ¡Qué pena!

And so we plop down onto the ground with our bags and wait. The location is beautiful, high mountains, basically a cloud forest. After sitting on the ground for about an hour, the clouds rolled in, and then a little bit of rain, so we took cover under the porch of the little cabin, and waited some more. Finally, after about another hour, some people show up. I had previously looked into another small cabin and saw some sleeping bags and backpacks, so I assumed that there must be some more volunteers here. When the people walked up, we met the 17 year old daughter of the hosts (Canadian) and two Americans with backpacks. Shortly thereafter we met the two other volunteers (also Americans) who had already been living there. In short, Shannon and I arrived on the same day as two other volunteers, altogether making six Americans volunteering for a Canadian family, staying on mountainside above the village of Providencia. I think weird is a word.

The hosts were apparently in a meeting, so the six of us took over the house (the daughter went off to some other town I think for the evening). The two people who had been there were in charge of making dinner, so we helped as well as we could, but it was a very awkward feeling to be cooking and eating dinner in a house of hosts who were not there and we had not yet met. After having eaten, the hosts finally show up, and of course had no idea we were there due to their lack of internet and phone connections. They were surprised, no doubt, but took it well. They had an idea we were coming but did not know when. Turns out they needed people anyway for trying to finish the construction of their school (more on that later). The hosts are an American turned Canadian Yukon naturalist guy who is also an obsessive rock and tree climber named Eric, and a Chinese turned Canadian former dental therapist woman who likes to cook named Ying. Their daughter is home schooled and loves to climb as well named Sierra, and they spend 6 months living in the Yukon and 6 months living in rural Costa Rica. Oh yeah, and they are strict 7th Day Adventist Christians, who do not partake of meat, alcohol, or caffeine of any sort. By the end of the first day, my mind was fairly blown.