Pura Vida/Back from Sabbatical

Just to warn you before you commit to reading this, this will probably be the longest post I have ever or will have ever written.  But Costa Rica deserves it…nowhere else have I felt such an overwhelming sense of calm and part of it was my minimal access to technology.  Yeah, I had my iPhone and was Kakaotalking and Skyping you people every day but to be fair, that is basically quitting cold turkey for a girl who’s on food blogs and watching “Archer” and “30 Rock” alternately for at least 1.5 hours a day.  I even lost WiFi for 24+ hours.

I was in a funk last semester.  Everything started off just fine but as weeks turned into months, I only did the bare minimum to get by and ended up missing more readings than I had ever missed before.  I wasn’t friendly anymore and the few times I went out, I was a drunk and happy mess.  Whoops, you mean to tell me this ISN'T an online diary?  

So let's cut to the chase.  I was accepted into the CIEE FLACSO study abroad program in Buenos Aires Fall 2011 and immediately I hopped on the Máximo Nivel website and planned my 3-week stay in Costa Rica.  (PLUG: If you want online Spanish classes or to work with Máximo Nivel, drop my full name and something good will happen to me...and to you)

In spite of having spent my last few weeks at home with some of my closest friends and my family, there was no bittersweet farewell.  My last meal at the Original Pancake House was concluded with the same big smile I had when I walked into JFK (smiling into JFK is a very rare occurrence) a couple hours later.  And then it was onto the plane and off to Central America.

AA business class discounted upgrade
Thanks to the people up there (2nd floor 1411 BWay)

This is where this post starts getting tedious.  I kept a journal most days I was in Costa Rica and doubled up on the lines because I didn't think I had enough pages to write everything I had on my mind.  Needless to say, I wrote a lot.  Day 1 doesn't have anything really quotable except a shout-out to germaphobe-extraordinaires Howie Mendel and Donald Trump in the context that I love greeting people with a kiss on the cheek aka their worst nightmare.  I also wrote about how I missed Blair and Andrew, the awesome people I met and befriended in Cusco, Perú and my replacement family after my sister left me flying solo for my second week there.

Day 2 is the account of an odyssey.  Waking up at 5 am, getting on a 4 hour coach bus followed by THE most horrendous 3 hour bus ride into the wilderness.  The bus itself was a converted school bus with two handrails installed on the ceiling, one of them barely attached on one side where it hung off its hinge.  I regret not having taken a photo of this bus because from 12-3 PM during the hottest part of the day, it was packed with people and their produce (people in these rural areas do their shopping 2 hours by bus away from their homes), their sweat, and the dust that seeped in through the many cracks in the windows and door and seams of that vehicle and caked into their sweat-stained everywhere.  I was one of those people.

Joy, the only other person I was traveling with, became a good friend that day.  She was patient and good-humored, provided me with a much-needed Nature Valley bar at 7 AM and best of all, we both silently acknowledged each other's silence as something that was very much needed during our ride.  But once we got off that bus, dirtier than I can recall ever having been, we were in paradise.  We were welcomed with a glass of cold berry juice, had orientation, met some people and then hit the beach right away.

Playa Ostional first night post-sunset

Before I get into what a great three weeks I spent in Costa Rica, I ought to explain what i was doing out there on Playa Ostional (the video is dated and I was not part of the program mentioned in it).  I lived in a room with 6 bunk beds (usually all filled but not always) at the government station which was a humble little collection of three green buildings about fifty yards from the beach.  The government funds the conservation project which actually consisted of two distinct programs.  I was part of the lora or Olive Ridley sea turtle program in which we took data on the nesting behaviors for a PhD candidate who has been compiling this information for their dissertation that would then go to inform the government on how best to address the endangered status of the lora.  From Sunday to Friday we'd go on 4 hour shifts from anywhere between 7 PM and 5 AM.  Our shifts were usually 8 PM - 12 AM, 10 PM to 2 AM, or our personal favorite, the 1 AM to 5 AM graveyard shift.

In front of the station
Outdoor showers on the right next to path down to the beach

Patio, living room, play room, dining room
Our room of requirement

I wasn't there long enough to become a "project leader" but I either took data or more typically sat behind the nesting turtle with a counter in my hand clicking away as she dropped between 1 and 3 eggs per release.  Fun fact: turtles don't have vaginas but something called a "cloaca".  How you like them apples?  Well I was all up in those particular apples and I can tell you, they smell weird and they breathe on their own in a mesmerizing and alien way.  But that's the miracle of life I guess.

