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.