Puriscal is a provincial city, a bit like San Isidro de General, the first city in Costa Rica we have been to. Smaller and quieter. No tourists around, people doing their daily business. When going to retrieve some cash at a bank, we see a family, american mother and her two children, one has a pupil's uniform. They live here. While strolling around, we discover an abandonned church, in view of its size nearly a cathedral even, it is circled by a net to prevent access. Such a huge abandonned building makes for quite an effect especially in the middle of such a small city. We eat in small local place, it's quit good and cheap, while watching the news on TV. There is soccer, news of bridge building that is taking more time than planned and costing a lot more too. You see then politicians one after the other justifying this delay and telling the same bullshit to get elected again, nothing new, we have the same in France - they are the same everywhere you go I guess. Then there is a small report about a primary school that is setting up ecological and sustainable practices, re-using tires to makes flower pots in the vegetable garden. We wait for our bus with everyone else, there is a long queue on the sidewalk. We get on for a one hour and something trip.


Going deeper into the countryside, the rural area here is dotted with farms and small villages, hamlets rather, houses at the edges of the road, more or less well kept. Where there use to be coffee plantations there are now cows. Within one of those hamlets, the driver shouts at us the name of the place, we get off. There is a small wooden house where there is an old lady on a rocking chair looking at us. I go to her and ask her where we can find the Rancho Mastatal (more here). Right there. It is in front of her place. We go round the corner and here is the gate. We spend there three nights and two whole days, very educational, within a community made up of permanent people, apprentices and visitors (a whole class of young americans were leaving the day after we arrived). Tom plays soccer with the village children and the community. I meditate on a bamboo platform where we are staying, opened to a magnificent view on the mountain. 


We take our meals with the community and talk to those open for discussion. We find Connor whom we had met in Nicaragua and told us to come here, we meet a Mexican guy who is also French but doesn't speak French and let him know about the various candidates for the upcoming presidential election and a guatemalan who speaks French and lived there for a while. We take showers and go to the toilets with open views of the jungle. Everything here is opened but thought in a way that preserve privacy from the other humans. In this hamlet, there is a primary school and a secondary one as well as a library. A little further there is a chocolate factory (rare as it is normally transformed elsewhere). There are a few houses and inhabitants. A bar and the old lady with the rocking chair sells stuff too. Then there is the Rancho integrated in this local community, bringing this rural economy up by buying food and raw material there in order to feed more than a thousand visitors per year and host at least 15 to 20 people year round. We leave very early in the morning after having met loads of people that are changing the world or want to change it. Reenergized. We start the part of the trip. Off to the est coast of Costa Rica.



We go back to Puriscal first and then take a bus ack to San Jose. We are determined not to spend the night. lucky for us the first bus left at 5am so we are in San Jose at the begining of the afternoon. We walk through the city to take another bus, in direction of Limon, the huge city in the east. During our last night in Mastatal, there was rain, a very refreshing and welcom moment after the tropical heat, especially sheltered by the bamboo platform. There, on the way, it is also raining. Torrents form rapidly along the roads and we wonder what it must be like during rainy season. We get to Limon at the end of the afternoon. It is very ugly. We decide to continue. We get off the bus, get some information and follow other tourists at the bus terminal for those buses that will take us along the coast. Off to Cahuita.



Leaving Limon, we get to see its gigantic industrial harbour. This vision is completed bu our way through the industrial zones of the city, full of containers, all or near all displaying every famous brand of the agri-food business in banana or fruit juices. After this, we see endless rows of banana trees, all identical and bordered by a trench which has a steel cable above, going along the banana trees rows, probably used to hawl a trolley of some kind to collect the bananas. Tom notices a plane which goes above these huge green areas and spreads what we imagine must be pesticides. With such a high concentration of the same plant, it isn't a surprise that you need to fight against some epidemics of diseases or pests. THe previous intensive mono-cultures failed - coffee and cacao - for the same reasons but obviously no lesson was taken from it. In the middle of this sea of banana trees, villages here and there and a lot of isolated houses for sale. Eventually, it thins a bit and we arrive in Cahuita. It is a village with large dirt alleays and some roads. It is small but there is a street with the bars and restaurants, hostels here and there and agencies to organise visits of this or that. There is a park along the seaside, free, on donation. While walking, we are asking for prices of a room and find out the own is French. We take a room. There is a small swimming pool, a well-equipped kitchen and a barbecue outside. It is very nice. There a lot young travelers around and passing through and we talk with them and the owner. The next day it rains? We met the day before a French couple with whom we shared a meal and visited the farm Coralina Vieja. There have a car and decide to go back to the west coast and find the sun. They offer us to go with. We rather stay. 



The next day, it is sunny again. We go treking in the Cahuita park, really nice and beautiful, between jungle and beach, we do regret not to have brought snorkeling masks though. After our trek in the Corvocado, we are real adventurers and notice a lot of animals, including a few snakes with much too shiny colours to be benigne. Tom ends up becoming "Mytho-Jones", the fake adventurer explorer, impressing himself on young russian girls that we meet several times along the trail and with everytime an animal to show them (happy coincidence really). The second time, I was showing Tom a spide and he tells the girls in a very professional voice "A sand spider". Because we found it on the sand (Da!) and it is almost camouflaged. But really neither of us have any ideas what it actually is. One of the girls asks if it is venomous. No clue really. Anyhow, right after we see a couple of pizzotes, kind of cute raccoons, Tom calls the girls and one more time they are impressed bu his acute sense of observation. I have a quiet laugh. We get on and end up turning into the jungle. The path is a wooden platform just a bit above ground. That ground which seems to be full of life, it is hot, it is golden hour. More like mosquitoe hour really. We start to get bitten. 

No more time to observe, we need to get out of this place stat. We quickly end up outside the park, 5km from Cahuita along the national road. To wait for the bus or not to wait? That is the question. We start walking. Not really secure, we follow each other and look out for the huge trucks to get even more out of the way as they pass by really fast. We move fast. After the park I'm already done for but I clench my jaws and go forward. When finally arrives the turn to get in Cahuita, I throw myself on the first bottle of water we can buy. We aer quite happy to have done this park and have gotten back in one piece. The next day, we leave for Manzanillo, there is farm there we'd like to see. Punta Mona. And it's already the end of the week.



Venues:

Rancho Mastatal

Finca Coralina Vieja

 

Portraits:

Amber

Timo

 

Vidéos Techniques:


Fermentation and Kefir


Introduction to Natural Building


Natural Building Plasters


Mexican Hot Sauce Recipe


Biodigester