TGIF

Sarah: I can’t believe it’s already Friday! Seems like this week went by really fast. We went on another hike on Wednesday on a trail called La Cascada, and it was beautiful. It was pretty muddy and wet, but we walked along this creek for a while and through the jungle and then saw the beautiful cascades. Looks like a place we might be able to swim in the future! It’s also been a beautiful week as far as weather goes. We’re hoping that last year was a unique year and this year won’t be the same. All week long it hasn’t rained for more than 20 minutes at a time and it’s been really sunny and even warm. Liseth says it wasn’t like this at all last year; the rain actually picked up and rained all day and night during October and November. Today it’s back to the rain…so hopefully it’s not here to stay.

Once again, David’s been staying busy cleaning the lab. It’s been a big task and we’ll both be excited when everything here is clean and ready for guests. Then we’ll be able to get some projects going and be on the trails doing research. Hopefully you can see what a mess he’s created so far by tearing apart the lab! I’ve been able to help some, but with my lack of science experience, especially in labs, sometimes it’s best if I leave the organizing to David. I have read a couple of good books—The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini (one of my all-time favorites) and Daughter of Fortune, by Isabel Allende. I’ve also spent a lot of time in the kitchen, trying to figure out this whole cooking thing.

Finally, the last picture is of Rambo. This is Liseth’s dog that often tags along when she comes to work, but today when Liseth went home, Rambo stayed behind. We’re not sure if it’s because he didn’t see her leave, or if it’s because he didn’t want to walk home in the rain. We’re also not sure if he’s planning on staying the weekend until Liseth comes back on Monday and he can follow her home then! He has already made himself at home, taking an afternoon nap on a mop. :) Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Back to Work

Sarah: Happy Monday everyone! Well here’s the story. Yesterday we took the day of rest to heart and pretty much did just that. We were able to download a podcast from Twin Lakes Church in Aptos, CA, which was one of the churches we attended while we were living near Santa Cruz. The church that we actually attended most frequently doesn’t have the capability for podcasts yet, but we were thankful for the message we got to hear. And after that, rest we did! David enjoyed a day full of watching football games, and I don’t think either one of us moved around much during the day.

So today being Monday, it was back to work for us. :) One of our tasks for being here is to obtain a satellite reading of each of the trails on GPS, so to start off our workday we went on a hike. It was beautiful! We went on the trail Las Cataratas (the waterfalls) and it was a great experience. The trails lead us through the forest in a way that it felt like we were new explorers finding our way. We crossed the river a few times, across logs and metal bridges that swayed slightly. And on the steep parts there were ropes for us to grab on. Finally we rounded a corner and saw the spectacular sight of the waterfall, and with all the rain we’ve been getting, it was quite a powerful sight. Enjoy the pics. And as a sidenote, I just realized that if you click on the pictures you can enlarge them--so you should go back and check out those macaws close up if you haven't already.

Palmar Norte

David says : “Mucho calor, si?” (translated as “It’s so hot my face is going to melt off, yes?”) That was the popular phrase of the past two days as we went on a short Thursday-Friday trip with Liseth, our housekeeper, and Rigo, her husband. Knowing that we do not have a means of transportation to leave the valley to seek out any heat, they invited us to visit Rigo’s parents with them. Rigo’s parents, Vera and Francisco (which is a fun name), are in there ‘60s and ‘70s and live outside of Palmar Norte, a small town on the south pacific lowlands about two hours from Panama. If you know anything about the topography and climate and Costa Rica, you know that the pacific lowlands are the quintessential humid jungles of the tropics. Here you experience the type of heat that makes your skin look and feel like fly tape. But don’t worry, it is gorgeous, and the short period of heat is very welcomed when you are coming from a cold mountain community.
Vera and Francisco live an almost completely sustainable life on their own up on a mountainside. They were very impressive, for their age and sadly with Francisco’s heart failing. They grow their own fruits and vegetables and raise cows, chickens, and pigs that provide their milk, eggs, and meat. I think the only thing they have to really buy is feed for their animals. What a life. We also gathered that they don’t get out much when Sarah and I told Vera that we were going to walk on the road towards the river and she had a horrified look of panic on her face that said we would maybe not return because of all the dangers lurking out there (granted there were crocodiles in the river). Their hospitality was incredible and was accompanied by a steady diet of rice, beans, meat, and coffee. Vera also found much pleasure in calling us by as many endearing child-like terms she could think of. We had a great time as we sweated it out. The scenery was beautiful as we could hear Howler Monkeys proclaiming their presence in the forest up the mountains and could see the incredible Scarlet Macaws flying over in small flocks. Wow!