The second project was the baula or Leatherback and Black sea turtle program in which a resident biologist and her six research assistants/interns really ran a tried and true conservation project.  For the critically endangered leatherback, they had a vivero or hatchery to increase survival rates for the hatchlings.  When they find a leatherback, which is usually once or twice every ten days, they move at rapid speed to take all their data and collect the eggs as they drop by placing a plastic bag under the turtle in the nest.  Then they relocate the nest to the vivero where a new nest is dug to incubate the eggs in a more sterile and secure environment within.  The sand is cleaned out to minimize potentially harmful bacteria killing an egg's viability and bugs are caught on sticky tape along the walls while other harmful beetles are weeded out by volunteers and/or interns periodically checking for them.  The vivero is always locked and babysat for the majority of a 24-hour period.

They get volunteers too but their work is harder: five-hour shifts, no bug spray allowed, have to keep up with super fit interns that basically sprint instead of walking.  In any case, just as I was feeling like I wouldn't get to see one, we got  three flashes of a red light as we were on patrol a week after I had arrived and there she was, the giant 6-foot (shell length only) pre-historic Leatherback coming up on shore.  So our project wasn't quite as intense but it was fun and we got the perks of seeing a Leatherback in action, spraying dry sand 5 meters about her as she camouflaged her (empty) nest with her enormous flippers.

The leatherback team is only at Ostional for the short three-month nesting season of the leatherback at this particular beach.  Afterwards, the interns are off to get their masters in marine biology and the biologist off to another beach to save more turtles.  We volunteers just come and go with the wind.

So my first day came and went and I fell in love with the place.  Yes, there were mosquitoes and I used DEET religiously, I would sweat all day and would always be slightly dehydrated...but the cold showers felt good and I had the company of nature all day every day.  My cab driver in DC from Union Station to Georgetown told me, "you just gotta go back to Mother Nature, back from where you came."  At the time, he was just a cute old man saying cute things but then I sat back and thought about it out in Ostional, savoring each and every breeze off the shore, and I felt truly grateful for the good things that come from the earth, from Earth.

The best company while doing hand laundry: iguanas

I saw a ton of baby turtles while I was there.  I didn't have the luck of seeing an adult Olive Ridley on patrol till my second or third night but I did see baby black turtles my second day.  These two had maggots, one in its eye and the other in its back door so they were brought in from the beach to be released later that night after having the maggots removed.

Baby blacks

Resident biologist tweezing out maggots

(Photo by S.W.R.)

I had a life of ease.  We worked late night shifts but by about 8 in the morning, we were up just as the breakfast bell was about to ring.  Yami, our resident cook, made us pretty great food every day three times a day.  Once one meal was done, it wasn't even thirty minutes before we would start anticipating our next meal.  But it was breakfast by far that I loved most of all, before it got hot out and I had a hefty appetite from having starved during night patrol.  2 AM back at college I'd be snacking on chicken fingers for sure.

Typical breakfast 1

Typical breakfast 2

Our days were pretty standard.  I'd eat, read, go to the beach, eat, beach, read, and just hang out.  My first weekend I stayed back with Joy and we went to San Juanillo, a beach 20 minutes away by bus.  The bus only runs at 5 AM and 7 AM so we took the latter with an older couple from Colorado who arranged for us to take a boat for $20/person out on the water to look for sea turtles.

Out on the water

A cloudy morning

We couldn't see much because it was so cloudy and the turtle prefer sun but we still saw quite a number of heads pop up out of the water.  No dolphins or rays though jumping out of the water.  It was still a beautiful and serene ride on that tiny little skiff with the chipping paint.

Underwater turtle
(Photo by J.O.)

San Juanillo
(Photo by J.O.)

It eventually cleared up but we headed back hitching a ride after melting for a good 20 minutes walking in the sun.  A friendly Canadian couple took us right to the door, completely absorbed in what we told them about our work and the importance of Ostional as the second most important nesting site for Olive Ridleys. That was my first time hitchhiking and it very soon became my primary mode of transportation.  While I wouldn't do it anywhere else (at least not in the states), I found it super efficient and started getting frustrated back in San José at the end of my trip because I couldn't just get in someone's car going the same direction as me and expect them to let me off.

