Other states, other lives, other souls

Four years ago my permaculturist daughter decided to take her 20 month old daughter Alder with her on a month-long trip to Costa Rica. Half of the time would be spent in the central mountains on an organic farm as a WOOFer.  Not having been to Costa Rica before, I began to worry about the safety of my granddaughter in this tropical rural environment.  WOOFers are required to put in weekday morning shifts in return for free meals. Accommodations are basic and critters are plenty.  It didn’t help that my daughter passed on a story she heard from someone who had taken his 4 year old there. He told her that while his son was sleeping on a mat on the floor, they were visited by a fer de lance.  That settled it. I was going along for the first two weeks.

In December I had gotten a severe Charlie horse in my left shin and knee, which was so painful I found an old crutch to hobble to the movie theater on Christmas Day, and spent the night on the couch throbbing.  Nothing seemed to stop the muscle seizure.  I dropped my usual skepticism and went to visit a friend and chiropractor to see what she could do to get it working enough to carry my granddaughter around in a backpack in early January.  She diagnosed a shin splint. After some serious massage, a brief chiro maneuver, and plenty of Advil, I was ready.

It was January, just after New Year’s Eve.  We landed in the capitol San Jose and spent the night. The weather was splendid.  The next morning we rented a car and driver to take us to Puriscal, the jumping off point to the mountain road and Villas Mastatal. Everything was fine until we got to Puriscal where traffic was at a standstill. There had just been a terrible motorcycle accident that ended in a fatality.  It seemed the practice was to leave the body in the road as a crime scene until the coroner showed up from somewhere far away.  An hour passed with no way to continue on the road. The driver was very unhappy.  We had put a chip in our phone for Costa Rica so Jesse called Villas Mastatal to see if someone could drive down the mountain and meet us. We planned to cross to the other side of the accident scene by foot so the driver could head back home.  The driver told us he would have refused to drive up the mountain anyway, once he saw what it was like:  unpaved and suitable only for four wheel drive. By the end of two hours, the Villas Mastatal jeep appeared and we walked our bags and Alder around the mayhem and greeted the Mastatal driver. Thus began our two week stay off the grid and into the clouds.

The farm site, nestled in the mountains and contiguous to Congreja National Park, was spectacular. My daughter had sprung for a small cabin, rather than the dormitory. My first shudder of fear came when they opened the door to the lovely hand-built room and there on the upper wall near the open, unscreened window were two sleeping bats. I was horrified. Alder, on the other hand, was delighted. I calmed myself down after realizing that when we would be in the cabin after dinner, the bats would be awake and gone through the window in search of food. Each bed had a nice mosquito net, so the unscreened window was not a problem.  The mountain breezes took care of the remaining mosquitos.

Toddler Alder has always been an adventurous and enthusiastic eater. Her mother always carries healthy snacks of all kinds, especially dried fruits and nuts. I brought my homemade granola.

Alder soon discovered the use of the pockets in her Marimekko dress.  Nevermore was she wanting for snacks. One pocket held cashews and the other either granola or dried mangos.  The hosts fed us breakfast, lunch and dinner–simple traditional food like rice and beans with some kind of fresh greens.  Alder ate it all. She became fond of pulling red or green leaves off the hibiscus bushes on the path and eating them. We had previously had them as a salad substitute, so she knew they were safe.  She quickly learned that the outdoor closet we passed by on our way to the cabin contained hanging ripe bananas.  There seemed no end to the number of small sweet bananas she could eat.  At night, after dark and dinner, I would go walking on the pathways near the outdoor dining area and kitchen with Alder in the backpack. We were looking for critters.  There were surprisingly few.  I managed to find some spiders and webs in a small animal barn.  After that Alder always wanted to go back to look for spiders with the flashlight.

Early on the adults had found a monster hiding under the dish drainer—the size of a tarantula. Our spiders were just the usual Midwest spider size.

What did scare Alder were two things: the cold outdoor shower and the sawdust toilet.  The toilet area really stank and the seat was creepily large and high.  I understood her feelings completely.  We used the dirt outside the cabin for her pee spot and it worked fine.  Luckily she was pretty toilet-trained by 20 months, so we didn’t have to deal with diapers much.  What really scared us adults was the three year old son of the couple who ran Villas Mastatal. He was very big for his age and murderous in intent with jealousy over another preschooler touching his toys.

During the morning, while Jesse did her work shift, I would often follow Alder as she happily climbed up and down the red mud steps that were the gateway to getting anywhere on the farm.  The Advil kept my aches at bay and I marveled at how much she was enjoying this very different environment.  We passed by the cows, the chickens and the pigs.  We walked down to the hoop house planting area and up to the terraced fields of intermixed pineapple, banana and sugar cane. We spent nap time on the El Rancho circular cement meeting area, where hammocks provided a quiet spot for singing, rocking and sleeping.

No one of us was bitten by anything, the bats left us alone, and no snakes appeared.  The three year old boy inflicted no actual damage and we all had our fill of delicious simple food.

After twelve days we were driven down to the bus stop on the main road and we headed toward the road more traveled by tourists on the Pacific side of Costa Rica.

Note: In 2019, when looking at photos of the farm and descriptions of lodging and amenities, it appears that accommodations have improved. I saw an indoor bathroom, for example, and more two-star type rooms. During our stay, the directions and chores were usually given in Spanish.  Check on that if you wish to go and do not have some Spanish fluency. This is mountainous terrain, so the work of sustainable farming is difficult and not amenable to machinery. Bring a fair set of muscles and willingness to tramp up and down all day.  Still worth it, even with a less than perfect shin!