Autore: Gianfranco Franchi
Titolo: Monteverde
Edizioni: Castelvecchi, Roma 2009
Pagine: 313

Di Decimo Cirenaica
Aveva già occupato i miei giorni Guido Orsini, con Disorder (Il Foglio Letterario, 2006) – primo volume di quella che Gianfranco Franchi ha definito trilogia dell’identità;  a Disorder è seguito Pagano (Il Foglio Letterario, 2007) – nel quale l’autore ha discusso alcuni nodi della postmodernità – ed infine Monteverde, uno sguardo conclusivo, una prospettiva, un ponte.

L’identità è sicuramente uno dei temi più dibattuti all’interno del panorama culturale europeo e non solo; non lo era mai stato, non si era mai avvertita l’esigenza di confinare concettualmente un sentire individuale e collettivo. Perché quindi questa esigenza? Ciò che a noi interessa – non è la sede questa per una ricognizione sul tema dell’identità – è l’esigenza dell’autore di battere questo sentiero ed eseguire una radiografia del suo stare al mondo. Monteverde è un libro politico ma non parla di politica in senso stretto: l’analisi in narrazione che Gianfranco Franchi esegue del tempo e dei luoghi che vive ci permette di sistemare la sua raccolta di racconti all’interno di un confine sociale, quindi politico: le cinque sezioni in cui l’autore ha ordinato il libro – Casa, Lavoro, Donne, Musica, La Roma – forniscono una sintesi adeguata di quella che è la vita di un trentenne oggi – comprensiva di sogni, recriminazioni, frustrazioni.

«Io vedo simboli e significati in tutto. Sono un giocattolo giocato da mani sempre nuove, e tutto è un mio giocattolo. Forse anche la morte.»

Gianfranco Franchi invita Guido Orsini a chiudere gli occhi «per immaginare tutto quello che potrà essere quando la navigazione sarà conclusa.» Intanto entrambi camminano sul ponte, fianco a finaco, nello stesso ponte che per Georg Simmel significa prospettiva dinamica, connessione, interazione con gli altri e con la natura.

It has been a glorious autumn here in Ontario. I wasn’t here in the summer, having been down in Costa Rica, but by all accounts it was literally a wash-out. Autumn’s warm sunny days, served up with a minimum of moisture, have helped to bring a bit of balance to 2009. In just over a month, we’ll be in 2010 and though I guess I shouldn’t be counting my chickens before they hatch, I can already hear a busy year crowing.

This is my last weekend here – Monday I’m on a plane bright and early and by mid-afternoon I should be sweet and deep in the arms of Roberto in San José. A few days to chill in the hammock in Cahuita, to check up on the state of the papayas I planted in July, to get my calypso mojo working. Then I’ll be up in Monteverde, working on the history of Bosqueeterno and waiting to hear the first CO-CO-RI-CO of the new year (no doubt supplied by Mr. Wolf.) 2010 is a World Cup year but unfortunately Costa Rica lost her chance to play soccer with the big boys in South Africa. She’s a bit of a deflated hen, her tail feathers dragging. There’ll be some serious consoling to do.

the divine Lori Yates

As I’ve been preparing to leave my Canadian home for about six months, I’ve gone out to hear as much local music as I could fit in, most of it within walking distance of my house. At The Saint’s Tuesday night singer/songwriter gathering last week, my good pal Lori Yates gave an impromptu thirty minutes of new and old songs with an inspired, hilarious monologue. It was perhaps the best half hour of performance that I’ve seen this year.

Carolyna Loveless, Rae Billings, Greg Briscoe, Paul Reimens, Lori Yates

The other singer/songwriters who were out that night – our affable host Paul Reimens, Rae Billings, Shelley Adams and Carolyna Loveless – also rose to the bar Lori set. It was my first time hearing Carolyna and she kicks it. After having a conversation with her over lunch a few days later, I realized that not only has she got big talent but she’s also got this outrageous energy and over-active mind -she could probably take over the world with if she was so diabolically-inclined. I’m ready to see more of her – maybe even in the 11^th hour Sunday night when she is performing again at The Saint. Trying to convince myself that I can go out and still get up at 4:30 Monday morning to get to the airport. I can always sleep on the plane. 

Another night I headed out with friends to see local blues guitarist Steve Strongman in a new venue outside of town known as The Barn. Music producer and drummer, Dave King, built this as a place for him and his friends to play and record music and now he has started a concert series. Steve was the first show and it was an beautifully intimate place to see a great performer. The backdrop for the stage is one of the phenomenal metal creations by local artist, Dave Hind.

Mike McCurley

We finished off that night with a trip back to our local pub, Fisher’s, who was celebrating their 16^th anniversary with the regular band, the Sugardaddies. It’s lucky to have such a friendly crowd and hot band guaranteed for dancing only two blocks from home.

Dallas Good

Andre Williams, Trevor Good

In 1999, the Sadies recorded an album, Red Dirt, with a cat from Alabama,  André Williams. Mr. Williams has been making music since the fifties, R & B, punk blues and something called sleaze rock. He’s in his 70s and still has a cool stage presence. His stylin’ shiny blue suit and shoes fit the Sadies’ metallic blues that accompanied him. They performed songs together from several decades, including some great raw numbers from the 40s. I doubt that a song called Jailbait, one of Williams, is politically correct these days, but the men in the crowd seemed to identify as Andrew growled out the lyric about the temptations of the forbidden underage fruit. It was a night to shake yer money-maker and I did.

I spent a couple of days down in the Kingston area. I took Walking with Wolf to the Kingston Field Naturalists and had a wonderful evening with them. Told Wolf’s story to an interested crowd, sold a few books, was treated to a beautiful dinner at Aroma’s Café (highly recommended) and visited some friends in the area.

It’s necessary for me to get out in the Canadian countryside, balancing out the gritty urban life of my home in the industrial wasteland.

James Isaac Hendricksen

Here in the Hammer, I ran into my friend, Isaac Hendricksen, a musician from the Caribbean island of Nevis who lives locally. We had coffee one afternoon with Larry Strung, the brilliant photographer behind the Hamilton 365 project that I have written about before – he shared with me this photo that he took of us. Isaac writes songs of peace and love, lullabies for the soul. It was wonderful to see him, and absorb some of his wisdom regarding the intricacies involved in balancing the cultural weights in my relationship with Roberto. It’s a challenge to put together two genders, two histories, two cultures, and make it stick, even with the soldering glue of love. But I gotta tell ya, I’m anxious to be taking up that challenge again soon.

The three months since I returned here have gone by quickly. What a beauty season too – the glorious fall, the finale of the year. The Hammer continues to amuse – the music scene expands, the James Street North art crawl explodes, a new creative energy has taken over from the dying steel pulse that has driven this city for a century. I have a lot planned for the coming months in Costa Rica, but hope to spend next summer here in my home, in the fiercely proud north end of Hamilton. I’ve got to get control of the jungle that has consumed my yard during the last two summers . While I’ve been hanging out with the monkeys and the Rasta and the Wolf in Costa Rica, the vines have taken over. Even though I hate leaving my Tico friends behind when I get in that northbound plane, thank goodness I don’t ever mind returning here. If the key to a good life is finding a happy balance, then smokestacks and strangler figs, black leather and brown skin, punk guitars and tribal drums – these are but a few of my favorite things, all taken in equal measure.