We got back and I spent the rest of the afternoon out on the beach reading, listening to music, napping and chatting.  I spent that time with Isabella, a radio exec from New York who shared her "almost-40 wisdom" (as she called it) with all of us.  She speaks English, Spanish, French, and German, spent most of her life working, and then realized that she needed to get away and reassess and re-prioritize her life.  On her last day, she went to a tattoo artist in San Juanillo and got "Pura Vida" in script stamped on her wrist as a life-long reminder to really enjoy and savor life.  

At this point, I should explain what "pura vida" is.  The direct translation is "pure life" and it's a common phrase throughout Costa Rica.  At first, I thought it was just a silly gimmicky thing tourists buy into but then I realized people said it as a greeting, as they departed, as a "thank you", as pretty much anything anytime.  It really has no equivalent in English.  The sentiment is something like "life is good" and because there was no denying that life was in fact not bad but good, I found myself saying it all the time too.  It became natural when I finally felt it to be unequivocally true, when I really did feel for the first time in months that life was really good.

(Photo by I.L.)

Enjoying the sunset atop a giant driftwood perch
(Photo by I.L.)

"Jane of the Jungle"
(Photo by I.L.)

I remember that when I was younger and had no opinion of my own, I'd repeat everything my sisters said and would say that I was a "mountain/lake person".  Absolutely false.  I never tired of the sunsets and the sound of the waves.  I am terrified of the ocean but I also love it.  I don't think I can live too far from a coast, ever.

Once I got back for dinner, Joy asked me if I wanted to go out with Gredy, our supervisor, and his friends.  Saturdays were our only nights off and we had nothing else to do so I agreed.  In spite of having anticipated an early night in with a book, I found myself on the back of a motorcycle in the middle of the night trying not to eat dust while five of us spread out on three motorcycles tried to compete for space on the narrow dirt roads.  It took us half an hour to make the trip to Nosara, a beach town/city down the shore from us.  The best part may have been that riding on a motorcycle in the cool of night is the closest thing to airconditioning I got out there.

The night looked like this:

Five of us: me, Joy, Gredy (supervisor, age 29), Fran (Gredy's BFF, age 22), and Sandro (Gredy's other BFF, age 28)

1 liter cheap tequila

A lot beer in a crappy karaoke bar

Bad salsa that became mediocre merengue

Tropicana: a brightly lit discoteca where the dancing continued, although I hid camouflaged against the wall seated in a white plastic patio chair

By the time the night was over, the English-less Sandro was asking me to be his girlfriend which was definitely not about to happen.  Once we were back in Ostional, I somehow ended up tripping over a log and flat onto my chest, unable to brace myself because before I knew I was even falling, I was on all fours trying to catch my breath after having the wind knocked right out of me.  The only recurring dream I ever have is a mini-nightmare where I'm running and I see a log or a branch or something and even as I know I'm going to trip over it, I think "shit" and there I go tumbling down before I jolt awake to the feeling of falling up.  Dreams do come true.  And then it was home for me, to my bed and thoughts of breakfast the next morning.

Our routine returned to normal by Sunday night and we were back out on patrol.  That night, we saw something in the sand that moved too slow to be a crab and once we flashed our red lights, we saw tons of baby Olive Ridleys shuffling off to sea.  We spent the last hour of our patrol watching them, making sure dogs and vultures weren't coming around to eat them before they had a chance at life.  I learned a lot about perseverance and the struggle for survival I should be grateful I don't know from these tortuguitas. 

Note: red light only because white light confuses the turtles
and they start moving in circles

And back to the daily grind...

Vie from the "watchtower" (my name for it) of our accommodations
el mirador (the real name for it)

View of the cemetery and the ocean from el mirador

I discovered the watchtower my second week and it soon became my favorite spot in the whole world.  The best was when I got to borrow a hammock and fall asleep to a strong breeze.  Rachel introduced me to it and despite it being only a five second walk from my bedroom door, I hadn't gone exploring up there on my own.  It was literally the coolest (because of the breeze) to be during the day, the perfect place to read and relax and gossip with Rachel.


