Life on the Farm

So on Saturday morning I headed off for the dreaded walk up the hill to the Yoga Farm. My sense of fear of this hill was not unwarranted, it was the worst hill I think I’ve ever had to climb, Oxfam trek included. And forget about the Balmoral Burn. This is an almost vertical, rapidly decaying dirt road. Getting up there with a 20kg backpack on my back, a probably 8kg pack on my front, and a bag on each shoulder carrying shoes, sleeping bag, hat and a few other things. To fall would not only kill my spirits but it would be almost impossible to get myself up again without sliding down the hill. Fortunately however the day was a little cooler, with a light sprinkle of rain. I eventually made it after shouting out profanities, when I had enough air in my lungs, along the way. Just to add insult to injury, just before you get in the gate of the Yoga Farm, you go down then back up a steep dirt trail that washes away a little more each day with the rain.

So the farm is very rustic, one degree north of camping. The farm’s footprint on the planet is incredibly light and everyone is encouraged to reduce or not use any chemicals. There is a veggie garden, fruit trees (bananas, coconuts, papayas, mangoes) there were two ducks but they flew away the past few days, 11 chickens and two smelly dogs. The toilets are composting, water for showers and for washing clothes is rainwater, drinking water is from the spring up the mountain. We do yoga each day, including weekends, on the beautiful yoga deck that looks over the trees across to the Pacific Ocean.

As a volunteer our chores including preparing meals, cleaning up, helping in the garden, trail maintenance, veggie runs down to town (with the horses to bring it all up) feeding the animals and various other bits and pieces. The atmosphere is pretty relaxed and you can go at your own pace.

There is a fantastic book collection here and after four days I’m halfway through my third book – all the books I’ve read have been sitting on my shelf at home waiting for me to get to them. I’m relishing the opportunity now to lie in a hammock and kill a few hours with a good book.

The rainy season’s arrival coincided with my arrival at the Yoga Farm. Each day it rains anywhere from 3pm onwards and then through the night until sometime around midnight, I think. Sometimes it absolutely pours and if you step out into it, it is like someone has just tipped a huge bucket of water over you. Each morning is beautiful, hot with a few clouds in the sky and very humid.

The wildlife in this area is wonderful. Costa Rica, while covering just 0.03% of the planet’s surface, has around 4% of the total species estimated worldwide. It is one of the 20 countries with the greatest biodiversity in the world. Sounds awesome, right. But of the 500,000 species here, just over 300,000 are insects, and trust me, they are everywhere. This southern corner of Costa Rica is known as the virgin corner and so it is extremely rich with nature’s offerings.

It was really cool yesterday working in the veggie garden and having these little white-faced monkeys playing in the tree above us. Just checking out what we were doing. At night and sometimes through the day, the howler monkeys make a hell of a racket. And there’s always frogs, crickets, birds and a multitude of other creatures making noises all throughout the day and night.

Each evening we go to sleep (early) and listen to the rain and the chorus of animals expressing their delight or otherwise for the downpour. We are usually up anywhere from 5.30am, heading down to the kitchen for a coffee or getting ready for yoga.

The fun part of a rustic existence is that sometimes things fail. Last night at dinner we were without power and water. Power is really only a dim light that hangs above us anyway, we use either the propane fuelled gas stove or the wood burning oven to cook. We all have torches anyway to get down to the kitchen as it is a steep and potentially hazardous path that washes away a little each day with the rain. The water in the kitchen is from the spring but for some reason last night there was none. None of that was really a problem for us until we realised we needed to clean up. It was quite a challenge filling up pots and buckets in the downpour and using the rainwater to wash the dishes, torches hanging overhead for light.

