Beach

Pictures of the Dominical beach on the Pacific coast. Yay.

And some pictures from the small hotel where we were staying. The resident iguanas.

Good Roads and Fast Buses

So our trip to Monteverde was the first long bus ride we took and on the way back the bus broke down. In my book that means we're 1 for 2 on bus rides. 50%. Not great.

But of course, we couldn't have luck that bad for the entire trip. Surely we wouldn't have any more unfortunate and unlucky bus experiences during the rest of our trip.

However, the definition of "unfortunate and unlucky" in terms of bus rides in Costa Rica is very different from what you might imagine it being in the U.S.

Jump to last Friday. This time we decided to go to Dominical on the Pacific coast for a leisurely weekend on the beach. As it turned out the bus was somewhat leisurely as well. In a way.

We were taking a 9:30 bus and had to make a connection at 1:30 which we thought shouldn't have been hard since it was supposed to be a three hour ride according to our guide book. Except that when we bought the tickets, the guy at the bus station told us that it was actually a 4 hour trip. Oh shit. The next connection wasn't until 4pm. We didn't really want to wait in the connecting city for 2 and a half hours so we were just hoping a lot that it wouldn't take quite four hours and that we would make the next bus easily.

It was going fine until we slowed to a stop about an hour and a half into what should have been a four hour bus ride. After a few minutes the bus driver got up and told us that there was a crash ahead of us on the road and that it would be quite a while until we got going again. So he opened up the doors and everybody who wanted to got out to walk along the side of the road. And we sat. And waited. After half an hour we hadn't moved. After an hour nothing had happened. We heard a rumor that half the road fell off and there was no way we could get through. Great. So now what were we supposed to do? After an hour and a half cars started going by us steadily in the opposite direction. The bus driver turned the bus back on. We got excited. Everybody got back in the bus and we got ready to go.

Then he turned it off again. We waited some more. Cars and trucks drove by us going in the same direction. Why weren't we moving? Finally the bus driver turned the bus back on again. This time we really did start moving, but it was probably at least half a mile until we got to the site of the accident. When we did get there the bus stopped again and we were all told to get out while the bus drove across the narrow strip of road between the crashed tractor trailer and the part of the road that fell off. Here are some pictures.

Did I mention the road broke? Probably caused by all the rain that has come recently. It is the rainy season.

The yellow rope was running parallel to the double yellow line in the middle of the road. The bus went on the right side of the green post, but without crashing into the crashed truck that was still in the middle of the road. Actually, the bus driver messed up a little bit the first time and had to back up a bit so that he didn't scratch the side of the bus on one of the big cement cylinders. He got it right the second time. After that the ride was pretty normal. What should have been a four hour ride turned out to be about six hours. When we got to the bus terminal, it was about 3:45 and we needed to make the 4pm bus to Dominical. We searched frantically for our next bus but as it turned out, it was a bunch of blocks down the street, although our guide book implied that it would be right in front of us when we got off the first bus. We walked fast and eventually found a taxi which got us there with just a few minutes to spare. Phew.

Pictures of the beach to come later.

Training Teachers

Through my internship organization, Dramatic Problem Solving, I have gotten involved with Centro de los Estudios Para la Paz, or CEPPA (the Center for Peace Studies). CEPPA does workshops with teachers, students and parents from the 50 most at-risk schools in the San Jose area. The trainings are similar to trainings run by the Alternatives to Violence Project. Last week I did my first training with CEPPA, and I will do another one on Friday, where I hope to act as a facilitator of the workshop. I thought you would appreciate seeing some pictures.

The workshop was held at a Boy Scout camp which was kind of weird because: 1). I'm disturbed that they have Boy Scouts in countries besides the US, and 2). All of the signs used the name "Guides" instead of "Girl Scouts".

But it was a beautiful place to be.

About 90 teachers from one school were attending this training. We did the training in three groups of 30. During one exercise we split our group into four small groups to brainstorm about "What is violence" and "What is nonviolence". Here are the pictures of the groups.

For some reason many people don't smile when you take their photo here. It makes them look pretty serious, but you can really tell that they have a lot of personality.

Dos Pinos...?

Why is the bus stopping to let more people off? When are we ever going to get back to San Jose?......Is that the sound of the bus not starting? Why is the bus not starting?

So, on the way back from Monteverde, the bus broke down. On a highway outside of San Jose. At 8:30pm, in the pitch black of night. Impossible to get a taxi. We don't have a cell phone. Next to a...Dos Pinos factory? Great.

Eventually we did get a cab which we managed to share with some other people. Then we realized that we were near the airport. Our first cab from the airport cost $23. We only have a little less than $20. Cabbies aren't really nice about this kinda thing. (Last week a cabbie tried to get us to believe that a $4 ride cost a ridiculous $14 because there was traffic. We, luckily, didn't have enough money and so only gave him $4, but he threatened to call the police. Not that he would have since they would know we were right, but I'm just saying, Tico cabbies get grumpy when you don't pay them enough. Bad News Bears.)

So now we don't have enough money for the cab ride home and we have no other way to get home, and no way to contact anyone. What did we do? We got dropped off at the airport and used the ATM there, and then got another cab home.

Crisis averted. And we survived. Yeah.

Butterflies

We went to a butterfly farm at Monteverde. There were butterflies all around, but they're pretty hard to take pictures of. Here are some.

These are cocoons. I think the grey/black one and clear one are empty, but the two below them might still be full. The orange butterfly has just come out. It has to hang onto the cocoon in order to strengthen it's wings with more blood so that it can fly. If it doesn't hang on until the wings are strong enough, it will die.

This one definitely still has a butterfly in it.

They say that this butterfly might actually be where we get the name for the animal in English (in Spanish it's completely different - mariposa), because the lighter part of the wings look like butter. Butter-fly.

Mating butterflies. This is the only way butterflies can mate and also the only way they can poop. Wow, of all the things to have to do while in the same position.

While male butterflies are polygamous, female butterflies are usually monogamous. The exception occurs when the male butterfly isn't strong enough to fill the female butterfly with his sperm. In this case, another male butterfly will take his place.

Cartago and Orosi

We decided to go to Cartago today. It was the capital of Costa Rica a long time ago, before they switched to San Jose.

First, we decided to go to Orosi, a small town past Cartago. We got off the bus at a lookout and were disappointed to find out about all the things we couldn't do at this mountain-top park: roller blade, bicycle, and make "love scenes".

Orosi, from above


Now, in Orosi:

A town with garbage is a town without culture.

We should leave our children a cleaner future.

This church dates back a few hundred years.

Thanks to Jennifer for that sweet shot.








This cathedral, rebuilt in the early 1900's after an earthquake, is in Cartago. Thousands of Costa Ricans migrate here every August 2 to pray to La Negrita, the patron saint of Costa Rica.


Jennifer likes to bond with sacred statues.