Pura Vida Pt. 3: So Much Waste

"High" in the mountains of south central Costa Rica is a small village called San Gerardo. It's about an hour an a half via bus from San Isidro. And while the distance isn't that far. It makes a stop ever other kilometer or so to pick up people heading up the slope. The town itself is the epitome of mountainous Costa Rica, at least the image that I had built up in my head. Small houses surrounded by coffee farms and banana trees. Misty mountain peaks and the sound of cascading water rushing down the mountain. At the time we arrived, we had only been on the Pacific coastal area and this was a welcome change of pace.

The bus stop is adjacent to a soccer pitch and there is a row of bars, small cabinas, and an even smaller store. What looked like a mobile cell tower was parked along one of the side streets and a church was set in the background. At 11:30 in the morning, it wasn't hot, but not cool either. The sun had burned off the morning mist, and was preparing to perform the daily routine of returning it back to the already saturated earth that made everything lush and verdant.

From the bus stop, we had to climb the mostly unpaved road (unpaved except for the steepest of slopes) to our guest house. San Gerardo is used by climbers  as a starting point, and resting point, for the climb up Cerro Chirripó, the tallest mountain in Costa Rica. Surrounded by a private nature reserve (Cloudbridge), and Chirripó National Park, this area is full of things to explore and most appealing to us, full of peace.   

San Gerardo, our Guesthouse was behind us, straight up the mountain. 

San Gerardo's relative remoteness created a very interesting dynamic, which I found very appealing. In this town, trash is collected only once a month. So you have to be very conscious of your actions regarding what you use and what you intend to throw away. The guest house where we stayed was located next to a restaurant, and the only real place to get a drink without making the long trek to town. After a long hike I went there to buy a couple of beers. Using my very adequate food Spanish, I ordered a couple of beers and began to walk back when I was stopped and asked if I was taking them away from the restaurant. When they realized I was not going to drink them in house, they wanted to pour both in paper cup so that they could keep the bottles. Returning the bottles to be re-used by the bottlers is a normal thing that actually has a financial incentive. After assurances that I would return the bottles, they let me leave.

If you have been to a Central American country, you may have noticed the same thing. This goes beyond simply recycling. This is returning the used bottle directly to the producer to be cleaned an re-used. In Nicaragua, they did the same thing, only with glass bottles, but with plastic ones as well. The two liter plastic coke bottles are made with a higher grade plastic. There is no paper label, just the Coca Cola label printed directly on the bottle. Sure, it is often faded and nicked here and there, and it doesn't have that brand new look to it, something that I am sure would not go over well in the States. But it really made sense from a sustainability perspective. 

In fact, it seems our ideals of what using resources means, is skewed way out of proportion to what is actually reasonable, not even ideally, but just reasonable. Everything that could be composted, was composted. Everything that could be grown, was grown. The showers had hot water thanks to a mechanical shower head that heated the water right there, no water heater tank needed. No where in sight were plastic spoons or single use sugar packets, or paper plates. At Casa Mariposa there was an effort to simply reduce what is simply becoming a major, yet mostly unrecognized problem for the majority of the United States, how much stuff we simply throw away. 

Don't get me wrong, it's not like Costa Rica as a country has this collective spirit of reducing waste. There are plastic bags at every grocery store, mercado, mercadito and so on. Nicaragua is worse. However, one of the striking differences between these two bordering countries is the amount of trash that is around. Costa Rica is a far cleaner country. Often at times, cleaner than here. I overheard one kid talking about how there was a lot of trash on the beach at Domincal, I couldn't have disagreed more. There is 5 times more litter on Palm Beach, FL than there was at any beach in Costa Rica. 

But to get back on point, being back has in a way been a culture shock to see the way we live in the States. Being served coffee in a Styrofoam cup and using individual packets of sugar that, after being used could be composted but aren't.  Seeing a shopping cart full of plastic bags that could be easily replaced with re-usable canvas bags. Not enough emphasis on recycling plastic bottles, BOTTLED WATER! And a myriad of other seemingly easy things that are just wasted. 

The final point is that in no way does reducing our waste reduce our quality of life. We have a society that fixates on convenience and consuming and more consuming. But really, we can take steps to just be better at not sending so much stuff to already full landfills. It's said that there is not a single beach on Earth that is plastic free. But if we put in the effort (it's such a minuscule amount of effort) and we are aware of how much stuff we use, maybe we can start to reverse this. 

~B 

Cloudbridge Nature Reserve , http://www.cloudbridge.org/

Cocolisos trout farm, uses diverted river water to passively produce fish

Pallet planter, it was supported by one on the other side, http://www.hotelcasamariposa.net/

Using recycled cans to build a wall 

Small coffee farm

Pura Vida Pt. 2 (The Rum is not Cheap)

I have been a moring person for most of my adult life. There is something about the day starting that just brings me joy and a little ease before I starth the day. I like that the hustle of life hasn't started yet and with it all of it's stress and responsibility. Here in Costa Rica all of what I like about the morning back home are multiplied.

