New Years in Monteverde, Costa Rica

On New Year's Eve, we piled into our friends’ jeep and went to their home in Monteverde, Costa Rica. A town in the cloud forest on the Pacific side of the Continental Divide, it was settled by American Quakers in 1950 fleeing religious persecution in Alabama during the Korean War (Quakers believe in non-violence). Costa Rica had recently abolished it’s army, had amazing weather, and at the time, land was cheap.

Our friends’ home is beautiful with an even more beautiful view which looks out over the Gulf of Nicoya and the Nicoya Peninsula! On a clear day you can see the Pacific Ocean beyond. Austin is a student in my department and a documentary filmmaker. His wife Wendy is a teacher, but is taking the year off to be a full-time mom. Their daughters Anna (11) and Bella (8) are Autumn and Chloe’s ‘BFCR’ (best friends in Costa Rica). They get along great and have so much fun together!


That night we were all tired so the girls, thankfully, decided that they wanted to celebrate New Years at 11pm, which is midnight in DC and NYC (our friends are from the Newark, NJ area). We watched the ball dropping live in Times Square online then went outside where the girls ran around banging pots and cheering (they don’t have many neighbors on their side of the mountain). Then the hotel down the road put on an amazing fireworks display – at 11pm! We guessed this was probably because they cater to tourists, mostly from the States. It was great, although it was all too much for the dog, Nene, they were ‘dog-sitting’ who took off into the woods – they found him the next day across town at his house.



Other things we did while in Monteverde included lots of hiking through the forests, visiting waterfalls, eating ice cream, and attending a Quaker meeting (that’s what they call their church services) and potluck. We also visited a café that had dozens of hummingbirds flying around feeders – man, are they fast and quite beautiful! The girls got their fill of cute animals while we were there, too. Anna and Bella have a dog and the girls had fun dressing up the her and Nene for a ‘doggy fashion show’ (as you can imagine the dogs were just THRILLLED about that!) We also visited their friends’ farm where the girls got to see dogs, cats, chickens, turkeys, guineas, and goats – including a baby goat born on Christmas Eve! They also got to pet horses all around town.



The daily sunsets from their front patio were amazing and so was hanging out with our friends. The bus ride home was long – 4.5 hours to San Jose and then another 45 minutes to Ciudad Colon – but it was worth it!

Christmas in Paradise

While many of the North American students went home to the snow and cold for the semester break, most other students stayed in Costa Rica or traveled through the Caribbean, and/or Latin America. Patrick went home to Falls Church to visit family and friends, but the girls and I stayed where it was warm!

Christmas Eve was spent baking sugar cookies from scratch (for Santa), tracking Santa’s progress online, and going to Christmas Eve mass. Christmas morning we gathered around the ‘tree’ that the girls had fashioned out of plastic garland, a wire coat hanger, a plastic stool, and a clothes hamper. They made all the ornaments themselves, too. Santa was generous bringing clothes, soccer balls, candy and more.

It was an amazing Christmas!!

Class Field Trip to Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí, Costa Rica

While taking a class on Forests, Forestry, and Peace, I had a three day field trip to Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí, Costa Rica. My professor was kind enough to let me bring the kids, so they had a three day vacation.

First, we drove to Santa Clara, 3 hours northwest of San Jose to talk with a professor at the Instituto Tecnologico de Costa Rica (Technical Institute of Costa Rica, a major university). He told us how they are working with farmers to reforest the country using selective breeding (of trees, not the farmers.)

Next we drove to Sarapiquí, which is about 3 hours northeast of San Jose. There the kids hung out at the hotel, Hotel El Bambu (http://www.elbambu.com/) and swam in the pool while my class traipsed through the rainforest, at times in the POURING rain. I’ve been dryer swimming in the ocean! It was a lot of fun. We heard howler monkeys, and I saw a poison dart frog (about the size of a quarter, bright red with royal blue hind legs) on a log. It was also very interesting as we learned about tree plantations, sustainable logging, and Payments for Environmental Services (PES).