Rachel became my best friend out on Ostional.  We bonded over Jake and Amir, LOTR, Game of Thrones and every other TV show we had in common.  She's Kristen Wiig in turtle biologist form.  What's not to love about that?

Plugging the fan back in after station cleaning

Our days weren't always totally empty.  Once or twice a week we had beach or station cleanings.  During my station cleaning, I stood in the sun sorting garbage and putting recyclable plastics in their own bag.  It's a shame I didn't take a photo of the pile because we were a team of six people tackling about 30 giant garbage bags full of rank trash found on the last beach cleaning.  The beach cleanings on the other hand consisted of collecting the relatively small (relative to Jersey beaches for example) amount of "rubbish" (started saying that after hanging out with Australians) and making giant piles of driftwood.  Unlike the driftwood I've seen elsewhere however, the driftwood on Playa Ostional was full-fledged tree limbs and chunks of trunk that sometimes required the strength of myself and three grown men to carry.  However difficult it was in the heat of the middle of the day, it was fulfilling to see the beach that much cleaner.  It was especially refreshing to then run smack dab into the face of a wave and cool off.

Napping in hammocks:
my #1 favorite activity

We didn't really get out but San Juanillo was pretty easy to get to and not far so we'd go for beach time and Ancient People, a restaurant that served something other than rice and beans, for the love of God...we went one particular afternoon and Shane, one of the research assistants, lost his wallet after accidentally going swimming with it in his pocket.  When we were about to leave, some divers found it in the bay and returned it to him.  Miracles happen much the same way that dreams come true.

The gang at Ancient People
Shane and his wallet reunited on the left

My epic smoothie and Magali looking serious in the background

On two occasions, we made it all the way out to Guiones 20 km from Ostional.  Guiones is a big surf beach with a ton of American ex-pats surfing their way into retirement.  There are also a ton of yoga studios so the average woman walking her little dog in the street looks like she could also be walking out of her apartment on the Upper East Side waiting to meet the pilates/yoga/cardio-kickboxing instructor she might as well live with.  

Equivalent to a normal seagull or pigeon in the states
Gets real close and steals your food

Playa Guiones

Unlike Ostional, Guiones is a white sand beach and it's beautiful but has no shade.  So what do you do instead of crisping up in the sun?  You grab a pipa on the way off the beach for less than 1 USD and watch the man hack off the top with a machete before you inhale it and replace all the electrolytes you lost through your sweat.  Then you go the all-natural café in town and get your nutrition for the week.  Surprisingly, the meals at the station were carb and protein heavy and rarely did we get fresh fruit and never fresh veggies.  It was a miracle if we got broccoli doused in oil.

pipa
coconut water

Rachel greedily eating the coconut flesh

Veggie sandwich on homemade multigrain focaccia

Life was simple.  We made do with the bare minimum and I couldn't have asked for more.  We all went to bed at 9 PM that Saturday after walking in the sun before and between the three rides we hitchhiked back to Ostional.  Our first ride that day was an American with two little kids and a dog on an ATV.  We were on it for all of 8 minutes and thought we were going to fall off but Rachel had her hand securely on that dog's collar and I was holding onto Rachel so it was fine.  Because a dog on all fours on the back of an ATV is definitely a secure handle.

Impromptu dance party in our room with a speaker hooked up to the garbage can
Before the 9 PM lights out

Speaking of dogs, Ostional has a ton of stray dogs.  Some have owners and hang out elsewhere anyway so on any given afternoon, you might have a strange canine follow you until or because you give it attention and/or food.  The general protocol was to not give them either but sometimes there were slip-ups.  

Mystery dog relaxing on our shaded patio

Yellow Dog

Yellow Dog is a stray that has a story.  Yellow Dog is also not actually a stray.  One of the girls at the station fed him water when he came sauntering by one day and after that, he didn't leave the station for a full 24 hours and followed us on night patrol too.  That was a problem because one dog attracts more dogs and then we had 2 more dogs follow us for those 4 hours, one trying to mate with the other and both nearly getting sucked into the ocean during high tide while chasing and evading each other along the beach.  


So Yellow Dog had cataracts and would chew on his limbs till you heard them crunch and was so skinny all his ribs were showing.  You can see them in the picture.  So Rachel, being the animal lover that she is, had an animal shelter take the dog in and medicate it and as of a few days ago it's adopted.  At first, the original owner wanted to keep the dog but changed his mind within 24 hours.  Now, he doesn't look like a zombie dog and hopefully has a loving family.  I mean, it was a great dog.