Inizierei col postare un estratto dal bel libro di Gianfranco Franchi, Monteverde (edito da Castelvecchi), il cui protagonista ha tutta l’aria di poter essere un assiduo frequentatore di questo blog:

Un giorno un ministro mi ha detto che dovevo andare fuori di casa; era ora che alzassi i tacchi, non potevo restare con papà e nonna a oltranza. Quel ministro mi ha anche offerto degli incentivi: delle favolose detrazioni fiscali sugli affitti. Io non ho saputo resistere, ho deciso di accettare una delle settantadue offerte che ricevo ogni giorno - noi laureati in Lettere moderne siamo richiestissimi;  figuriamoci quelli del vecchio ordinamento, come me, allora ho preso e sono uscito di casa. Ho detto “Ciao papà! E grazie”, e ho preso l’uscio, con un trolley che mi faceva pensare ai libri di Labranca e una sacca piena di romanzi. Senza curarmi troppo di problemi grotteschi come le radici familiari, l’appartenenza al territorio, o a un tessuto sociale, avevo pensato di accettare l’offerta di una buona azienda di una città in cui non conoscevo proprio nessuno. Così sarei diventato un uomo e il ministro avrebbe smesso d’insultarmi. Stavo così comodo a casa,  a spedire curricula a vuoto. Alla fine ti stanchi,  servono stimoli nuovi, ha ragione lui. E così raggiunsi la ridente città di Novara, dove non vedevano l’ora di ospitare un romano di ventisei anni: da più parti, in città, sentivo parlare i proprietari dei ristoranti della necessità di tenerli aperti sino a mezzanotte, per venire incontro alle mie abitudini. Il mio locatario era un cinghiale sicuro di sé che non la smetteva di ringraziarmi per essermene andato da casa mia. “Così si fa”, ripeteva, dandomi clamorose manate sulle spalle. “Firma!”. E io firmai, versai la caparra (papà mi dava molte paghette) ed entrai nella mia nuova vita. Come usciere, a Novara, avevo un avvenire garantito: mi sarei sfiancato a fare amicizie e a sedurre donne nuove, nel dopocena, non c’era rischio che mi pentissi. Del resto, l’importante – diceva il ministro – era uscire di casa. Ammetto di avere avuto qualche imprevisto problema economico: il costo delle telefonate, con i telefonini, si faceva pesante. Chiamavano parenti (pochi, ma ciarlieri) e amici, vecchi creditori (questioni da poco) e potenziali clienti (ma ora sì che avevo un lavoro!). Niente in confronto all’emozione di farmi una lavatrice, di scottarmi con l’acqua calda della pasta, di bruciarmi l’unica fetta di carne rimasta. Tutte le volte pensavo al ministro e dicevo: “Ti frego”. Quando mi hanno licenziato perché c’era un amico etiope che costava duecento euro di meno io non mi sono lamentato mica. Sono andato all’agenzia interinale sotto casa e ho cominciato a cercare lavoro. “Laureato in Lettere?” m’hanno chiesto. “Sì” ho risposto, e già gongolavo. “Esplosivo! che ne pensi di fare il facchino? E’ un’esperienza!”. “E andiamo!”, esclamai. E poi feci uno squillo a casa, così papà mi richiamava e potevo parlargli, ché avevo finito il credito. Sarebbe stato orgoglioso di me, il suo coraggioso bamboccione: io ero uno che lavoravo fuori Roma giusto per pagarmi l’affitto.

Radiomeriadiano 12 e SuDiGiri presentano la rubrica dedicata ai libri a cura della Casa Lettrice Malicuvata. Questa settimana Gianfranco Franchi con Monteverde (Castelvecchi) e Radiohead – A kid (Arcana)
Martedì 27 ottobre 2009, ore 17.00
www.radiomeridiano12.com| FM 97.5

  E’ convocato il Consiglio Comunale in seduta straordinaria ed in 1° convocazione per il 12 ottobre alle ore 17,00 , presso il Centro di Comunità  “Don Bosco”.

L’ordine del giorno presenta i seguenti punti:

1. Presentazione linee programmatiche mandato amministrativo 2009/2014.
2. Salvaguardia equilibri di bilancio art. 193 del Dlgs 267/2000 e variazione bilancio 2009.
3. Alienazione suolo comunale Arace Salvatore.
4. Alienazione suolo comunale Morano Maria  Antonietta.
5. Alienazione suolo cimiteriale Paolercio Francesco e Paolercio Lorenzo.
6. Costituzione convenzione per lo svolgimento funzione di segreteria comunale tra i comuni di Andretta, Cairano e Monteverde – Provvedimenti.
7. Approvazione programmazione sviluppo energetico del territorio comunale.
8. Approvazione riparto fondi Legge 32/92  e  s.m.i. – decreto Ministro delle Infrastrutture e dei trasporti del 30/12/2008

Si invitano i cittadini a seguire l’evento.

I went zip lining in Monteverde, Costa Rica. It was amazing! On some of the lines I felt like I was flying and You couln’t see the end; it was hidden in fog. Have you ever done something like that. In my opinion, it’s an experience not to miss.

zip lining in Costa Rica

PLAYA CARRILLO – headed here after three nights as my little sister Camilla was joining us. A two hour drive south of Tamarindo via Nicoya. We drove past the airport was she was to be landing. It was literally a strip of mud in a forest clearing. Not even an airport building. I’ve seen some primitive airport set ups in my time but this won hands down. Playa Carrillo was a large crescent shaped beach with small waves. We stayed at the lovely hotel Llyenda just south of the town. A bit of a panic as I got an email from Camilla saying her flight had been cancelled. She was landing in San Jose the next morning and needed to get to the coast quickly to join us. I managed to get her on a flight to Tamarindo – back from where we had come from.  

PLAYA GUIONNES – our next stop – a small beach resort near Samara. We stayed at the Harbour Reef resort which was lovely. Set right in the jungle with a three minute walk to the large crescent bay. At the time the surf was small – but the waves were gorgeous. Long rights and left peeling off allowing for long rides on the gentle, undulating waves. At times I would have liked a bit more juice to the swell but it was a good way of getting used to the spot. It wasn’t too crowded which was also a massive bonus. We spent four nights here getting into a lovely rhythm of surfing, reading, sleeping, drinking and sunbathing.

There were recycling bins on the beach for every type of material. You don’t see that in the US. Pura Vida. Even the take away sandwiches we bought came in cardboard boxes, not the typical styrofoam containers you get here. 

Kept hearing what at first we thought were dogs yapping – which we later learnt were howler monkeys. A few days later we saw our first troupe. The noise was deafening – an incessant howling and hollering – which is how we found them as you follow the racket. I met a lady who ran an animal refuge. The rapid development of the area and increase in tourism has resulted in deforestation and the building of power lines which electrocute the monkeys when they swing on them. They electrify and burn to death – as the horrific photos on their pamphlet revealed. 

Brief two day sickness – upset stomach and aches and pains. This coincided with a horse ride along the beach and through the jungle. Typical. Reminded me of the first time I went horse riding – in Ecuador when I also had severe diarrhea – not fun.

As would be expected in a Latino country, football is very popular. Every little village has a ‘campo’ (pitch) in the centre of the town – driving through the region on a Sunday we saw lots of games as the villages played one another. I was also lucky enough to watch Costa Rica play Mexico in a World Cup qualifier – which they lost. If I’m honest they weren’t very good – but then they only have a small population of 3 million to chose from.

BACK TO PLAYA LANGOSTA – for some strange reason we decided to go back to our first hotel Barcelo. This time around it was less appealing to me. It’s almost like the McDonalds of hotels. It is a chain of hotels so staying here felt like it could be Majorca, Albufeira or St Lucia with little indication of the local culture. I missed my little paradise sleeping amongst the noise of the jungle.

PLAYA AVELLANES – beach 15 KM south we visited for the day. Massive stretch of postcard perfect white sand. As is true of most of the surf spots here, it’s amazing how the waves are so affected by the tides. Most of the spots only work on high tides – you can arrive when it’s low tide and it’s flat as a pond. Slowly as the tide builds the waves do. Lovely Ibizan style bar and restaurant here right on the beach.

MONTEVERDE CLOUD FOREST – the beach section of our holiday was over. Now it was time to don our explorer hats. Costa Rica is renowned for it’s national parks and we drove for four hours across bumpy and dangerous mountainous roads to Monteverde where you can walk amongst the canopy of the rain forest via long suspension bridges. An amazing experience as you are right among the leaves and foliage. Very thick jungle spreading out as far as the eye can see. Stayed in the mountain town of St Elena which is an adrenalin junkies paradise offering excursions into the local region – zip lining, canyoning, white water rafting, night treks. You could easily spend a couple of weeks here so it was a shame we only had one night.