PES is a system where money is paid to private landowners to conserve or replant their forests. It is a very popular program that has a long waiting list, but not enough money for every interested party. Ideally, businesses that depend on clean water would pay the landowners upstream to help maintain that quality. Examples of industries now in the program are brewing companies and hydroelectric plants.

On the way home, we stopped at one of the hydroelectric plants and got to go inside and see the large turbines. The owners of this plant pay into the PES system since trees help prevent silt from being washed down the rivers that then damage the turbines, which are very costly to repair or replace.

The kids had a lot of fun. They loved the pool, getting to eat at ‘sodas’ (little, usually family-owned, fast food restaurants), and they even learned how pick a coconut off a tree, break it open, and drink the juice. We saw lots of beautiful scenery from our bus windows, like waterfalls, as well as pineapple and sugarcane plantations. I am very grateful to have such a great UPeace community to make it not just possible, but also so welcoming for my kids to join us when I need to go on these trips.

PS: In a later class, Water Security and Peace, I got to return to Sarapiquí for a day trip along the Sarapiquí River. We saw howler monkeys and iguanas in the trees, amazing birds, and caimans on the river banks!

Los Gigantes

This video is of Los Gigantes (the giantes) parading through the streets of Ciudad Colon on Halloween. See the following post for more details...

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is a North American holiday. In many places, like Costa Rica, it is seen as a fun bit of 'Americana' that is starting to gain popularity. It also helps that there is a huge Expat community here. Even so, trick-or-treating door to door has not yet caught on. Many of the UPeace students were on vacation over Halloween since we had a short break between classes. But we still found a party! Not wanting to spend anything on costumes, we decided to see what our imaginations could put together. I went as a Chiquita banana (it was a definite stretch!), Patrick as Santa (no I don't know why he brought that hat with him to Costa Rica), Autumn a vampire (that's my skirt as her cape), and Chloe as a blue mouse (who eats bleu cheese!). We made orange, yellow-cake mini cupcakes with chocolate icing to bring, so we were a hit at the party! We danced and played music all night. Before the party, we ventured to the main plaza in Ciudad Colon to a craft fair. They also had a parade through the streets with Los Gigantes (the giants) and a band. I filmed some of that as seen in the previous post.

Independence Day

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted anything! Classes sure are intense- I’ll try to be better.

On September 15th Costa Rica celebrates it’s Independence from Spain in 1821. In fact, this is the Independence Day for most of Central America since they declared collectively. We were very excited to be here for such an exciting holiday. The night before, on the 14th, we went down to the central plaza next to the church (the center of town and life in Costa Rica) in Ciudad Colon to see the festivities. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera! It seemed the whole town came out, many with homemade paper lanterns in red, white, and blue (the colors of the flag). Some were of the Asian (hanging) style, but many looked more like birdhouses on a stick. This tradition recalls the way Costa Ricans first heard of their coming independence – messengers went door to door with lanterns (remember it was 1821) telling people that the next day the country would sign a statement of independence.

Next, a torch was lit from a pyre and run all around the town (very Olympic torch-like). This happens all over the country. Then there was traditional dancing by all age groups on a stage in the plaza. The women and girls wore beautiful flowing skirts that usually have 4 wide, horizontal stripes of color. They wear buns with a long (mostly fake) braid that reaches to their chest. There are flowers in their hair and beige sandals on their feet. The men and boys wear white shirts and pants, sandals, a sash of bright color around the waist, and a matching handkerchief in their hand.