All the days in between my first and last are such a blur but there were a few events that stand out.  For example, my first exhumation was when I went out to the hatchery with the leatherback team to watch them exhume a nest.  Five days after the hatchlings emerge and are released into the ocean, the research assistants dig up the nest to check for stragglers and to count the remaining unhatched.  They also break them open to see how far into gestation the unhatched ones made it.  They do this for data collection and to check their survival rates.  Chances of survival for these leatherbacks shoot up significantly if they're incubated within the hatchery.  If there are any survivors that didn't dig themselves out with their brothers and sisters, they're released at sunset.  They can't be released during the daytime because it's too hot and they have to be allowed to shuffle to shore themselves in order to develop their lungs.

A straggler held till evening launch

Once night fell, we typically went out to the local pulpería  or "convenience" store for ice cream.  A girl can't live on rice and beans alone.  It had a counter so that you had to ask for what you wanted.  If you didn't know what you wanted then the owner would bring out the variety he had and you'd pick it out of the lineup.  It was a local hangout.  I mean, there was a bar but we were a dry program and were not allowed to be there, ever.

La pulpería

I went back to Guiones on my last day for a delicious last meal at the all-natural café.  Rachel and I spent the afternoon at the beach and then stuffed our faces vegetarian style.  I was already sad to be leaving but I made the most of it.  I also treated the rest of the gang to oreos, those highly coveted cookies.

Chilled avocado and coconut milk soup

Yucca patties, quinoa...a vegetarian special

The great thing about travelling with Rachel is that she always carried a knife with her.  We got in the car with a ton of suspicious characters and the rides back that particular day were especially strange.  The first one was a possibly anorexic surfer in his 50s or so whose back seat floor was covered in empty beer bottles.  The second and third rides we got from the same guy who had his kid in the front seat the first time he drove us and then let us off to take his kid home.  Then we met on the same road except this time he was drinking a beer with a joint in his ear.  But at the end of the day, no judgement.

Ride 1

Getting shade while walking between rides

I savored one last sunset my last day.  There's so much I already miss about Costa Rica, but it's probably the people I miss most.  I could say a million bad things about facebook but I'm on it most of my life and it's allowed me to stay in touch with people I'd otherwise never see again.  This way, who knows...maybe I'll find myself having a beer with these friends I in Canada, Australia, Spain, England...some day.

My team...goofing off as per usual

I may not see these people ever again at all but to have known them at all was such a blessing.  Magali (who I haven't really mentioned at all till now) for example is a super strong (physically too) sailing Frenchwoman whose lived in four different countries in the past four years, with an "I don't give a flying fuck what you think" attitude that's totally genuine and not at all stand-offish which then wins her the respect of everyone around her.  However, she was also goofy and fun and well, what's not to love about a person like that?

Me and Magali

At a meeting before patrol

I couldn't go on my last patrol because I had to pack but once I was packed, I was in bed by 10 PM.  I thought I'd sleep the night through but people shuffled around as they returned from patrol at midnight and suddenly I couldn't sleep anymore.  There was a "beach party" out there that night so we went out for my final night sharing the forbidden liquor...as in the worst of cheap rum.  Laying out on our blankets, looking the stars and watching the moon rise, laughing at and with each other as friends do, that was a picture perfect image of what "pura vida" is.


I left the next morning on the 5 AM bus with one of the research assistants, Jairo, a native Costa Rican from the Caribbean coast.  Yeudi, a local who was also on the leatherback project also took that bus but only so far as Santa Cruz, a 3 hour ride there and back three days a week to go to school.  He was yet another person I admired to no end.

Jairo napping on the bus

From the bus on the way to San José

I had to spend my last three nights in San José to get my passport back from the organization's offices and organize myself before heading back to Miami for a couple days with the parents.  At my homestay in San José, there were three apartments above occupied by foreign exchange students from Mexico, Spain, and England.  It's rare you meet people and like them away but it seemed to be happening to me all over Costa Rica.  It's no wonder that I fell in love with the place.