ARENAL VOLCANOE – there aren’t many active volcanoes left in the world and Arenal is Costa Rica’s largest and most famous. It’s a classical conical volcano. We never got to see it on a clear day – as is common. It’s in the central highlands surrounded by greenery which in the tropics means there is always cloud cover. It was still very beautiful – we hoped the cloud would break and we could see it in all it’s glory. Hiked a bit around the base. Drove around at night to one of the observation points and were lucky enough to see orange molten lava spewing down the side of the hill. Melissa even saw it spurting out of the top but I was in the car at the time.

We stayed at a lovely resort with endless hot spring pools heated by thermally by the volcano. Lovely. I loved Costa Rica. Easy to travel in, beautiful, green, very friendly locals – there is so much to see and I will be returning very soon. 

Try as I might to hunker down and get to the piles of writing work I have waiting for me, I seem to be caught in a vortex of distraction. Although I’ve been “home” for a few weeks, I’ve actually been gone at least half that time, so I’m blaming my inability to focus on not quite having my feet firmly planted yet. I can sit down at my laptop but that new addiction in cyperspace, Facebook, proves a reliable source of neglect for all things of actual importance. I find it a wonderful tool for keeping up on what’s going on in the world around me and staying in touch with friends but when I realize that I’m using it as an avoidance tool, it’s time to start putting serious limitations on my time spent wandering around the Facehood.

I was supposed to be up on beautiful Lake Obabika in the Temagami region of northeastern Ontario last weekend. It was the 20^th anniversary of the blockade of the Red Squirrel Road, a political action I was very involved in that is discussed in Walking with Wolf. Unfortunately, automotive difficulties changed our plans at the last minute and I wasn’t able to go. Having just returned from a road trip a day before, I was relieved as well as disappointed – now that the weekend has passed, I’m just disappointed. I’m truly sorry that I wasn’t there in the north with old friends – activists, natives, and bush folk – breathing in the pine-scented air. I hope they had a wonderful reunion.

Once the plan changed, my time filled with alternatives which turned out to be great consolation prizes. The first of these was a photography show at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. In 2008, a newly- transplanted-in-the Hammer photographer, Larry Strung, dedicated himself to photographing a person each day of the year (which turned out to be a leap year hence there were 366 photographs) to illustrate the character and diversity of this cool little city of ours. He had spent four years in Liverpool England just prior to moving here and compares our red-brick working class town with its very solid and growing artsy base to that famous home of the Beatles.

I met Larry while he was taking another woman’s photograph and ended up being one of his models (February 26 at www.hamilton365.com). No matter where I was throughout 2008, I would go online and see beautifully-shot faces in a very familiar landscape. I knew so many of these people – either personally or simply from seeing them on the street – that this website became a lifeline to home for me. And Larry became a good friend.

Larry has taken all those digital photographs and developed and framed the prints. There is now a colorful display of his artistic photography and all those endemic faces of the Hammer hanging in the city’s art gallery.  There was a gala for his “models” on Friday which I attended with my friend Susan Peebles, bumping not only into Larry and his patient wife Monica (who watched him head off on his bicycle or by foot every day of 2008 in search of a model, without ever bringing in a penny for his effort), but also a number of other friends and acquaintances. Two of these were Barbara Maccaroni and Peter Ormond.

Peter renovated an elderly little house in our fiercely proud northend neighbourhood, paying close attention to recycling materials, sustainable construction and eco-sound systems. It is now known as the Green Cottage. He’s run for the Green Party here in the last couple of elections, is a tireless campaigner for our earth, and can be found at pretty much every activity in the city that has to do with smart-living, besides playing a mean piano. Barbara has just started her own raw food catering business out of the Green Cottage (see www.blove.ca), is a yoga-instructor and also happened to house-sit my own abode last winter when I was in Costa Rica (as I recall, I came home to happy plants and the place being cleaner than when I left!) When these two hooked up, they created quite the dynamic-duo-of-wise-living, besides being just a little too cute for words (but pics don’t lie).

I got out of the big city for most of the rest of the weekend, returning to see my friends who live in a little camp north of Toronto. I hadn’t seen Treeza and Rick since visiting them in Guatemala for Christmas last year so there was lots to catch up on. I love being with friends who live their lives in alternative ways – besides their little cottage in Nvelte (once a camp in the wilderness now an oasis of simplicity surrounded by out-of-control suburban development), they are in the process of building a home in San Pedro in Guatemala. I fell in love with this place (see: In the land of the Mayans and the Hippies or The Magic of San Pedro blog posts) and know that I will return on one of my trips back and forth between Canada and Costa Rica.

Treeza and I went to The Dominion on Queen Street East in Toronto on Saturday night for a great night of rockabilly. My pal with the honey voice, Lori Yates (www.loriyates.com), was singing a set with a very hot rockabilly band, the Royal Crowns (www.myspace.com/theroyalcrowns). Rockabilly is the music that merged rock and roll, blues and hillbilly but I think of it as the punk of the country world.

The Crowns have a sophisticated and smooth-as-hairgel jazz sound mixed in as well. Lori added her sexy voice and another layer of kickass attitude to the trio of Danny Bartley, Jason Adams, and Teddy Fury. The place was packed, the costumes were vintage, old cars were polished and lined up on the street and the music – well, it rocked this filly.

I spoke with Wolf this morning. He is getting over a cold but seems to be getting his medication situation under control. I’ve been gone long enough that he’s starting to miss me – Wolf has learned to equate my arrival in Monteverde with “work”.  We are both excited about getting steps closer to the publication of the Spanish translation of our book but are practicing patience.  What we were very sad to discuss was the passing of our friend Rachel Crandell. 

Rachel and her late husband Dwight worked enthusiastically for years to raise funds for the Monteverde Conservation League through their organization MCLUS, providing protection for the area known as the Childrens’ Eternal Rainforest. She was also a talented writer and photographer who produced beautiful books such as The Hands of the Maya and The Forever Forest: Kids Save a Tropical Treasure. Back in 2003, Rachel was responsible for Wolf being nominated and then receiving the international Conservation Action Prize in St. Louis, Missouri for his own dedication and lifetime of hard work for the future of tropical forests. She was a teacher and a mother and a great inspiration for how to get things done.

Both her and Dwight will be greatly missed not only in Monteverde but I’m sure in communities throughout the world.  I’ll end with the words of Edmund Burke, words which provided Rachel herself with inspiration:

“Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little”.

Wherever I go in this world, someone has been there before me. Of course that someone isn’t necessarily an explorer who has bashed their way through overgrown jungles and dense virgin forests in search of hidden ruins, but an expatriate who has taken up the challenge to explore new possibilities in a foreign land.

High volume tourist destinations like Costa Rica are perfect locations for expats looking for new possibilities. Walk around the small mountain town of Santa Elena and you can easily lose count of the people — expats — living out their dream or attempting to.

Dulce Marzo is a small cafe and bakery owned and operated by Lisa Peters, a person with creativity and initiative and a three page carrot cake recipe, reputed to be one of the best in the area.

It was my cafe of choice during my stay in Monteverde because of its low-key relaxed nature, home cooked food, and welcoming staff.

by Cate

Through the short conversation shared with Lisa, she openly told me of her expat journey. What started as a holiday to Monteverde enticed her to relocate on a permanent basis. Her story moved on to the time she shocked the locals by painting the cafe bright orange, to when the US Ambassador visited and fell in love with her carrot cake, and to the difficulties she’s encountered sourcing butter for her baked goods. Lisa has only had Dulce Marzo for two years, but her food has an established following in this small community. She doesn’t compromise on quality, her ingredients are organic and natural where available and the coffee beans are bought from a small local grower.

by Cate

Lisa has crafted a cafe to feel like home. Books and games await rainy or quiet days while hand-made soaps attract the last minute shopper.

by Cate

What makes the place just that much better are the staff — friendly with that Costa Rican charm. They look like the actually enjoy working there, something you don’t see too often these days.

by Cate

Dulce Marzo is a must visit no matter how much time you have in Santa Elena/Monteverde. It’s located outside of the town on route to Monteverde cloudforest. Try the carrot cake, I missed out and regret it. The coffee is good, the wraps are large and delicious.

