I'm back!

Forever my father’s daughter, I’ve found a (partial) solution to my technology woes though sadly to add photos has proven one step too far. It is rather embarrassing how lost I feel without my phone. These days it’s difficult to appreciate just how much you rely on one gadget for daily life.

I left off, excited at the prospect of breathing the Pacific air once more. Fair to say that our weekend, and subsequently this weekend, was a bit of a washout. Parque Nacional Manuel Antionio was hailed by Lonely Planet as one of THE highlights of Costa Rica, bursting with wildlife and on stretches of pristine white sand beaches. There is no doubt that on a beautiful sunny day at 7am, when the park opens, it may well be a haven of natural beauty, however this was not so much the case at midday on a Sunday, during the only fifteen days of national school holiday. The park was teaming with Tico tourists. Paying 10% of the entry fee that we did, most had brought little short of the kitchen sink with them for their happy picnic on the beach. At times it felt more of a theme park than a natural national park, but the sight of a sloth hanging from the vivid green branches, bright purple and red mangrove crabs, and beautiful butterflies dancing around kept me happy in the intense heat of the mid-day sun.

As with many of these situations, you barely had to go twenty meters beyond the first beach before we were left practically alone on the multitude of other trails leading to different view points and beaches that the park has to offer. It was beautiful with a lush variety of vegetation and the occasional sight of a howler monkey or racoon scaling the branches. As the afternoon passed, the cloud gathered and the rainforest rain began to patter... and patter...

I think they should upgrade the rainforest exhibit in Dynamic Earth to truly reflect the intensity of the rain that proceeded to descend from the heavens. Optimistically we continued along our route, to apparently the best viewpoint of the park, only to be met by a slippery platform gazing out over a muggy, grey mist. Within half an hour we were absolutely soaked to the skin, the paths and roads were fast flowing rivers and one could barely see twenty five meters ahead through the curtain of water.

Only from the comfort of a dry sofa in our fairly hip hostel, to the background tones of my favourite, Jack Johnson, could you appreciate the excitement of the storm but also the resulting casualties. Needless to say, the dorm became more of a laundrette with clothes draped over every spare bed and I spent most of the evening separating the 500+ pages of my guidebook. The camera was a lost cause.

Unfortunately the rest of the weekend didn’t go much better and after a good breakfast of pancakes and pineapple, we gradually headed back. Defeated by further rain at the beach we arrived back to more rain in the cooler climbs of the mountains.

This week at the reserve has unsurprisingly involved a fair amount of cleaning but I am sure my CV will be strengthened by my newly acquired painting skills. The bridge is a fresh bright green, the platforms a dark blue and with the help of a few others, we have refurbished and refitted the kitchen which now sports some gleaming white walls and a delightful mould green coloured floor. When the sun is out and the hummingbirds are darting around, the FUDEBIOL reserve is a small paradise.

As we spend more time volunteering, we are getting to know the main “manager” of the reserve better. Jesus has been working at the reserve for an impressive twelve years. He is familiar with every leaf and rock and lives and breathes the fresh air of the rainforest. He means very well but is one of those people who just functions in a different world from those surrounding him. He uses his machete with amazing ease for absolutely anything that may cause an obstruction in his was and his occasionally slurred Spanish is no easier to understand when he only completes half the sentence before wandering off. He is always cheery but there are always “muchas problemas” on the reserve, most of which we seem to be incapable of solving... so we stick to the cleaning. When he’s not around, the others who run the reserve seem to have a totally different set of priorities for us to complete and one day he forgot that he had changed the lock so we couldn’t open the reserve to visitors. I am beginning to appreciate that in many ways he is absolutely classic of a Tico. He has a very warm heart and keen to help but often seems to have little logic. He is fairly headstrong on his ideas and can be a challenge to completely understand.

Beyond the reserve I am settling into my host family and my host mum and sister have been very welcoming. My “host grandmother” always gives a friendly smile though continues only to address me through someone else, even at the dinner table. I have enjoyed chatting with them in the evenings and laughing over their truly terrible telenovelas and their wealth of stories about the variety of entertaining things that the “extranjeros” that they have hosted have done. So far I haven’t made any catastrophically embarrassing Spanish blunders but there is plenty of time for those!

Although the hostels are quiet and the gringo levels remain moderate, in many ways I have hit Costa Rica at completely the wrong time of year. Yesterday, we set off again, this time for a different national park on the coast. We stopped off at some waterfalls along the way, involving a good but very sweaty walk. Their size was impressive but the water was far too rapid, only crazy people would risk a swim. Onwards, and a fun hitch in the back of a truck later, we arrived back at the coast, but luck wouldn’t remain on our side for too long. Lonely Planet is good for some things but not for bus times and prices. It ended up being a lot wait in the heat before we reached our hostel at the entrance to the national park for our day of sun at the beach the next day.

So far, the Costa Rican hostels have been pretty sweet. The Toucan Hostel, Uvita had hammocks stung under an assortment of groovy light fittings and mellow beats in the background during the evening. It would have been a great vibe if it weren’t for the mystery food poisoning the ascended upon us. Better luck tomorrow.

The pitter patter of rain on a corrugated roof is very familiar by now but certainly not at 6:30am. Nor does it normally continue to strengthen for the next seven hours solid. Unfortunately/ fortunately the hostel had arranged for pest control to come between 8:30-10:30 to clear the place of bugs and so we faced the prospect of being ejected out into the torrential rain for the second weekend running. I’ll make another plug for the friendly family run the Toucan Hostel as they ferried us all to a cafe and bought us milkshakes before we could return to the hostel! The beach just wasn’t meant to be and it looks unlikely that it ever will be but I think it’s fair to say we tried.

It has been quite a slow paced two weeks really which has presented its own challenges. It is good to slide into the rhythm of Costa Rican life, when time and priorities are infinitely less important than at home. Costa Rica is an increasingly curious country that is riddled with contradictions. As each day passes, more come to light but it is often only with hindsight and a bit of distance that you can fully appreciate them.