The sun here at this time of the year comes up around 5, which suits me fine. We are on day 6 of 13 and I have been up with the sun for each of those day. Sometimes to go surf, others to just listen to the waves pound the beach, or others to sit and drink coffee and write. The coffee has been great. I have found this local brand called San Vitto. It's specific to the Southern Zone of Costa Rica and is a co-op of small family farms. It brews very well in the Cuban espresso maker that I brought. It's weird to think that the trip is half over because it just now feels that we are getting settled. IT has been a packed 5 days so far with a lot surfing and a lot of walking.

 Where we are now is a place called Playa Dominical. In every way imaginable, this is a surf town. It is tiny with two unpaved roads that come off of the main road. IT can be walked end to end in 10 minutes. This is haven for ex-pats and those looking to slow down. Form the planning stages of the trip, I was adamant about coming here. I knew of the place from magazines and surf stories. But somehow this "publicity" not really led to the place being overcrowded. We came here from Jaco` desperately hoping to leave the overpriced surf shops and the expensive food (not to mention the expensive rum) behind. I think we found that here. This town is a place for those hoping to stop and recharge, which I feel that I have done.  The hostel that we are staying in is a place called Cool Vibes. It is a large open air hostel with no air conditioning. But this place is right on the Pacific Ocean. The common room has a very large "window" that allows for the air to come through. A simple kitchen with a lot of space to chat with your hostel mates really sets the place apart. The only minor issue we have had, is that last night a red opossum went through the hostel kitchen and ate our eggs. Jess and I are paying $16 dollars a night to stay here, and the surf boards at this place rent for $8 for 24 hours.

We leave in a few hours to Uvita, about an hour down the coast. This is another forgotten place (Hopefully) with a large marine reserve and plenty of waterfalls. From there we really don't have a plan. We will be in Uvita 3 nights. I'm kicking around Panama, but I don't think  we will go that route. Whatever we will do, let's hope it's on par with what we have experienced so far.

~B

View from the hostel common room. The Pacific Ocean is right beyond the trees. Taken with a Kindle so not a great photo.

 

The Dangers of Hostel Living

People in Miami seem to have a love hate relationship with South Beach. People that live there have their local places they go and seem to know how to avoid the crowds. And many people that I have talked to seem to care less about paying $20 to park and then walking around with tourist, and paying way to much for a drink or a meal. And I have a tendency to fit into both of these categories, but I kind of like walking around there. Mainly because it is a great place to people watch. There is this one bar that, to get there, takes you by one of the sketchiest hostels I have ever seen. It's not dirty, the building looks modern, but if you look closely at the people that are hanging around it, and inevitably, staying there, you would have second thoughts about booking your cheap, Miami vacation there. Neon floor lights and house music turned up, gives it away that this is a party hostel. And for lot of visitors to Miami, why wouldn't you stay here. It's always packed to, full of internationals and people looking for that 24 hr party (check the hostel here). But, in my experience, this type of place is the exception. There are a lot of good hostels in Miami, or so it seems. I checked a couple of visiting Italians into one and the place was much more relaxed.

Outside the former Hammock House Hostel, Vieques, PR 

But all in all, this idea of hostels is still pretty foreign to me. Growing up in a small town in Alabama, hostels were not something present or considered when we traveled. Even in college when you are trying to go cheap. A quick search through the hostels available in Alabama yields very few results. There is one in Selma for $20 a night and another in Birmingham starting at $44 a night. And really, you can find decent rates at places so hostels are not really needed. When you split the cost, it can actually be cheaper than renting one tiny bed in a room full of strangers.

Leave the great state of Alabama and hostels become a more needed form of lodging, and now are becoming kind of a staple in international travel, at least in my cohort. In my last post I mentioned that Jess and I will be mostly using hostels in Costa Rica. For 12 nights we are paying $325 dollars. It's hard to beat  $10 a night to wake up with a view of the Pacific Ocean.

To date, every hostel that I have stayed in has been great with great people. I could write a lot more about the many experiences that I have had but one stands out, demonstrating that you do have to be wary of certain people though in a hostel. I'm talking about me.

I was staying at a hostel in Old San Juan in Puerto Rico. This was the second night of my trip and the first night in this particular hostel. I checked in around 2 in the afternoon or so, met my roommates, then went out to explore the forts. I made a brief stop at the hostel to change before I met up with Mark and Sabrina for dinner. At this time (late evening) , there were only two people in the room, me and one other girl. So I went out and returned to my room around 2:30. Now staying in a hostel you have to put up with people coming and going. I crept in silently as I could into my bottom bunk. Laid down....as quietly as I could and settled in confident that I had not wakened anyone in the room. At this point, I still thought it was me and one other girl in the other set of bunk beds.