Good luck Lisa with this business, I’ll be back next time I make it to Costa Rica.

Caffeinated Traveller

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work I go

Back home again after a swell week on the road with my friend Shirley. Although we are well into the autumn season we mostly felt warm summer temperatures throughout New England and returned to the same sweet sun in Hamilton. Yes, the trees are starting to have that reddish-around-the-edges look, and we noticed a proliferation of goldenrod on the roadsides, but I’m still wearing short skirts and sandals. My natural clock has not yet moved to the 11^th hour that chimes in the final weeks before winter sets in.

My mini-book tour of Vermont and Massachusetts (with a visit to Maine and New Hampshire thrown in) was very pleasant. We started out with a night in Lachine, just outside of Montreal Quebec, with my editor (once known as “the dastardly”) Jane Pavanel and her husband Sami and their kids. The night was beautiful enough to dine on the deck (pesto made fresh from a big buncha basil bushes in her garden) and for a walk along the St. Lawrence River watching a golden moon rise. Our roles as writer and editor of Walking with Wolf could be very mildly adversarial (“she just doesn’t get it!?!”) but the final result has been very successful. Our roles as friends will hopefully last forever – and maybe, if I ever get to writing another book, we will resume our professional partnership again.

We got across that big bad border just fine, headed into Vermont, and had lunch in Burlington on the waterfront, watching the boats cruise across Lake Champlain. Over the several hundred kilometers we drove through Vermont, we saw a lot of green forest, green pastures and green-consciousness. It would have been great to have the time to investigate some of the state parks, art galleries, interesting-looking restaurants and ecologically-concerned businesses but we had an agenda that didn’t allow for too much side-tracking.

We joined the Putney Friends Meeting fall retreat at Farm and Wilderness camp near Plymouth. A small black bear ran in front of our car just as we were arriving and we saw a loon floating on the lake. Being in this setting of wooden camp buildings surrounded by forest took me back to my years on Lake Temagami working at Wanapitei and Keewaydin canoe camps. These long-serving camps with their rustic cabins and large dining-halls hold the ghosts of a lot of summers – anyone who has spent time at one most likely has a keen sense of the history of the place as the long tales from the past get told and retold. Old photographs, names etched in the aged wood and strange artifacts reverently displayed on walls provide memories for those who return over the years and clues to the camaraderie that existed for those of us who weren’t so lucky to be part of it.   

Our little humble cabin Sassafras

Although we left our lunch spot in Burlington still soaking up the sun, we arrived at the camp under the only rain clouds we’d seen since the beginning of September. The lake looked tempting and that loon was calling me to join her, but it was just too chilly for this chicky who just returned from warm southern Caribbean waters (sad-to-say since I’m basically a northern bush babe used to refreshing waters.) Most of the cabins were long and three-sided with bunk beds on the three walls. The other non-existent wall opened out to the lake or the forest. I kept asking people if mosquitoes were never a problem.  I couldn’t imagine staying in those cabins in northern Ontario in bug season which is basically most of summer. Everyone I asked told me that mosquitoes had never been a problem in this part of Vermont. I’m wondering if these folks are either tougher than me or have a very selective memory. I just can’t imagine being anywhere in North America in that much forest without a bug season. We chose a small cabin called Sassafras which had four walls, open windows and electricity since I had to work on my laptop a little at night preparing for the book talk. Sleeping in that clear, clean cold air was heavenly.

The other highlight to being at camp was the large kitchen. I can remember my first time in one of those large industrial yet rustic kitchens on Lake Temagami (after finding a very large puffball and slicing it on the meat-slicer, frying it in butter and garlic in the over-sized frying pan, my friends and I made ourselves ill eating too much of it.) I love cooking in these super-stocked kitchens with their grandiose Hobart mixing machines and eight burner gas stoves. This one was extremely well-equipped including a dish room with lotsa stainless steel sinkage and a sterilizing washing machine. Enthusiastically volunteering for washing duty, I got to run the hose, rinsing off the dishes and filling and emptying the washing machine. I ended up quite wet but thoroughly enjoyed it, feeling like Igor behind the controls of a crazy steam-snorting machine.

I had a good time presenting Walking with Wolf to the assembled group, some of whom had been to Monteverde and had their own stories from there. Susan Slowinski had invited me to come to this retreat and was a warm host, as were all the Friends. I sold a few books and received some very positive feedback. I was invited by Francie Marbury to visit her public school in southern Vermont  and we arranged that I would stop there on our way through that area on Tuesday.

Since we were (by Canadian standards) in the neighborhood, we drove a few hours from Vermont to the coast of Maine to see Cocky (my soul sister I’ve written about many times in this blog). We got in a night of dancing (breaking in a pair of cowgirl boots recently given to me), some great food, lots of talk, sunshine and relax time. We watched “Shut Up and Sing,” the documentary about the Dixie Chicks and the horrible, hate-filled reaction to their simple comment that they were ashamed that George Bush was from Texas (during the period in 2002 when the US went into Iraq on the un-proven grounds that there were weapons of mass destruction.) I have loved their music but am now deeply moved by their commitment to speaking their truth in a country that proclaims this is one of the main principles of  its society. If I had known at the time what was going on, I would have gone to a Dixie Chicks concert just to support them (and dance a little too.) This doc is still well worth watching.

We spent a glorious evening on the local public dock as the sun set. It was still chilly enough to keep me out of the water, but Ms Cocky is more acclimatized and had what might be one of her last swims of the year. We were also visited by a man towing a dead deer (which someone had shot but not killed and it had finally died on the shore nearby) out to a more remote spot to let the buzzards at it. When I started taking pictures he thought we might be radical vegans ready to denounce him, but being northern bush babes ourselves, we are accustomed to carcasses and recognize he was just doing his job.

Shirley, Cocky and I, along with the beautiful Alpha-dog, sipped wine and ate sushi and watched the breeze play across the calm Atlantic water. It was hard to leave.

On our way to Amherst College in Massachusetts, Shirley and I stopped to visit Wolf’s son, Carlos Guindon, who has been translating the book into Caminando con Wolf.  He’s almost finished, down to the index and some blurbs. He’ll then send it to Costa Rica and the Tropical Science Center will figure out the next step. It’s very exciting that our book is going to be available in Spanish so that Costa Ricans, who have shown a very keen interest in reading Wolf’s story, will soon have the opportunity.

Shirley with Wolf’s grand-daughter Noelia

We arrived at the house of Benigno and Karen Sanchez-Eppler, who had invited us to stay while in Amherst. They are a very welcoming Quaker couple who own a big old house on the edge of the Amherst College campus that serves as an inn for the many guests that pass through. They have hospitality down to a fine art served up with great heart. They fed us a delicious dinner of Cuban tortilla, rice and fresh tomatoes before we headed over to the college for my talk. We were joined by their daughter Alma and her friend Benny, as well as Clara Rowe, who I knew as a young girl when she lived in Monteverde (she had arranged the talk with the Environmental Studies department) and Noelia Solano, one of Wolf’s grand-daughters who I had just celebrated his birthday with in Monteverde.  She is now at Mount Holyoke, a college nearby, and came for the evening – it is always wonderful to see Monteverde people in other places, especially Guindons.

There was a small group at the college for the talk and I have to admit I felt a little disjointed – sometimes it is like that. I switch my talk around for each audience, situation and length of time allotted, and usually am happy with how it goes, but sometimes feel a little off and this was one of those times.  But there were lots of questions and interest in the group about conservation in Monteverde and it was a nice evening despite my own criticism of my performance.

