Ready for Panama

Wednesday – 30 September

Hola! It is a busy week here in Monteverde, and a short report. Lot’s of things going on at both Niall’s school and the Institute, plus we are preparing for our first major travel excursion—about 12 days road trip to Panama. We have plotted a rough route, mostly following the minor highways along Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, as the traffic can make the Pan American highway pretty hairy through much of the course we would travel. We’ll probably try some of it on the way back if the less traveled roads are in poor condition, or it seems just as slow anyway. We would like to see some of the scenery on both routes, particularly one streatch on the PanAm, as about 20 miles of the route south of San Jose travels along the ridge of the continental divide, all of it over 10,000 elevation. If the weather is clear, it is supposed to be amazing to see.

The way we will go will take us past Manuel Antonio National Park, where we’ve visited before. We will probably spend a night there before heading farther south to a small town near the border called San Vito. We are going to attempt to cross the bode rata minor border crossing there to avoid the craziness at the main crossing on the PanAmerican. We’ve heard different horror stories about each option, but we’ve decided to take our chances on the minor crossing and were keeping our fingers crossed that we have all our paperwork in order to sufficiently smooth any hassles. The main crossing sounds very much like Nicaragua—lots of people, no clear sense of what to do, our where to get what stamps or approvals are needed, and lots of lines waiting for whatever needs to be done once you do finally figure our some sense of the order. In that there is only a single simple guard booth at San Vito, it just sounds like it can be a hassle if you haven’t gotten all your paperwork taken care of, as we think we have. If all else fails at San Vito, we’ll drive the 20 miles west to the main crossing point and see what happens there;-)

Once in Panama, we are hoping to spend a few days in Panama City, including a trip on the canal if possible. We also want to spend time wandering around on the Azuero peninsula, which is reputed to be much like rural Spain in both culture and appearance, little changed in several hundred years. We may also spend a little time near Volcan Baru, Panama’s only large volcano, and the site of a cloud forest similar to Monteverde’s. There’s also hot springs & such…

So… we’ll be back to report in a couple of weeks! Hasta luego from the Shannons

Hipica de Granada

Tuesday - August 22

Well, we are back from a very nice trip to Nicaragua and our visas are all recharged for another 90 days. In addition, we have lots of interesting stories and things to report; nothing like a little travel to add spice to life!

We left off last week preparing for our trip, and planned to head out Thursday after Niall got out of school. First, though, I had to get a part of our front suspension on the car repaired, and then I spent the rest of the morning meeting with the Board of Directors of the Monteverde Institute, of which I am now a member. Quite a meeting really. I’ve been involved with the Institute for about 5 years now, and I’ve always been impressed by their courses and faculty, and the connections they strive for in working with the local community. Unfortunately, their financial acumen has not been up to par with their programatic expertise. Much of my first meeting with the board was about finding ways to resurrect a healthy financial status, after about 5 years of poor management. Fortunately, they have an excellent new executive director, and she seems to be making all the appropriate moves to cut costs and refocus their operations to serve only the core mission of the organization. If they can manage to keep afloat through next year, they should be able to return to the black on their operating costs, and then get back onto a sound financial footing for the future.

After finishing our board meeting, I walked the 3 miles back to the garage, where miraculously, our car was just coming off the lift. Arnoldo, our mechanic smiled and wished me a “buen viaje,” and it looked like we’de be off on time! We picked up Niall at 3:00, and headed for our favorite spot at the beach for the night, Playa Hermosa, about 2 ½ hours to the northeast. As a change of pace, we decided to try a potential “shortcut” down off the mountain, along a road I’d just heard of through Las Juntas, about 15-20 miles north of our usual route. The road did indeed turn out to be a bit shorter, but also MUCH rougher, and around here, that’s saying something!! ;-) I suppose this requires a brief primer on Costa Rican roads, which have an unfortunate reputation, even in Central America, for being pretty poor. Some are OK, like much of the Pan-American highway, which runs the length of the country from Nicaragua to Panama and is actually something resembling a North American interstate near San Jose, the capitol. Even the Pan-American is a bit rough on some sections though, no different from a typical county highway in the US in size or maintenance. Other “state” or “provincial” level highways range in quality from paved, narrow, and fairly smooth; to paved, narrow, and full of crater sized potholes that everyone drives around like they are on an obstacle course; to ones like here in Monteverde, that are regularly graded dirt and gravel, with periodic build-ups of emerging rocks and pot-holes that remind one of driving in a mine field. As a point of reference, 2 wheel-drive rental cars are NOT allowed to drive to Monteverde (it voids your rental contract if you try, and happen to get stuck). This isn’t so much because the roads are too muddy and impassable without 4wd, as because the rocks, potholes, ruts, and occasional landslides require much more serious suspension systems, as well as higher ground clearance to get over stuff without leaving your transmission or muffler behind.