North to South

After Nosara it was another day of buses, starting at 4.30am for the early bus to Nicoya - two hours on a bumpy dirt road. Luckily I didn’t have to wait for the next bus to San Jose which was just about to leave. My first air conditioned bus – I was so relieved. This relief was short-lived however as there were no more seats, and a 4.5 hour bus ride is not so easy standing up, airconditioning or not…

One beautiful moment was waiting by the side of the road at around 5.30 in the morning, a tico and me. There was another tico across the road waiting for a ride into Nosara. Eventually an old ute pulled up and the portly middle aged gentleman climbs up on the back and starts getting his leg over the timber railings when the ute takes off, hits a few bumps and nearly flings this guy right off the back. There was another tico in the back of the ute and where one would have expected he would run across to our portly friend’s aid, he just cracked up, one of the best belly laughs I’ve heard. Across the road, we both lost it, tears were rolling down my cheeks. Portly made it in the back eventually as they bumped their way into the distance and around the bend. I guess the ticos are okay with laughing at another’s misfortune.

One night in San Jose and then the long ride down to Golfito with some of the most spectacular scenery. The road wound up and down through the mountains, with clouds far below us in the valleys. So much of this country is virgin forest/jungle and you get the feeling of peace and tranquillity in the pristine environment. Arriving at Golfito I had a few minutes to spare before the bus to Pavones/Punta Banco. Close to three hours on an old bus on a very bumpy road. At one point we changed buses and a tico, probably aged in his seventies although hard to tell, sat next to me. After a while I noticed him sitting there, constantly grinning and staring at me – quite unnerving – particularly when I wanted the view of the ocean I had to turn and face him… I thought he might have been interested in my iPod so I explained that I was listening to music. This did not settle him so I eventually asked him Porque? To which in his best English he responded ‘I am in love you’. Stoked! It seems I really have my mojo now. It was also at that point I noticed that most of his teeth were missing. I think he took my embarrassment as a sign that it is okay to put his hand on mine and continue grinning, although he now started chuckling. Finally, he got off the bus at Pavones and I wished him well.

Oh Punta Banco. This part of Costa Rica feels like the real deal. While it is still a tourist area, its remoteness means that it is not the well worn path that the north coast is. The locals and foreigners seem to have blended more with the environment and everything about it is stunning. It is a long walk between Punta Banco and Pavones, but one one side there is jungle, and the other side the ocean. It is very hard to get sick of that, and while it is very hot, the walk is quite pleasant. Although I don’t think I’ll be turning down any offers of a ride back or forth.

Coming clean

And now here I am at Hacienda Del Sol undergoing a “cleanse”. That means a five day juice fast, two colemas a day (I’ll let you google that) and two sessions of continuum a day (you can look that up too – continuummovement.com).

In brief, and to borrow the words of one of my fellow inmates, we are spending the week drinking juice, putting things up our bum and rolling around on the floor.

The cleansing part is great and I do recommend it to anyone. My least favourite bit is continuum, which then turns into group talks. None of those things are really my bag but I’m happy to go to the beach, take mud baths, drink juice and put stuff up my bum. It’s the end of day three today and I feel great, although weary as today is the first day I’ve written and there was a lot to catch up on.

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Well the cleanse ended up being extremely taxing with the last three days spent pretty much flat out. The constant diarrhoea, which relapsed after the Epsom salts for the liver cleanse, got the better of me and I ended up completely out of energy and quite dehydrated. Three days were spent pretty much flat out in bed and it still took another few days after that before I had enough energy to get myself around and not feel like I had to sit and rest after the most simple task, like walking a short distance.

The first road trip

Rather than take the easy way to my next destination (which would have been a shuttle bus or flight), I chose the scenic way, travel with the locals on the local buses. Really, it only took an extra day and six buses.

It started off well, the first bus leaving Jaco for Puntarenas at midday. The bus was on time and we were away. There would be a 3½ hour layover in Puntarenas so I enquired about where my bus would depart from then found a bar and sat down for a nice refreshing beer (it was particularly hot that day). After a second beer I thought it would be good to get to the bus early so off I went around the corner. Well the guy at the bus stop making granita ices told me that the bus to Nicoya hasn’t come for two years. So I had to catch a bus to Barranca Cruce and there I could wait, by the side of the dusty road, for the bus to Nicoya. That all seemed to work out well. It was getting close to nightfall but I knew that as soon as the bus arrived in Nicoya I could just get a cab to my hotel and I’d be set.