The next morning we drove north to Brattleboro, Vermont and I did another talk for the kids at Marlboro Public School. It was a short period and I had to talk fast but was much happier with how this went.  This school was very impressive – solar panels, vegetable garden, an open classroom with couches for the kids to relax on while reading – and almost made me want to go back to school. The school focuses on self-expression through creativity and learning through field research. The Grade 7 and 8s will be heading to Costa Rica in the spring and this was their introduction to where they would be going and some of the history there. It was a privilege to be part of their trip planning.

With the work done, Shirley and I enjoyed the last bit of back road driving in Vermont – once again sorry that we couldn’t stop for awhile at the interesting villages we passed through – but did stop for lunch in Wilmington at the Vermont House Tavern which I must mention because I had an excellent bowl of French onion soup there and highly recommend it!

Our last night, now safely back in our Canadian homeland, was at my friends’ Chuck and Carolyn’s near Westport. We arrived just as their band, String Tease, was beginning an evening rehearsal, and so we relaxed to a few hours of music, singing along with the songs they sing, mostly irreverent Canadian tunes that tell stories and feature their mix of accordion, mandolin, guitar and stand-up bass. 

Now safely home, feeling the air a little cooler than when we left, having had a successful few book-speaks, mixing up business and pleasure, I’m ready to get on to my next project which is writing Bosqueeterno history. A huge thanks to all those who helped put the tour together and took us in – Jane & Sami, Susan and the Putney Friends, Cocky, Clara, Benigno & Karen, Francie and finally Chuck & Carolyn. The world is small, full of friends and opportunities and, as such, is truly beautiful, whatever the season.

foto_agostino della gatta © www.irpiniaturismo.it

UN VIAGGIO EMOZIONALE

di Giovanni Ventre

Il treno è appena partito, la stazione di Avellino si allontana lentamente, le rotaie scorrono dietro il piccolo treno composto di due carrozze. A bordo un centinaio di curiosi in cerca di emozioni. La tratta Avellino Rocchetta è un poco il filo di Arianna della storia d’Irpinia. Un grande uomo politico oltre che un insigne maestro poi diventato il maggiore critico letterario italiano, Francesco De Sanctis, ebbe alla fine dell’ottocento l’ intuizione di far attraversare buona parte dell’Irpinia da una strada ferrata che avrebbe significato per i territori attraversati un faro nella notte buia dei collegamenti con il mondo. La strada ferrata attraversa tre valli in cui scorrono i maggiori corsi d’acqua irpini, la valle del Sabato, quella del Calore e quella dell’Ofanto, le stazioni ( quello che rimane) sono situate in basso rispetto ai paesi che la dominano dall’alto, appollaiati sulle vette come galli stanchi persino di annunciare l’alba.

Una volta uomini, donne e bambini, si levavano a notte fonda per intraprendere a piedi o a dorso d’asino la sterrata che li avrebbe condotti al treno e poi alla città. Il viaggio continua e il treno avanza lento col suo sferragliare caratteristico e col suono acuto che ne indica il passaggio, la prima cosa che mi colpisce è certamente molto singolare. In alcuni punti il fischiare del treno diventa continuo e lo stesso rallenta fino quasi a fermarsi, mi affaccio al finestrino certo che vi siano dei lavori in corso e con mia somma meraviglia mi accorgo che vi sono delle mulattiere che intersecano la ferrovia e che nessun passaggio a livello esiste ad indicare il passaggio del treno, allora il macchinista fa di necessità virtù, quasi si ferma prima di continuare il viaggio. Abbiamo superato la valle del Sabato e ci stiamo immettendo dal torrente Salzola nella valle del Calore, ci fermiamo alla stazione di Ponteromito – Cassano, poi a Montella e a Bagnoli, siamo nel cuore del Parco dei Picentini. Raggiungiamo Nusco e poi Lioni, qui sale a bordo l’onorevole Rosetta D’Amelio, unico rappresentante politico ad avere accettato l’invito, la signora si presenta sorridente e socievole, in men che non si dica ha accalappiato l’attenzione di quasi tutti i partecipanti.

Mentre il treno viaggia veloce verso Conza per poi raggiungere Calitri, nel vagone si parla delle potenzialità della ferrovia e dello stato di abbandono in cui versa. Riceviamo dalla disponibilissima D’Amelio la promessa che qualcosa sarà fatto e che troveremo in lei una preziosa alleata. Il professore Antonio Panzone da Taurasi fa comparire una bottiglia di nettare rosso con la quale brindiamo alle promesse dell’Onorevole. A Calitri la signora ci lascia per altri impegni e il viaggio continua nella Valle dell’Ofanto, fiume che è stato palcoscenico di importantissimi eventi nei millenni scorsi. Basta ricordare la battaglia di Canne e quella di Aquilonia. All’improvviso il paesaggio inizia a mutare, stiamo attraversando il territorio di Monteverde, e dopo il ponte di santa Venere entriamo nella stazione di Rocchetta Sant’Antonio. Sosta di un quarto d’ora prima della ripartenza. Quando il capostazione ci invita a salire per il viaggio di ritorno una cupa malinconia si impadronisce del mio animo. Stranamente e non so perché l’improvviso cambio di umore è palpabile quasi come la nebbia che la mattina avvolgeva il colle di Cairano. Cerco inutilmente una folata di vento liberatrice, ma nel profondo del mio animo non vi è alcun vento, sicchè l’improvvisa malinconia resta immobile padrona dei miei sentimenti. Prendo la bottiglia d’acqua dallo zaino e bevo alcune sorsate. Mi disseto ma la malinconia non annega nel liquido ingerito. Allora cerco di distrarmi ammirando il paesaggio sedendomi.

Arriviamo alla stazione di Rapone, Ruvo, San Fele, siamo in terra di Basilicata, sulla sponda destra dell’Ofanto, mi affaccio dal finestrino e guardando il paesaggio lo sguardo si sofferma ai margini della massicciata, una fila interminabile di formiche si inseguono senza mai raggiungersi, mi portano alla mente i poveri contadini che si avviavano al treno che li avrebbe portati in terra straniera in cerca di una dignità e di un tozzo di pane per i loro figli. Anche quegli uomini come le formiche erano tutti uguali, tutti in fila con la valigia di cartone legata da uno spago consunto. All’improvviso quelle figure si materializzano nel mio cervello, li vedo salire sul treno e timidamente sedersi al mio fianco. La faccia rugosa frastagliata da anni di vento e sole, le mani callose e forzute, allenata da anni ed anni di esercizi con la zappa e la vanga. Riesco addirittura a sentire l’odore della naftalina che ancora impregna quell’unica giacca conservata gelosamente per i giorni di festa. Li vedo affacciarsi al finestrino e salutare con la mano i cari che sventolano fazzoletti bianchi come a voler scacciare le mosche fastidiose della povertà. Quando la stazione sparisce alla vista i disgraziati si seggono con gli occhi umidi di lacrime, lacrime amare che stanno a significare il fallimento di una vita. Il fischio del treno irrompe improvviso nei miei pensieri frantumandoli, ritorno in me e mi accorgo che il treno sta ripartendo e che alla stazione ci sono solo le formiche in fila indiana. Le saluto e andiamo via. Mi accorgo che il groppo che avevo in gola è sparito. Ecco, mi dico, per un attimo stavo vivendo le sensazioni che intere generazioni di contadini avevano vissuto in questi territori. Per fortuna oggi qualcosa è cambiato. A tutte le stazioni successive immagino i contadini fermi ad aspettare il treno della speranza.