Soooo, to bring us back to the story, this was a REALLY rough road. With our brand new suspension bushings giving me extra confidence, however, this didn’t seem like much of a problem. Even after the downpour in the thunderstorm started, I wasn’t worried. At least not until we heard the unbelievable clanging and banging from under the car as we passed over a particularly rough stretch, and then I saw the front skid plate fly out behind us in the rear-view mirror. Apparently the mechanic had finished with the suspension repair, gotten everything back together, put the skid plates back on, hand tightened the bolts to the chassis, and then forgotten to torque them down hard with a wrench. 20 minutes of jiggling later, off they came… The second plate was a bit more stubborn, and we had to drive along for another couple hundred meters, clanging and banging as we we went before the last bit gave way. As a piece of metal was bent over the securing bolt, there was no way to help it off, so we just drove along and prayed nothing vital got banged up too badly. After recovering the second plate and securing them in back with the luggage, and then visually checking for damage underneath the car (there was nothing I could SEE that looked wrong…) the sky seemed to clear, and we limped the next 10 kilometers downhill to the paved road. Once there, everything seemed to run OK, so we decided to just keep on and hope for the best. Besides, we had just increased our car insurance to include road-side assistance, so what difference did it make where we got stranded? As it turned out—the crazy car ran fine the remainder of the trip, and my embarrassed mechanic fixed everything for free when we got home! ;-)

We got into Playa Hermosa right on time to get fish tacos for dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants (Langostinos—it means “lobsters” in Spanish, so, seeing as they don’t serve lobster, I don’t know why they call it that, but it’s still a great place). It is run by a couple of ex-pat Americans from Texas and they raise catfish in ponds out back to freshly supply their restaurant with all kinds of great dishes that are sort of Costa Rican, sort of Texas-Creole. As someone who lives for fish tacos from Baja California, these are a pretty good second. We spent the night in a small hotel right on the beach in Playa Hermosa called appropriately enough, the Hotel Playa Hermosa. It too is owned by an American, like many of the businesses near the beach. It is amazing how much money is moving from California and similar locations to costal Costa Rica. The amount of construction along the Pacific coast and near the airport in Liberia right now is pretty amazing, considering there are just a few more than 4 million Costa Ricans, and most of them live in the central valley near San Jose about 300 kilometers from here. Some of it even LOOKS spookily like California too—there is a new shopping center in Liberia with a big grocery store that is all detailed in tan mission-style stucco that requires a double-take or two to decide it isn’t actually a Von’s or a Ralph’s.

After a pleasant night in Playa Hermosa, we had breakfast overlooking the beach while Niall went swimming. When Norma joined him in the water, the poor kid managed to get a nasty sting from a jellyfish all up and down one arm. It looked terrible, all covered in welts and bright red, but with a little ammonia, it disappeared by lunchtime. After his initial panic, he calmed down and took this one pretty stoiclyOne more thing to worry about when swimming! AT about 9:00am we heaeded out and made it to the Nica border by about 11:00. All seemed to be going smoothly until after we had cleared the Costa Rican passport control we were rechecked for our vehicles’s paperwork. As it happens, I misread some of the fine print, and our car’s “visa” had expired. I thought our Permiso a Salida de Pais was good for 90 days, and it turns out it is only good for 30. So we had to drive an hour back to Liberia, stand in line for 20 minutes, pick up a new piece of paper, and then drive another hour back to the border. With lunch thrown in, we managed to clear the Nicaraguan side by about 4:00pm! At least this time, we managed to get through all the various lines and signatures on our own, without paying $50 (or more) to the “coyotes” who try to “help” you through the process!