We travelled on for quite a while but I had done the math and expected the journey to be about two hours or slightly more. About two hours later, at 6.30pm, we pulled up in Carmona and it was the last stop. What about Nicoya I asked. Oh, we were there an hour ago they told me. Are you going back? Yes, tomorrow morning.

Note: Sunset is at 6pm each day, sunrise at 5am.

So I went into the office at the bus stop, I was not quite sure what it was for but it was open and it was the only thing open in this small town. Ayudarme! I proclaimed, Yo necesito un hotel (see what I mean about the bad Spanish). I got a couple of arm gestures and the word Cabinas. So I walked down the street and around the corner where I found a lady out for a Sunday evening stroll with her three teenage children. Ayudarme! Por favor yo necesito las cabinas. They were extremely kind and walked me around to the cabinas, I’m pretty sure the only place to stay in Carmona but not easy to find and not well lit either. So they chatted to the middle-aged guy who was sitting out the front, by the driveway in a timber chair. Then two of the kids ran down the road. Then they came back and they all chatted a bit more. I didn’t get any of their conversation.

Then the family left and me and Trino were alone, in the dark, outside these cabinas and I was wondering what the bloody hell is going on. Trino assured me it would all be okay, I think, and that I could stay there. So with my bad Spanish we conversed for the next hour until the owner came by. He had been at church, with the rest of Carmona, and we were just waiting for it to finish. The conversation with Trino was insightful at times but relatively limited on the whole. Trino spoke three words in English – “a thousand years” – each time in that sequence. I had no idea that particular phrase could be sprinkled throughout a conversation so readily, but there you go.

Finally the owner came back and I could check into my room – similar to a highway motel room, basic, sparse but containing everything one needs, including three fans. After settling I decided to sit outside and smoke a cigarette. I got up after a mango dropped from the tree. The town of Carmona I would later learn was full of mango trees and there are literally hundreds of mangos lying all over the ground as you walk along the street. Seeing me outside again, Trino decided that it was his duty to keep me company so he came to join me and our conversation continued. He told me how he had split with his wife only six weeks beforehand and was now living at the cabinas. He chatted for a while and I understood some of it but then I really had to go to bed, I had an early morning.

The next day wasn’t quite so eventful, I got the early bus to Nicoya, from there a bus to Santa Cruz where I had a 3 ½ hour wait for the next bus. Santa Cruz is described as the hottest place in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is really hot anyway so it is no great reward to be the hottest place, and its no great thrill to spend several hours there in a bus shelter waiting for a bus. Each bus mind you on this trip has been in slightly worse shape than the previous one. So for my final bus, we’re talking moulded steel seats and the bus chockablock full. The guy who sat next to me was friendly, I thought, but then he asked me for money.

After another couple of hours I saw the sign for Hacienda Del Sol, my destination. So I got off and was ready to walk the “short distance” but the lady at the restaurant there told me it would be impossible so she yelled at her kids to bring her the phone now and madly started calling people to help me out. Eventually we got on to Menlha, the owner, and she came to collect me. Senora was right, I couldn’t have dragged my things across three kilometres of rocky, dirt road with hills and twists, in the searing sun.

School excursions

At the school we also had weekly outings. The first to see crocodiles in a nearby crocodile infested river. The locals are absolutely fearless, holding a chunk of raw chicken and calling the big crocs over to come get it. Then making them reach right up for it. Steve Irwin would be proud. The scenery on this trip was beautiful and there was a lot of bird life. I’m usually not that into birds but some of these were spectacular, particularly in such a beautiful environment.