My turn!

Sarah says: My turn! David gave a great overview of the valley in which we live, and an overview of our journey to our new home. But what have we been doing since we got here, you might ask? We have been extremely busy. Once we unloaded all our belongings, groceries and all, we looked around our new apartment to see what we could unpack Monday evening already. What we found was our closet space occupied by all kinds of tools and equipment and random other stuff so that it would be stored in a safe place. We decided we were too tired to think about it, so we went over to the local restaurant and ate our first meal.

Tuesday began our days of cleaning and organization. We unloaded our closets and set everything out in the lab area, to be dealt with later. We cleaned out everything, killed a bunch of spiders and dismantled their homes, and moved our clothes in. Wednesday and Thursday we spent tearing apart our kitchen. It was obvious to me that there have been lots of people staying in our apartment on and off for the past couple years, and all have left their food supply and cooking supplies behind. We took everything out of the pantry and all of the cupboards, washed everything, swept out the dead bugs, and re-organized all of the food and dishes and cooking supplies. And finally on Friday, we cleaned the desk area in our apartment. It was full of papers and books that are great to have at QERC, but we moved them out into the reception area outside of our apartment, and moved our own books and picture frames in. Now we have a great looking apartment, personalized and clean (except for the little spiders that keep rebuilding their webs overnight, no matter how many times we knock them down during the days!).

Besides cleaning and organizing, we’ve spent some time walking around outside. It gets light early, sometime between 5:30-6:00am, and for the most part David and I have been able to get up by 7:30 or so. It’s still the rainy season here in Costa Rica, so it’s guaranteed to rain every day for close to 5 hours between the hours of 11:00am and 6:00pm. We found out early that even though it may stop raining during those hours, it may pick up again. Tuesday we went on a short hike after it stopped raining. About an hour into our hike, it started pouring and we got soaked!

As we have been walking around, we have gotten to meet a few people. Up the hill from us lives a Canadian lady (Laura) who is married to a Costa Rican. We went to visit with her on Thursday and she filled us with some great information about the community. Her daughter is in 4^th grade at the local school, and so Laura told us about a school gathering on Thursday evening. Friday, September 15^th, was Independence Day, so the school had a special presentation the evening before. The kids had all made faroles, or lanterns as they called them, which looked sort of like piñatas. They were decorated with Costa Rican colors and the kids walked in a sort of processional as the principal and some adults talked about the history and politics of Costa Rica. At the presentation, we were able to meet the patriarch of the Chacon family, don Efrain, and his wife, Marianela. They were very nice and even gave us a ride back down to our place after the ceremony.

As most or maybe even all of you know, David is a bird fanatic. However, living here has made even me appreciate the birds more. There are beautiful and bright-colored birds everywhere, so it’s hard not to appreciate their beauty and diversity. We even have a number of hummingbird feeders right outside our windows and there is always a number of them swooping in and out. We had our door open a few days ago and one even came in the house. It was quite a sight, and the poor fellow ran smack into the window trying to get back out to his freedom. David was able to pick it up and found it only stunned, so when he took it outside it flew away. I’m sure that will be the first of many rescues. :) The best bird I’ve seen is by far the Quetzal. It’s the famous bird in the area, and I’m pretty sure I’ll develop some sort of obsession over it. We saw one in a tree right outside our apartment last week and it was breathtaking.

For lunch on Sunday we were invited to go to our housekeeper’s place to eat with her family. (Yes, we have a housekeeper—Liseth cleans the entire QERC building, including our apartment. She's wonderful--she even left us a vase full of flowers when she left on Friday!) We are excited to get to know her better and her family as well. Tomorrow (Thursday) Liseth has invited us to go with her and her husband on a two-day trip. We're not exactly sure where we're going, we only know that we're staying with her husband Rigo's dad, and it's going to be HOT. So, we are excited to get out a little bit and be with Rigo and Liseth.