After a final uneventful stretch of driving, we arrived in Granada just before dark. And none too soon—as it turns out, we inadvertently picked a fiesta weekend in Granada, perhaps the biggest of the year it seems: the “Hipica de Granada.” It is sort of a cross between a county fair, a big rodeo and the Rose Parade, with just as many people. Fortunately, we had reservations at the same wonderful little hotel I had stayed at the previous time I visited Grenada (Hotel Patio del Malinche, which we HIGHLY recommend!). After fighting our way through traffic snarls for half an hour, we managed to get into our hotel in time for Niall hit the pool for a swim, and for Norma and I to hit the deck chairs with a much needed cerveza poolside.

Our first full day in Granada was Saturday, and we spent much of it wandering the streets and the central market shopping. Like many central American cities, Grenada has a wonderful marketplace that is sort of a throwback to medieval times, with hundreds of small merchants and vendors set up in little booths and stalls in a makeshift set of buildings and covered walkways covering several city blocks. The sights and sounds and smells can be a bit of sensory overload for most north Americans, but it is a real treat if you can put your claustrophobia aside, stop worrying (but not being careful) about pick-pockets, and just take the place in! We bought all kinds of things here (real raw cocao beans, a beautiful cutting board, & a slingshot for Niall among many other items). Norma could have easily spent about a week in the market, and I doubt we even actually covered more than half. We pretty much skipped the whole meat and fish section altogether after Niall just about freaked at the fresh pig skin Norma pointed out! Sometimes you just can’t resist yanking your kid’s chain instead of the other way ‘round! ;-)

Another interesting experience we decided we couldn’t pass up was getting a Nicaraguan haircut. Both Niall and I needed one, and for some reason, finding a barber or hair salon in Costa Rica is like trying to find a bellbird hidden in the tree canopy—you know they must be there, but trust me- it isn’t easy. At any rate, I’m convinced that being a barber or hair stylist is the national vocation in Nicaragua. There are almost entire streets devoted to barber shops and hair salons in Granada, and I’m told even more are in Managua. And they are busy too! I suspect that Nicas are the best (or at least most frequently) cut and coiffed people on earth. For Niall and I, the process was pretty straight forward. My Spanish is just good enough not to get a Mohawk, so everything turned out fine—better than fine really—Niall’s never gotten a better haircut; and the best part was the price: US$2.50 each! Even Prague couldn’t boast a haircut under $3.00 when we lived there in 1999.

Sunday was the big Fiesta day for the Hipica de Granada weekend. After spending much of the morning wandering and shopping some more, we walked all the way along the parade route to the “malecon,” sort of a classical Spanish version of a waterfront boardwalk area. We got there about 2:00pm, and then walked back to a hotel about a kilometer up the road where we miraculously got a table on their front porch to watch the parade. It was a great spot, with shade, seats, and $.75 cervezas! Tough to beat. We then sat back and watched the parade go by for about two hours, along with about a quarter of the population of Nicaragua. There must have been at least 250,000 people lining the parade route, and slowly moving along with the parade down to the waterfront, where a huge party seemed to be going on. We were content with our seats and our beer, and Niall was happy just seeing that much chaos that close by!