Alla stazione di Cairano invece ricordo del film magnifico girato da Camillo Marino e Silvio Siano, “La Donnaccia” La protagonista è Mariarosa Apicella, una bella prostituta, interpretata dalla sensuale Domique Boschero rimpatriata con il foglio di via al Sud, nel paese d’origine. Qui Mariarosa suscita scalpore perché i contadini iniziano a frequentarla fino a quando uno di loro, tra la disapprovazione dei compaesani, decide di sposarla. Sullo sfondo il dramma dell’emigrazione, il mito americano e la superstizione con l’episodio dell’indemoniata da esorcizzare. Mi ritornano in mente i bellissimi giorni trascorsi a Cairano questa estate in occasione della riuscitissima manifestazione “Cairano 7X”.

Lentamente ed inesorabilmente il treno si avvicina ad Avellino ed alla fine di questo surreale viaggio in una terra mortificata dalla nullità di chi la amministra ricca solo di promesse non mantenute e di progetti mai partiti. E a proposito di partenze, qualcuno vuole che anche il treno del De Sanctis non parta più e che quei binari intrisi della storia della nostra gente contadina arrugginiscano nella dimenticanza di chi lastrica di indifferenza le strade della nostra storia.

Giovanni Ventre

Costa Rica has lured travelers for decades and rightfully so. Known for scores of stunning national parks and with well over half the country protected by being set aside as parks or conservation areas, Costa Rica, and its key destination points, namely Arenal volcano, Monteverde could forest, Pacific coast beaches of Guanacaste, and national parks such as Manuel Antonio stand out above all else. Not to miss is, however, the Osa Peninsula in the southwestern corner of Costa Rica and its incredible Corcovado National Park – with seventy national parks to explore in Costa Rica, and some 6% of world’s bio-diversity, this is the park to visit if you wish to experience the lesser visited part of Costa Rica.

Sample Itinerary: Arenal – Monteverde Cloud Forest – Quepos/Manuel Antonio National Park – Osa/ Corcovado National Park – San Jose

Minimum 11 nights, from $1,399 – Included:

• International round-trip airfare
• Transfers between cities
• 2 nights in Arenal
• 2 nights in Monteverde
• 3 nights in Quepos
• 3 nights in Osa Peninsula
• 1 nights in Arenal
• Daily breakfast (most hotels)
• All Hotel Taxes

It is now September and, totally off my usual migratory schedule, I’m back in the north. Home in the Hammer, enjoying brilliant blue skies – even Hamilton Bay, the maligned body of water that shares its shores with steel companies and suburbia, has an aqua shine to it these days. I couldn’t ask for a better homecoming. My buddy with a bosom, Cocky, was at the airport to meet me, after her own month of travels. A treat to come home to, but now she’s gone too. I may get a chance to go for a sail on that same water if this weather holds for the Labour Day weekend which it is supposed to.

My last two weeks in Costa Rica were spent down in sweet calypsolandia, Cahuita. Although it rained lots in July on the Caribbean coast just as it had been up in Monteverde, I ended up being followed by beautiful weather from the green mountain to the seashore. There were some casual showers of course, and maybe one night of insistent rain, but the month of September in Cahuita means dry weather. Hard to fathom how, when it is hurricane season just to north, but I stopped trying to figure out weather a long time ago.

We got a lot of hot sunny days that sent us to the beach, but we mostly stayed at home. It was glorious to be back basking under those big trees, bathing in the cool water, being serenaded by the howlers and bailando with Roberto.   I was amazed at how much the papaya seedlings we had planted in July had grown in the four or so weeks I was away.  But then the growth of vegetation in Costa Rica always unnerves me a bit – you just don’t want to sit in one place too long if there is a vigorous-looking vine nearby.

 One afternoon we went up to the Port of Limon, a place I really only have known as a bus-changing town.  We walked around the ‘malecon’, the boardwalk that follows the seaside. Limon is one of the oldest cities in the Americas, having been visited by Christopher Columbus in 1502, so if it seems a little worn that should be understandable.

Development in Costa Rica by the Spaniards took place from the Pacific side, and so the Atlantic coast was left to fend for itself against all that crazy rainforest vegetation. In the mid-1800s the government decided to build a railroad and connect Limon (particularly its port) to the rest of the country. They brought in Chinese and Jamaican workers to build the tracks and thus the Caribbean coast is very much an extension of Afro-Caribbean culture with lots of chop suey houses around. 

There is no denying racist elements that existed (and unfortunately still do.) When the railroad was finished and the banana plantations became a major employer, the black population provided the workforce.  They weren’t encouraged to travel throughout the country, couldn’t afford it anyway, and the fact that they were foreigners themselves made it able to control their movements through their documents.  Eventually they went to work in other parts of Costa Rica as laborers were needed and Afro-Caribbean families settled elsewhere in the country. But the heart of the calypso-blooded community will always be Limon. 

The city developed once the railroad took off, but government money was never pouring their way.  In the last year or two, there has been a move by the Costa Rican government to bring economic development to the area although people are waiting to see the proof.  There was an attempt at revitalizing the waterfront of Limon several years ago, but earthquakes and storms destroyed much of the expanded boardwalk as well as what must have been a great little outdoor concert theatre in its short life. As Limon grows into a bigger cruise ship port (it is already a large commercial harbor and a popular cruise ship stop)  hopefully some of the wealth that visits its shores will be spread in the area. Although Limon is known for its poverty,  its richness of spirit and culture is as much a part of life there. The biggest threat to that, after poverty,  is the drug trade which feeds on the poverty and changes the spirit.

The city has a funky flair to it and lots of local color, from the bright hues of the buildings to the cacao skin of the residents. When you take the highway east of San José, over the mountains of Braulio Carillo National Park, and through the miles of flat banana and pineapple fields, over the wide rivers coming out of the mountains and arrive in Limon province, you know you are in a different culture than in the rest of Costa Rica. The food changes – instead of arroz y frijoles, you are now eating rice and beans cooked in coconut milk; the music changes – from salsa and merengue to calypso, soca and reggae; and the language is English-based Limonense-Creole rather than Spanish. It seems that most people are fluently tri-lingual – speaking Tico Spanish and British English as well as their own Caribbean-tongue.  It is a disappearing language as are many of the indigenous languages that are being used by less and less natives of Costa Rica. My experience being there with Roberto is that every plant, bird and insect has a different name in Limon than elsewhere in the country. The words are English-based, but the names are distinct to this region. I can get very lost trying to follow the lilt and tilt of the language used in Cahuita.  

We had some beautiful days and were out on the ocean as often as we could force ourselves to go for the walk through the forest to the beach.  There was another hot night spent in Puerto Viejo, which has a number of bars that cater to different crowds - we go to Maritza’s, which has a live band on Saturday nights and always plays a great variety of music for dancing from soca to salsa.

In the middle of all this it was my birthday and Roberto promised to go out in the sea and get me lobster for dinner.  So we spent two fine mornings on the beach under a big sun, the sea a calm shiny turquoise stone.  Roberto used to be a diver (snorkeler) and caught and sold octopus, fish and lobster, but quit a number of years ago as he saw the population of these sea creatures diminish. The banana plantations in the area have caused lots of pollution – from their chemical effluent to the silt run-off to the plastic bluebags that they put over the banana bunches – all this stuff ends up in the ocean and, along with a bad earthquake or two, things have never been the same.

But it didn’t take him long to get four nice-sized lobster for dinner and we were thankful for the bounty. We were blessed with the warmth of the sun and the beauty of the sea and took advantage to walk through Cahuita National Park’s shady trails, sharing our time with the monkeys. 

Cahuita’s beaches are stunning and the National Park is one of the most beautiful in the country. Between the white sand beach, the reef off the point, the hours of hiking, the constant presence of birds, insects and animals, and the fact that you can enter for a small donation from the town access point, it makes for one of the nicest parks to visit in Costa Rica. They have built bridges over some of the swampier areas (where before there were submerged wooden walkways), using the same recycled-plastic material that the Monteverde Reserve has been using on its trails and signage for a few years now. It was interesting that we could smell the plastic off-gassing in the very hot sun – something that I’ve never noticed up in the cooler cloud forest.

We also continued taking care of Roberto’s little farm. We seeded corn and within three days it was two inches out of the ground – when I head back there in November I should be eating elotes, the young corncobs.