Another thing to note is that there is no Christian church here--only a Catholic church, which is considered to be very different than the Christian church. And, the priest who comes to this small community also travels to other small communities. So, Mass is held usually on Tuesdays (random), sometime later afternoon, and not usually every week. We went yesterday for the first time--we met a girl working at the hotel (Diana) and she informed us when Mass would be taking place. She also invited us to go with her family so we wouldn't have to walk, which was very nice! Her dad is Melvin, an excellent birder and one of the guys who helped David do his research when he was studying here 4 years ago.

Today we got up and went hiking again. We were able to avoid the rain this time, and we hiked the trail "La Quebrada". It was beautiful--we saw lots of birds, some butterflies and even a frog! And to top it all off, as soon as we made it down from the trail, we saw a Quetzal close by--not more than 10 feet away, in a tree at eye level. It was incredible!! He flew away before I was able to get pictures, but there's plenty of time to get some good shots. :) That's all for now!

The Beginning

David says: Bienvenidos! You made it to our blog (whatever that means). Regardless, we are not to here to discuss what a blog is or is not. We are here to share la pura vida (pure life) of Costa Rica with you. And Sarah and I are very happy to know that you are checking this out. We encourage you to do so every now and then to see what we are up to and up against.

No better place to start than the beginning, huh? We arrived in Costa Rica on Monday, September 11^th. Three ticos working for Moaba picked us up and loaded our luggage. (Only it turns out only two of them were actually hired by us and when we got in the van the third one confessed his scam and asked for a tip. So, I tipped him. He was really nice.) We stopped at a Hiper Mas outside of San Jose to buy groceries for up to a month. You see, we are currently without a car and we live about a 10km and a 2000 ft. elevation hike to the nearest bus stop that would then take us 1 ½ hours to the nearest grocery store. So, we really had to stock up. And that is no easy task for two young adults who have never really cooked for themselves before and are buying groceries that don’t look or read the same as they do in the states. But, we used our previous Costa Rican and Spanish experience to the fullest and found the mayonesa and every good fruit juice flavor we could. After a thorough food assessment upon our arrival at our new home we realized we did a pretty good job.

Anyway, after Hiper Mas, we enjoyed a beautiful two hour ride up, up, and up as we headed southwest from San Jose toward the Talamanca mountain range of southern Costa Rica on the Pacific slope. The tropics were a beautiful site as the air temperature kept getting colder and colder. And when we started descending into the Savegre valley surrounded by montane cloud forests worthy of a National Geographic special we knew we had arrived, not into maturity or anything like that, but into our new home. It is hard to describe how there can be so many hues of green that cannot be explained and yet are so different from one another. And it is hard to explain how you can see the canopy tops of these magnificient forests and you know that you are just seeing the outer shell of a world incredibly diverse waiting to be explored and experienced. It was the first time Sarah has made the drive down to San Gerardo de Dota and it was my third. It hasn’t lost any thought-stopping qualities over time. I was so excited to see Sarah experience it for the first time and for us to be there together.

San Gerardo de Dota, a very quiet community of about 130 people who live and share very different lives, is where our stop was. The diversity of the people’s lives does not compare to the biodiversity of the forest, but they do warrant some figuring out. The community exists because of Efrain Chacon and a few others who settled in the valley in the 1950s only to become extremely successful dairy farmers. As the valley was slowly on its way to complete deforestation and loss of all its biodiversity, Efrain had the love and foresight to see that the nature was his family’s most valuable asset. He sold his world-renowned cows, converted the cleared land to orchards, stopped cutting down the forest and made a go at eco-tourism, utilizing the land’s best resources. I guess it is kind of a Field of Dreams story in a way. The people started coming and now the majority of the economy in the valley is eco-tourism. It is a conservation story of extreme value and victory. The story continues as there is a new national park being developed that will protect a large chunk of land. All of this has not been without problems or imperfections, of course, but the general motivation and idea is right on.

So that is where we are. We are Field Station Managers of the Quetzal Educational Research Center (QERC) at 7000 ft in the cloud forests of San Gerardo de Dota, owned and operated by Southern Nazarene University. The research center is dedicated to the education of Christian students in stewardship principles, conservation driven research, and a community connection to all of these ideas as it pertains to those in this valley. It’s pretty sweet! God has blessed us to be apart of what is going on here and it is going to be an honor to struggle through the risks and rewards of getting QERC functioning as it was dreamt to be.

And that is where we find ourselves in Costa Rica. It's the beginning.