And chaos, with just a slight bit of well exercised but removed control, pretty well describes the Hipica parade. It is pretty different from most American parades. No high school bands. No boy scouts or rotary clubs or fire departments marching. No politicians in convertibles. Just lots and lots of people on their best horses with all the buckles shining, and wearing all their best equestrian outfits (western, NOT English), as well as huge numbers of pedestrians sort of moving along with the flow of the parade. The parade route was lined with hundreds of vendors selling food and local Tona beer, as well as every imaginable trinket for the kiddies. DJ’s and huge stereo systems, as well as live bands also lined the route, all competing for your attention. Hundreds of folks also parked along the route ‘tail-gate” style, with barbeques fired up and grilling of corn, chicken, or pork going on all over the place. Also prominent, but generally just observing, were a ton of security people. Local police, private security, national police, even some armed forces looking types in full riot gear (these were some tough guys in 90+F heat and 100% humidity!). While the security presence was substantial, I didn’t see a single instance of any security needing to exercise their authority. Everyone was clearly partying hard, but they all seemed to know just where the threshold was between having a really, really good time, and getting thrown in jail or worse! Perhaps most fascinating thing about the Hipica parade was how well horses and people mixed in close quarters. While I certainly can’t claim to know that much about horses, Norma grew up around donkeys and horses, and she was amazed at how well controlled all the horses were. Even with all the blaring music, pedestrians pressing in on all sides, fireworks going off all over the place, and often riders sporting a beer in each hand, these horses were amazing. Many even managed to “dance” along to whatever music was playing along the route, in styles ranging from mariachi to raggaeton. It certainly isn’t anything I’ll soon forget!

On Monday, with some degree of sadness, we left Granada to head back to Costa Rica with our renewed visas. After buying a bunch of bottles of the local Flor de Cana rum for gifts, we loaded up the Galloper and headed out, but not before checking out a little piece of real estate on the way out of town. Land is selling like hot-cakes in Nicaragua as well as Costa Rica, and typically at about a 50%+ discount over Cost Rica. We looked at a lot up on the shoulder of Volcan Mombacho, an extinct volcano covered in coffee plantations that overlooks the city. A nice place, but we’re not buying anything right away. Still, it never hurts to know what’s out there! We arrived at the border this time by about noon, and with little fuss, we were through all the lines and on our way into Costa Rica by 1:30pm. Not bad! Fortunately, the car held up beautifully all the way home, and averaged over 30 miles to the gallon (diesel) for the trip. We’re almost ready to take on Panama when Niall has his vacation in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

Tables & Tortillas

Tuesday – 15 August

Sorry for the late update this week. Our phone and internet have been down for the past 6 days… one of the curses/benefits (depending on your perspective) of living in a small “developing” nation. ;-) It took 6 days just to get the phone company to decide it really might be their problem (and not our phone that was broken) and come out to check the lines. Turned out it was indeed their problem—someone unplugged our line about a mile down the road when they were doing maintenance last week.

This past week has been one filled with new routines. Norma and I are now focusing on our Spanish skills, and we have both been working for our Spanish lessons. Norma has continued to help prepare food for Saray in her restaurant, and I have been helping build new tables and benches for the restaurant with Saray’s husband Melvin. One of the things I brought down with me was one of the older saws from my shop at home, which I eventually plan to donate to the local school when we leave. Tools here in Costa Rica are comparatively VERY expensive, so while my rather beat-up sliding miter saw is nothing special at home (every contractor has one), it is a very hot commodity here, where a simple circular saw is the most expensive tool owned by many carpenters.

For a variety of reasons, the economics of carpentry & construction in Costa Rica are very different… First, tools cost anywhere between 25 and 50% more in retail terms, then the relative cost in terms of a percentage of income is really difficult to comprehend: a new tool like my saw might be equivalent to as much as a month’s salary for a typical carpenter in Costa Rica, where in the US it might equal only a day or two of salary. Consequently, everything is built a little differently here. Tico carpenters are consequently very good at figuring out unique ways to accomplish many traditional building tasks with minimal tools. Sometimes that means some wonderful old-world style craftsmanship, and sometimes that means “McGuyver-ing” things in less elegant, but typically pretty effective ways. Here in Monteverde, it usually means everyone settles for a bit more “rustic” look in buildings, furniture, etc.

At any rate, that’s what we actually set out for in the tables and benches Melvin and I have been building. Because the food is traditional Tico “county cuisine,” more rustic furniture only seemed appropriate. They are built out of a very nice local Avocado wood, and pretty simple in construction, but very strong and serviceable. Plus this allowed us to custom fit the tables to the space we had, and thus squeeze 22 seats into less than 200 square feet.