They also had gifts handed out to all the (public?) school children, like it was Christmas. They called numbers and the kids came up to claim their wrapped gift. Afterwards, they had a little play about Costa Rican history. It was performed all by children maybe 7 to 11 years old. It had an accompanying soundtrack with all the music, sound effects, and voices. The children merely lip synced and acted. The tape reminded me of those used by the Wildwood, NJ Boardwalk tramcars – it sounded as though it was a tape used a million times before (in short, not the best quality). So, first Christopher Columbus (Cristobal Colon) and his men arrived on boats from Spain to Costa Rica. They declared it a ‘rich coast’ or in Spanish, ‘Costa Rica’. Then they proceeded to enslave the indigenous people. After a while, the people revolted against the Spanish. The Spanish killed most of them in return. In the play, when the natives revolted the Spanish clubbed them to death – the kids dressed as natives laid on the ground as if dead, the kids dressed as Spaniards pretended to hold clubs in their hands and beat them. The crackly soundtrack provided the clubbing noises, which seemed to go on and on and on… A little excessive, it seemed. I’m sure it lasted at least three minutes, which may not seem very long, but when they’re already ‘dead’…

After most of the natives were sufficiently ‘dead’, they switched to 1821. The Ticos discussed how they wanted liberty, traveled to Guatemala (the provincial hub of Spanish Central America), and returned home with the news that Central America was declaring Independence from Spain. They showed a person going door to door with the lantern announcing independence.

It was all very nice. But by then Autumn was near faint with hunger (as always), so we went and had pizza. There are at least three REALLY good pizzerias we’ve found within walking distance in Ciudad Colon. Mmm…

Next morning we were up early to go see the local parade. Lots of dancing again, marching bands (mostly drums in Costa Rica – they’re VERY good!), Los giantes (people with ‘giant’ paper mache torso and heads on – see pictures in slideshow), and even a small group of preschool girls dressed as Disney princesses (yeah, I’m not sure what that was about either).

It was hot, so afterwards we went to the pool for awhile (free behind the post office). Later, we went to the zoo in San Jose. We saw white faced monkeys (the same kind we have on the UPeace campus), spider monkeys, lions, parrots and macaws, turtles, caimans, a tapir, and a jaguar, among others. In one cage, we saw a green parrot and a squirrel. How odd, we thought! Did they not have squirrels in Costa Rica? We couldn’t remember seeing any. It reminded me of an Aussie I once knew who said when he moved to the US he took a million photos of squirrels because he had never seen them before. He said that they were our ‘kangaroos.’ We took a picture and marveled at how a creatures so common to us in Falls Church could be so exotic in Costa Rica as to warrant putting one in a cage. As we continued to explore the zoo, we started seeing squirrels scurrying around free. Confused, we sure felt bad for the one locked in a cage. Later, as we passed the same cage from the other side, we realized that there was a hole in the cage and that the squirrels were just popping in to steal the bird’s seed. Haha, we sure felt silly! Such touristas, taking pictures of the squirrel in the cage!

Before catching the bus home for the day, we walked the main shopping district in San Jose. We bought some books for the girls in the international bookstore (leisure reading in English) and saw some UPeace students in there, too! Whew, what a long day!

Tope in Town

So, later on Sunday, we went to church. It was packed. The good thing about the Catholic Mass is that it is so standardized you know exactly what's going on, even when you don't always understand exactly what they're saying. When it is time to shake hands and say "Peace be with you" many people walk all over the church to shake hands, and all the little children go up (or are taken up by a parent) to shake hands with the priest. The priest seems to give very good homilies (sermons), though I can't understand it all quite yet :)

Afterwards, we went next door to the soccer field where there was a fair. It was all to celebrate the Virgin Mary who is the patron saint of Ciudad Colon. We went on a few rides - I think I may have gotten whip lash from the Musik Express and Bumper Cars! The slideshow at the top of the blog shows the girls on a dragon roller coaster.

Next, we bought cotton candy and churros from a street vendor and found a spot to wait for the Tope. A Tope is a horse parade; Ciudad Colon is surrounded by ranches and they don't miss an opportunity to have a Tope, I've heard. It seems "Tope" means everyone with a horse within 30 miles jams their horse into the street while drinking beer. Not really what we would call a 'parade' in the US. The girls and I were sitting right at the edge of the street and had to watch that our feet were not trampled by the horses. Half way through, a horse deposited a 'gift' roughly the size of a small child just in front of us. For the rest of the Tope, we just prayed, huddled, and giggled everytime a horse stepped in it, so scared it would splatter all over us! There are also a few photos in the slideshow of the Tope.