Napkin roses in a bouquet set in a beer bottle

My last two days I spent on mini adventures outside the capital.  I went to Arenal Volcano on my first full day back about three hours away.  Unfortunately, it's not very active this year so I spent the day soaking in hot springs most of the day.  I decided that hot springs aren't very fun alone but I did soak my skin and get off all the dirt that had caked in.  Until it starting coming off in sloughs, I had thought my skin had just tanned in splotches.  It was dirt.

The precious Ivan

It's not totally accurate that I was alone that day.  I spent most of the day with a little four-year old boy from Ibiza, Spain who chattered to me nonstop in Spanish about every little thing.  We shared our snacks, my macadamia nuts and his M&Ms and played games at the springs.  His dad was there too and we bonded over our mutual love of Catalonia but his son was the best company of all.  It felt like I was an au pair for the day.

Coffee plantations

El campo

Look close for hummingbirds
Outside the restaurant where we had lunch

Me and Iván

The hot springs
Aguas termales

The next day I had a canopy ziplining tour.  I had been relatively bored the day before so I was already expecting less than I was promised but it was actually amazing.  For a girl who loves heights, there can be nothing better except skydiving.  The only letdown was that we didn't get horses to take us up as promised but hiked up and built up a hefty sweat but perhaps that was better because ziplining is just so refreshing.

Too much slack on the cable

The views

The scariest 30 meter drop of my life

It was a great day but I had made plans to meet with a friend in another city outside San José by 7 PM and had calculated everything perfectly.  I was told that I'd be back by 4 PM but I wasn't in my house till 7 PM, plus I had to shower and then figure out how to take the bus.  Furthermore, Costa Rica doesn't have addresses so if you want a cab to take you somewhere, you have to say something like "500 meters south and 200 meters east of that old flower shop in __________ neighborhood.  It's my biggest complaint about Costa Rica because I took cabs that kept leaving me off on the wrong street and then I'd be lost because, let's face it, I don't have great sense of direction.  So I ran and called my friend, Ángel, who had invited me to a party at his house in Heredia.  To get there, you have to take a bus from the University of Costa Rica about 15 minutes drive from my homestay.  I took a shower, my host dad was nice enough to drive me himself, and then I was on the bus.


I tend to get lost but the boy who happened to sit down next to me talked to me the whole way, read the address (blank meters and blank meters from the University) made sure I didn't get off at the last stop in a sketchy neighborhood where I would have been robbed and then called Ángel twice before walking me right to Ángel himself.  The silver lining the my cloudy evening thus far.


Like I said, it's rare you meet people you like right away and then even more rare that you meet people you spend about 24 hours with and then want to be best friends.  Exhibit A: Ángel.  I met him my first night in Ostional and we spent the next four hours on patrol talking about food.  Like me, he has an inner fat kid with an appetite to no end.  He studies veterinary science in Galicia, Spain but is spending a year studying in Costa Rica.  He's a goofy surfer and basically the best person ever so it was no surprise that when he left on my second morning before anyone woke up, there was a void.  His favorite animal is the whale shark.  Like I said, the best person ever.


So when I told him I'd be back in San José, he invited me out for a party he threw for other foreign exchange students and naturally I went.  We made sushi rolls that were more gimbab and ate tortilla española with our fingers, played darts seated on a couch and it was like we had been friends since we were small children.  

His sushi roll
What he said looked like a "chorizo"

My roll

I lost track of time and despite having told my friends back at the homestay that I'd be back to party the early morning hours away with them, ended up having to stay at Ángel's at a massive sleepover.  There are no buses after midnight in Heredia.  Anyway, I was honored with a mattress and the only pillow he had to offer so all was good.

Best friends

I got home at 8 AM and rushed to pack, thought about showering and avoided it all together.  I was leaving at noon so in the very least, I went upstairs to check the apartments and found Mane the only one awake, a tall boy with a fro and native of the Canary Islands.  Fede (native of Mexico) also eventually woke up and sauntered in while I was watching Mane crush cookies into his hot chocolate and eat the resulting mush with a spoon.  So I spent my last few hours in Costa Rica watching Spanish comedy, listening to Brazilian music, and hanging out with good people.  I left wishing I didn't have to and wondering when and if ever I'll see them again.  And now I'm wondering the same as waves of bittersweet nostalgia wash over me.  

Nevertheless,

Pura Vida.