On Norma’s end of things, she is learning some very unique and traditional methods of Tico cooking. She now knows all the local vegetables (ranging from the typical beans and rice (gallo pinto), to the more exotic, like yucca and achiote), as well as how to REALLY make tortillas from scratch. Scratch of course, is a relative term—and we’re not talking just starting with corn meal or masa flour in this case; she actually shucks the corn, cooks the corn on the cob, then cuts the kernels off, then grinds the kernels by hand (twice) into a paste, then finally hand presses and shapes them into a traditional tortilla form, ready for cooking. I don’t know if Norma will ever actually make one like this at home (its’ a LOT of work for just a tortilla!), but it certainly makes you appreciate what goes into a REAL tortilla when you do actually get one. And they are VERY good!

Keeping with the food theme, we also got our first taste of a local fiesta this past weekend. The Torres family, who we rent our house from, had a going-away fiesta on Saturday night for an American student (Rachel) who had been living with them for the past 5 months. The fiesta included lots of traditional food, including “cucharones,” which are a Tico version of deep-fried pork rinds. Definitely not on the list of health-conscious foods, but awfully good! No Tico fiesta would be complete without lots of dancing and Tico music, and everyone had a great time watching even the smallest of the kids trying to dance along. Clearly dancing is a big part of any party or get together and Norma has threatened to find us dancing lessons so we won’t have to sit on the sidelines. The dancing isn’t the type you’d just be able to up and do. Lots of very complicated moves…somewhere between ballroom and salsa!

Well, as you know, there are lots of bugs here and Niall is fascinated by them. We are currently keeping two lizards and a scorpion, which necessitates daily bug collection for feeding purposes. Niall has to capture at least one cockroach or other beetle for Garfield (fence lizard #1) and one cricket for Ode (fence lizard #2) and then some new bug each day for the scorpion (currently nameless) and with unidentified eating habits. We have not had any scorpions in our shoes yet, but both scorpions we’ve found have been near the shoes. Not sure what the attraction is there, but we are very respectful of it and shake out our shoes religiously.

While we’ve had a few bites and stings by various wasps, spiders and mosquitoes (there are actually very few of those around), our worst encounter so far has been with some itty bitty ticks. Poor Niall took an alternate route through some high grasses at school to the meadow where all the kids play. Somewhere along the way the poor guy got ambushed by at least 100 ticks. The school nurse noticed the ones on his arms, but it wasn’t until he got home and mentioned this that we took a good look at him …only to find him covered from head to toe! Poor kid, we had to strip him bare and douse each one with alcohol to get the darn things to let loose. To make matters worse they were very small and looked just like his freckles. More than once we tried a little too hard to remove a couple of his little freckles and Niall was quite put out.

Luckily, the ticks here aren’t known for carrying disease, so we aren’t too worried, but now we’re very careful to wear our high top Wellington type boots when we go out anywhere off trail.

Speaking of which, we had a little Alice in Wonderland episode yesterday. We decided to take a short hike up through the cow pasture behind the house to the edge of the neighboring rain forest. When we got to the top of the pasture at the edge of the rainforest, we noticed that Marvin (our landlord) had been working to cut up a tree near the fence line…when we went up to get a closer look we came upon a break in the fence leading to another pasture we hadn’t seen and walking through this we came upon an extensive, highly maintained, +/-4 mile trail system through the rain forest and basically right behind the house. Upon further exploration, we discovered that Marvin’s land backs up to the property of one of the bigger hotels and their lovely (but clearly underutilized) trail system. Many of the trees had recently been identified and we had a lovely time hiking around. Marvin has his own little trail system that runs up and down the small creek that bisects his property which we have explored as well. We have also figured out how to use this trail to get to Niall’s school and circumvent a good portion of two long, steep hills that must otherwise be climbed.