Roberto climbed up his castaña tree, the glamorous cousin of the breadfruit, to chop off the top limbs before it gets too tall and he won’t be able to harvest the fruit.

This tree is also growing on the bank of his stream and, knowing that it will fall one day, he has been concerned that if it is too tall it will fall on his casita.  So I took pictures as he shimmied up the trunk and took his machete to the big elegant leaves and chopped off the top.

Afterward he said he was getting too old to do this stuff – between the possibility of falling, wasps, snakes, and other risks he felt lucky to get the job done in one piece - but my guess is he’ll keep climbing and chopping as long as he needs to, for as long as he is truly able.  His age is just making him realize how vulnerable he is and that when it hurts, it hurts harder.

We went back through the mountains to San José for my last two days in the country. There was a full day of music awaiting us and we took advantage.

Wandering around the city, we caught the Lubin Barahona orchestra outside of the National Museum.  It was big band music and boleros being sung by old timers.

The crowd was mostly older couples who were happy to be dancing on the street while the music played on and the rain held off.   Like in most cities, there is live music playing for free to be found most weekends.

We then caught a gospel concert in the Melico Salazar Theatre at night – a contest between three local gospel choirs (won by the University choir) with Master Key (a five man acapella group from Costa Rica now working in the US)

with Manuel Obregon, a musician I’ve known for years in Monteverde (and seen him play here in Toronto twice). He’s one of the most experimental composers in the country – here he was playing gospel with our friend Tapado, the country’s top percussionist, at his side. Manuel never fails to amaze me with where his music takes him and he takes alot of other musicians along for his musical rides. The Let It Shine concert was presented by a gospel choir group and held to celebrate Black Culture Day, August 31. It was a great way to extend my time in the cultural richness of the Afro-Caribbean community.

The inevitableness of leaving woke me up early on the last day of August and when it is time to go, it is time. It makes saying goodbye easier when you know you are going to return within a couple of months (si dios quiere.) Heading to my happy home in the Hammer also makes things easier. I can still feel the Caribbean sun on my skin and if I listen hard enough, the gentle arrival of the waves lapping the beach and gently rocking my soul.

The mellowness of life in the jungle and on the sea exists in stark contrast to the busyness of my life back here in the city as I prepare for a trip to the northeastern US, continue overseeing the Spanish translation of Walking with Wolf, work on the historical record of Bosqueeterno S.A., and catch up with my northern friends.

Stay calm, Kay, stay calm – but keep that ball rolling, there is lots to do.

Choosing where to go in Costa Rica is tantamount to being a child in a huge sweet shop – the choice is daunting and you want to do it all… immediately. Given the amount of choice, it is worth doing a bit of planning. The longer you have the better, but even with just a few days, you can visit a couple of spots and still have time to relax on a beach before heading back home. Below are a few suggested itineraries on where to go in Costa Rica.

Most people arrive in  San José, the capital of Costa Rica, where you can spend a couple of days sightseeing. It is really the only place in Costa Rica with any significant cultural attractions, so if you like museums, art galleries and cerebral fodder you should stop for a couple of days in San José. Beyond the capital, the Central Highlands are a tidy mosaic of coffee plantains, and volcanic hills dotted with towns normally close to a national park. Typical day trips from the capital take in the craft town of Sarchí with a steady climb to the huge crater of Volcán Poás. A tour of the scenic Orosi valley, is easily followed by a steady climb to the steaming vents of Volcán Irazú. Or ride a ski lift through the rainforst canopy in National Park Braulio Carrillo, just 90 minutes from San José.

North of San José, Volcán Arenal leaves onlookers trance-like as the glowing lava crashes down the mountainside. Nearby the world-famous cloud forests around Monteverde provide a brief insight into magnificent diversity of the highlands.

Guanacaste to the northeast draws visitors to the volcanic landscape and bubbling mudspots of Rincón de la Vieja, the birder´s wetlands paradise of Palo Verde and the Tempisque river basin, the dry forests of Santa Rosa and the cultural landscape of the sabanero – Costa Rica´s very own cowboy.

Beach Lovers and surfers can pick almost any spot from the Nicoya Peninsula down to the Central Pacific coastline to find a personally tailored version of paradise with lively resorts and quiet hideaways covering all budgets and tastes of travelers.

Southern Costa Rica is generally a tougher option. Traveling overland down the mountainous spine of Costa Rica, Chirripó Grande is Costa Rica´s highest peak and a challenge for the trekker, and to the south on the Osa Peninsula, the pristine National Park Corcovado is a moment of magic for the adventurer and wildlife lover.

The Caribbean divides neatly in two halves. North of Puerto Limón, the canals of Tortuguero provide a quiet moment of awe struck contemplation encountering the wildlife and vegetation of this aquatic inland water-world, while on the coast turtles nest on the beaches as they have for millions of years. South of Limón – the carnival capital of Costa Rica – the discerning traveller can find a blend of comfortable, laid-back retreats offering personal service, sometimes at a price, and quiet undeveloped beaches – perfect for the budget traveller.

Pura Vida!

Here on the green mountain, beauty is all around us.  Some of this is just the sheer natural splendor of the place – the misty-erios cloud forest, the tall, twisted, bromeliad-filled trees, the dripping emerald canopy, the rolling pastures with pretty-faced Guernsey cows. Then there is the minute glory, from the delicate orchids to the flashy beetles to the exotic fungi. But beauty is also found in the people here and I think this comes from how they collectively live relatively healthy lives – not all, not always, but compared to the faces of urban sprawl, the inner city and the poverty of spirit one can often find elsewhere, one has to be happy to have landed here.

I spent two days last week celebrating exactly these riches. Last Sunday, there was a wedding at the Friends Meeting House – the director of the Monteverde Institute, Jannelle Wilkins married her man, Rick Mera in a peaceful ceremony, surrounded by their friends and neighbors. I was part of the little group who decorated the room for them – we hung calla lilies in the windows and strategically placed tables to hold the various bouquets of garden flowers that were brought by folks from the community. Calla lilies are also known as peace lilies and they couldn’t have been more appropriate for the occasion. My new friend Caroline Crimm provided many of these lilies and more were donated by others, enough that we were able to hand them out to guests as they arrived. The room was simple and serene.

The Trostle family

As at all weddings, the guests arrived looking their best, with smiles on their faces, and that makes for a good-looking assembled crowd. I snapped lots of photos and share several here – perhaps you will recognize some of the faces – weddings tend to bring out hope and joy in people, and this wedding was no exception.

Jannelle & Katy                                                    Alberto Guindon & Angelina

At the Quaker meeting, the wedding ceremony is as thoughtful and personal as Sunday meeting. Friend Katy Van Dusen nicely explained what would happen – we would sit in silence and await the arrival of Jannelle and Rick. When they came, we sang a song together – “Simple Gifts” – to the guitar accompaniment of Tricia Wagner, who herself has a beautiful voice. As the song says… “when we find ourselves in the place just right, it will be in the valley of love and delight.” And it was. Or at least on the mountain of…

Rick & Jannelle with Saray & Melvin Leiton

When they were ready, the couple exchanged their vows, looking in each other’s eyes, only the two of them. In between each part of the ceremony, there was silence, time to reflect and appreciate the moment. Jannelle and Rick signed the wedding papers and shortly after people stood one by one and shared their thoughts. This couple was blessed by the warmth of the community.

Jannelle’s sister Darlene and daughter Natalia                      The Jenkins family

The members of their families who had come for the wedding were very moved by the occasion. Someone expressed how people often feel that this simple Friends ceremony, where guests are encouraged to share their own thoughts, is one of the most beautiful wedding ceremonies they have been to – the couple say their vows directly to each other, in the presence of their friends, not to a priest or pastor or minister. And the wishes extended by their family and friends are thoughtful and wise and filled with loving concern.