Now the pillows in hostels are usually pretty thin, so I was laying there pondering how I could fix this problem when a brilliant idea came over me, get another pillow. And after creeping through the room to not wake anybody, I decided that the best action would be to take the pillow from the bed on top of me. Once again silently, I reached up and found what I was looking for in the dark room. I grabbed it and gave it a quick tug, didn't budge. No worries, it was a weird angle that I was pulling at and decided that the remedy was to pull harder. I did, and the pillow came with it,  I had acquired what I was looking for, sleep was about to become much more accessible. Almost as instantly as this feeling was coming over me, an alarming realization that sometime between between dinner and the night out, a third resident to our room had moved into the bunk above me. I had just ripped the pillow out from underneath someone at 2:30 in the morning. And hear I was, someone that this girl had never met, standing next to her bed, pillow in hand.

What do you say in that moment? In my case, "here's your pillow." She grabbed, and for may sake went back to sleep without saying a word. I woke up 4 hours later, checked out of the hostel without ever seeing her. So, yeah, sorry about that. If it wan't for me, hostels would be great.

But I have learned my lesson, and I have every indication that where we will be in Costa Rica will go smoothly. As long as I don't need more head support.


Here is a link to some of the places that we will be staying in Costa Rica. Most of the beds we booked have no AC but either did PR. 

Beds on Bohio  , Jaco

Cool Vibes Hostel  , Dominical

Tucan Hotel  , Uvita

Casa Mariposa  , Chirripo

Pura Vida Pt. 1

"At my wits end" is a good way to describe how I have been feeling this past week or so. And I could go out on a limb and say that is about how Jess feels also. I think part of it is knowing that I am about to leave for vacation. So whenever I  realize this, I don't think that I am trying very hard to force my self into a more sensible place. Good thing I have been busy because interacting with the general public and groups of people would have not been good in terms of advancing  my social standing.

I have been staring at shrimp landings in the Gulf of Mexico for the better part of three months now in an attempt to develop a more accurate way to represent the data. I have had my plane ticket to Costa Rica booked since April and the months have slowly crept toward August 10. One beautiful thing about South Florida are the much cheaper flights to Latin America. For under $300 round trip, with my first checked bag free, this so called "Gateway to the Americas" has perks. By the way Puerto Rico is even cheaper at less than $200. But over the last two or so weeks, seemingly stupid things like a bicycle shop overcharging me, a waiter that ignores you, and my health insurance premiums skyrocketing, and the general feel of Miami have all just compounded in one big need to leave.

So I am. To arguably the most tourist friendly Latin American country and one that annually ranks highest in the Happy Planet Index. This time next week I will be walking out of my hostel on the beach with my surfboard for a morning session. But more relevant, I am viewing this as an opportunity. I will be testing three years of self- taught Spanish, backpacking and utilizing the same public transportation as the locals, and the need to just be somewhere and not have any responsibility other than not screwing this trip up. All of which I feel very confident in. There is still this feeling of something more that this trip will represent.

For each of the last three years, I have made an effort to leave the country, and to get away from the typical American experience. First, a long desired surf trip to Southwest Nicaragua, solo. Though, I was picked up at the airport and had a guide surf with me the whole week. I got brave and asked the bartender if I could pay for the round of drinks con dolores (with pains) instead of con dólares (with dollars). My guide rescued me. Then a week long road trip through Puerto Rico with some good friends. This was one of the best experiences of my life. I can still hear the rain in El Yunque and see the colors of the bio-luminescent water on Vieques. Now it's Costa Rica's turn. I am going with my girlfriend who has convinced me to spend more time surfing (though it didn't take much effort) and is also more than willing to take the easy approach and to stay at cheap hostels. Side note here, for us together, we have booked most of our places and expect to spend around $325 for two people, for 12 days. Most of which are on the beach or a block or two away. One is nestled in a cloud forest meters away from one of the largest national parks in Costa Rica.

Looking at this,  I see this as a perfect launch into the "Fall" season; a bridge between the awkwardness of August and the relaxed nature of September, when many of the tourist leave. Do the tourist ever leave Miami, though?

But I also see this as something bigger, for the first time in my life I can see a defined career unfolding before me. Not just some dream of one day I will do this or that. And with a realistic life ahead, I get to start thinking about opportunity and the bigger picture of my role in this. All of which will take a lot of hard work and a few lucky breaks. But I can't think of anything else really. I see this trip as a launching pad to those things. Not that the trip itself will bring about these opportunities. But that this trip will re-align my priorities and keep me fueled for the time being. Hopefully I will get a chance to write, think, and spend an hour trying to photograph one flower or have the patience to sit on the beach videoing Jess surf for an entire session. But mostly, I hope to come back able to be OK with being over charged at a bike shop, realizing that having health insurance is a good thing, and being able to live a more, pure life.

~B  

From a Previous Adventure, El Astillero, Nicaragua.