That’s about it for this week… This coming weekend we are heading down to the beach for one night, then spending the long “Mother’s Day” weekend (yes, Norma gets 2 Mother’s Day’s this year!) in Granada up in Nicaragua. Time to brave the border again and get Scott’s visa renewed. We got a new guidebook for the Granada area and there look to be lots of things to see and do, including swimming in volcanoes, etc. We’ll report next week on how our international transit skills are progressing!

Whooo, us?

Tuesday- 8 August

Last week we concluded our 10-week course in sustainable design at the Monteverde Institute, soooo…

Welcome to the true sabbatical segment of our blog! I’m determined not to fall into my department chair Richard’s description of sabbatical life (it involves lots of time in a bathrobe & slippers), which I’m sure he is picturing me doing. He probably figures I’m also sipping pina coladas right after lunch every afternoon too. Honest, I’m not! I’m continuing to do real, albeit often non-traditional work for a university professor, as is Norma.

This past week Norma began helping out mornings with a new local restaurant in exchange for Spanish lessons. The restaurant is a very small one specializing in traditional rural Tico specialties, and was just opened by Sarai, one of the Spanish teachers from the Institute. So Norma now grinds corn and has learned to make authentic fresh tortillas while she works on vocabulary and how to conjugate verbs. Sarai is wonderful at keeping a working conversation in Spanish going, even when our vocabulary is clearly limited, as well as gently correcting mistakes or coaching pronunciations or conjugations as you go, all without allowing lapses into English. As for me, I’m still wrapping up a few of the student’s projects, and then I’m beginning my planning project with the local municipality. I’m also helping out with some rough carpentry at the restaurant--- my Spanish needs work too! This week I’ll be helping building some tables and benches in typical rustic style with Sarai’s husband Melvin. I’m sure you’ll hear more about this later!

Learning Spanish is proving to be both a challenge, and at times, very rewarding. While neither Norma nor I can really carry on a meaningful conversation as yet with our neighbors, we have progressed far beyond either our German or Czech skills. I’m proud to say I managed to both drop our car at the mechanic’s this morning, with adequate instructions for him to do the work, as well as to understand his excuse for not having it done when I returned at the end of the day. Some things are universal, regardless of culture or language!

This week’s animal sighting was made by Norma. While out hiking on Saturday, we were watching a pair of Emerald Toucanettes moving up into the canopy along our trail when Norma noticed a group of jays making even more noise than usual near where we were searching. When she scanned the tree canopy with her binoculars, she spotted a group of Mottled Owls—a mother and two nearly grown up chicks. Like crows in north America, jays here love to harass the owls, and this group looked resigned to an afternoon of being squawked at while they tried to get some sleep before setting out to hunt at twilight. All three seemed very content to just watch as we moved in fairly close to gawk at and photograph them.

Other animal news includes the expansion of Niall’s menagerie to include a second lizard. This one is smaller, but of the same species as Garfield, his first lizard. It hasn’t yet been given a name, but Niall is convinced it must be a female, so he’s waiting to see if the two will mate. We’ll keep you posted if the second one actually turns out to be a female…

I guess that is about it for this week, as everyting is just settling onto a new routine. In the meantime, we're enjoying very nice weather (we're experiencing a "veranillo" or 'little summer', which is typical of this part of the wet season), and finally beginning to get an opportunity to relax and live a bit more at the local pace (Tico time). We're also beginning to plan some short trips (back to Nicaragua, and then down to Panama in September) which we'll share in the future...

post-mortem chicken redux...

OK, so yesterday I described processing poultry from the farmyard critter stage to the ready for KFC final product, ala the University of Florida's "do-it-yourself " home abatoir directions. Today, I give you the illustrated addendum!

The first photo is the first of the birds awaiting (with remarkable calm!) the inevitable, and some of the kiddies already rapt with facination. Next in sequence is the fatal moment, with "Russ the Knife" performing the coup de grace. This is followed by Norma assiting with the 'plucking' stage: Look ma- no feathers! We then move indoors, where yours truly is helping to show off Noemi's handiwork. Finally, the end result: chicken in every pot! (or the umpteenth dead chicken cliche, depending on your perspective) ;-)