The second week we went to the waterfall, a long drive in the dilapidated and rusted out surf vans. After dripping with sweat the entire way there, we started the walk to the waterfall. Not too long into it we were confronted by about 12 cows (including bulls and calves). The bulls weren’t too thrilled to see us so our brave guide legged it through the paddock and told us we were all on our own to get across. Nice… Ten minutes or so later there was a large black snake in our path that gently slithered up into the tree once it heard us. It would have been two metres long and was quite thick too, probably the diameter of a cereal bowl. We were told that generally this is an easy walk and they don’t usually see so much wildlife. Well it would be fair to say the waterfall didn’t quite live up to our expectations which had been dramatically increased with each dangerous encounter. But it was nice to swim in some cool fresh water.

In my final week the outing was Kayaking. Oana, my lovely Romanian friend, assured me this was the best outing and we will paddle across glassy waters to a beautiful white sand beach where we will snorkel and be fed an abundance of fresh tropical fruit. Why was I surprised when the glassy waters were very choppy with a strong headwind and an overcast sky. The paddle was a few kilometres and challenging on the way over. Oana had the rest right – the beach, snorkelling and fruit were beautiful. Even the paddle back was easier and much, much quicker.

School of the World

School of the World (Escuela del Mundo) – Playa Jaco, Costa Rica.
March 14 - April 11, 2010

Jaco has earned a bad reputation as being overdeveloped and very Americanised. However it is nothing on the scale of Cancun and other developed surf towns around the world. I would say it is more of a cross between Hawks Nest and Surfers Paradise, if you could imagine that. It is really a one street town but full to the brim of bars, restaurants, souvenir shops and a side serve of sleaziness.

The school for travellers to learn Spanish, Surf, Photography and practice yoga. My selection included Spanish and Yoga. It really was an eclectic group for the first two weeks, about 15 people representing ten nationalities and every decade of birth represented from the 1940’s through to the 1990’s.

While the days were busy with Spanish class for two hours, one hour of Spanish lab in the afternoon and 90 minutes of yoga each day, it was an easy existence for a traveller. Patience was only tested when a visit to the bank was required. It is not unusual to wait two hours to be served. Then being served can take the best part of an hour. This is just to change some travellers cheques. The upside however is that the banks are heavily air conditioned.

The second two weeks witnessed a considerable shift in the culture of the school with many nationalities and age groups leaving and Americans in their 20s and 30s arriving.

I was spoiled at the school as I had one-on-one Spanish tuition for the entire month with the wonderful Laura. One would think this would have a dramatic effect on my ability to speak the language, particularly as corporal punishment was administered if ever I spoke English in class. (You can imagine the first week was tops!) While I now have a sizeable vocabulary and am getting down with conjugating verbs, preferably in the present tense, I still struggle with full sentences. But it will take time and I have time, and patience.

Week three was Semana Santa, or Easter Week. That week the beach filled with ticos, all camping out for the weekend. It was quite amazing seeing hundreds of tents lining the beach. I’m not sure where everyone went for comfort stops but they all looked happy and the local council cleaned up well afterwards. Easter Thursday and Good Friday are the main religious days observed in Costa Rica so most things were shut those days and alcohol could not be sold anywhere in the country. By Saturday morning many were going home.

In the final two weeks Oana and I met at 6am each morning to walk along the beach for 1-2 hours. It was still pretty hot even at this hour but it was nice to get some more exercise in as the heat makes you very lazy. Often we were escorted by a local dog who would feel like coming along with us – never the same dog. On the final day of walking we came across what I thought was a snake on the beach. No, I said, its just a bit of black plastic with a yellow strip. Alas, a tica girl came and told us it indeed was a snake and it didn’t take long to work out it was alive. The tica girl was lovely, pointing out all the other snakes as we walked along the beach. Then we saw one coated in dry sand, barely visible. I asked the girl, Es peligroso? Si, muy peligroso. Feeling quite uneasy now we decided to walk up to the road and continue on to the French bakery that way. Our canine escort that morning was no use at all, she just ran away and caught up with us when we were on the road. Later in the day I mentioned the snakes to Zach, the guy who owns the school and has lived here for 13 years. He couldn’t quite believe it. He has never seen or heard anything like all those snakes being washed up but he did tell me they were deadly should they bite you. Now you can see why that was our last day walking on the beach.

After four weeks I was ready to push on with my adventure.