Afterward we all walked a little ways up the road to the Hotel Fonda Vela, where there was a huge spread of wonderful food, accompanied by songs of love sang by Tricia Wagner and Robert Dean. A marimba band played outside where meat was roasting on the barbeque. The sun set in a furious explosion of brightness behind the head table while more words of support were expressed. It was a beautiful gathering of friends, surrounded by love and the hope of a joyful future for Jannelle and Rick.

A couple days after that, I took to the woods with Wolf’s son Ricky Guindon. In my job with Bosqueeterno S.A., where I’ve been challenged to write a history of this watershed reserve set aside by the original Quakers in 1951, I will also include a natural history of the 554 hectares – describing the primary forest and its inhabitants, the use of the land and the various biological studies that have taken place there over the years.

Ricky has been a field assistant with a number of biologists and was the perfect guide for this hike. We had originally thought that we would head out the trail that starts near the entrance to the Reserve and goes to El Valle and then turn and follow the boundary line of the property. We knew that the maintenance crew had recently cleared it but also knew that it would still be much more challenging hiking than any of the trails as these carril lines are not designed for easy walking.

On my way up to the Reserve to meet Ricky, I ran into Dan Perlman, a biologist from the U.S. who has spent years here studying ants. When he heard where I was going, he told me that he had with him a 360-degree camera and would love to tag along. He would take photos along the way that we could then use on the Bosqueeterno webpage when we get to doing that. I haven’t seen these photos, but can imagine they are incredible. He would stand in one place and the camera would record all around it, along with a couple minutes of sound. This will be a wonderful feature to share on the internet.

Gelatinous stalked puffball

Ricky, Dan and I started out and moved so slow – looking at each precious little bug, leaf, orchid and bird then stopping to stare at the magnificence of the tree-covered mountainside under a cloudy but bright sky – that we had to change our plans.  Dan stayed with us for awhile and had to head back, and Ricky and I decided that instead of trying to move faster and cover a great deal of ground, we would stay on the trail that would lead us to Cerro Amigos. This is one of the highest peaks in the area and it is where there are several communication towers.

I’ve been up there with Wolf a couple of times, always approaching it from the community side on gradually climbing trails.  We were now coming from the backside which meant climbing up a very steep trail, “like climbing up tree limbs,” said Ricky.

Along the way we went past the water pipes where the community draws its water from the Quebrada Cuecha.  We were so lucky not to have a drop of rain, only the usual moisture on the Atlantic side of the cerro where the clouds hit the peak and deposit their moisture. Ricky was a wonderful person to be with, full of knowledge of the birds, the plants and the insects, and as content as I was to be out in this unique piece of wilderness.

When we got to the towers there was too much cloud to see Arenal volcano behind us (which I know from past experience sits like a huge grey cone and feels close enough to fall into), but it was clear enough to see the community below us. There is a road that heads almost vertically straight up the hill which is used by the men who live up there (a man stays for 15 days then has 15 days off); we watched a man bringing a bundle of materials up on his shoulder, slowly climbing up this steep dirt track.

We went down by way of the trails that exist for students at the Canadian Biological Station, a much more pleasant way of descending. We were shortly out of the clouds and in bright sunshine – which is where we met our only little cloudburst. We were refreshed by some gentle rain, even though it was hard to find the cloud above us in the aqua blue sky.

We had walked for about seven hours, through the rain forest at the entrance to the Reserve, up to the elfin forest near the towers, and back into the gentile pastures of Monteverde. Stunning, magical and very, very green.

I guess a week of beauty isn’t complete without a trip to a salon. Alberto Guindon’s step-daughter, Melody, is a very talented hair stylist and make-up artist who came from San Diego a few months ago to be near her mother and give her son, Jaden, some schooling in Monteverde. She worked for years as a photographer’s assistant and enjoys prepping people for a photo shoot. She asked me if I’d like her to do my make-up and hair. I’ve never been a cosmetic person except for Halloween and when playing dress-up but was willing, so spent an evening being primped and then she took many pictures. Some of them were great, and we both enjoyed the experience. I still wouldn’t wear make-up, but had fun playing model for an evening.

Here in Costa Rica, August 15 is Mother’s Day. My mother died in 1998 and I miss her. I had the chance to wish Lucky Guindon a Mother’s Day, having arrived at her house with her daughter, Melody, who gave her mom a bouquet of flowers. The love that comes from your mother is one of the most beautiful things in the world, even long after she has gone.

On Sunday I gathered with the Guindons to celebrate Wolf’s 79^th birthday. It was my last evening in Monteverde for this tour and a very special one. Wolf is slowly feeling better as his medications get straightened out but it has been a difficult couple of months. I hope that we will all be together to celebrate his big 80th next August 17. In the meantime, I’m down in Cahuita with Roberto and the monkeys and the waves and the sweet sounds of calypso. Life is truly beautiful. Hasta la proxima….

This was put together by Ryan Kaplan, the Wedding Officiant who performed our wedding at Monteverde.

Here in Monteverde it’s the rainy season, but who said the weather is normal anywhere in the world anymore? The green mountain is no exception – after weeks of December/January type weather (tumultous wind, blowing rain, chilly), we are now in “puro verano”, that is summertime. The sun is shining and hot, the wind is casual, the moisture level at a monthly low. Thank goodness.

This gorgeous climate has provided some beautiful final days for me. I’ve been squeezing in as many activities as possible before I go – first back to Cahuita for a couple weeks with Roberto and the pleasures of the Caribbean, then home to Canada just in time for our autumnal beauty.

A couple of weeks ago, a new person walked into my life, one of those cases of the right person arriving at the right time. Caroline Castillo Crimm, a Professor of History at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, came to Monteverde to work on a book that will document the comings and goings in this area – much of which has been recorded in some form or another (read Walking with Wolf) but her book will look at the details of this history, in particular who the original Tico families were, something that is only documented in the government archives in San José.

 Caroline introduced herself to Wolf and me at an event at the Monteverde Institute and charmed us immediately by saying how she had read our book and thought it was “brilliant.” I, of course, immediately thought she was too! Her smile and enthusiasm is contagious. Since then, she has been mentoring me in how to get the book out – convincing me not to put my efforts into finding a distributor or agent, middlemen who will take their percentage while putting the book on store shelves amongst the millions of others. Caroline has written three books herself and knows that the onus will still be on me to publicize the book. So if I don’t mind doing it, she recommends that I spend more time writing to universities, environmental groups, Quaker meetings, etc. and offer my services as a speaker with an interesting presentation and a great book. The catch is I need to charge an honorarium and travel expenses since, as she says, I’m now a professional writer. I’m working on that part. 

So I’ve created an internet announcement that I will send by the thousands when I return to Canada in September. I love to travel and have no problem speaking in public and am, of course, very proud of the book. I’m honored to go out and tell Wolf’s story as well as some of the fascinating history of Monteverde. Caroline has given me a new objective, renewed confidence and a direction that I’m excited about.

In return, I’ve shared my knowledge of things here with her – over dinner we discussed the Monteverde Music Festival of the 1990s that I was a part of. Last Saturday I took her on a walking tour of Monteverde, showing her where the original families live and telling her some of the background chisma that one can only gather from years of living here and knowing a large variety of people.  We had a beautiful day for this walk, starting out near the cheese factory (where the milks cans were being delivered, some still by oxcart) and walking up towards the Reserve, the “northern” part of the community. I think of the top part of the mountain as “north” since it is inevitably colder than going down to the “southern” part, Santa Elena, where you can find sun and sweat more readily – even though the compass would tell you the absolute opposite.  Maybe it’s a Canadian thing.

We stopped for coffee at the gorgeous new home of local biologist, Mills Tandy, another Texan, who is the owner of one of my favorite little abodes, “the plastic house”.  Built with corrugated plastic siding back in the late 1980s, it isn’t any bigger than the modern bathroom in his new home, but for one person, or a very loving couple, it is perfect.  I lived there for a few weeks many years ago and thoroughly enjoyed its remote location in the forest and its very simple layout. Small is beautiful stuff. Mills has recently cleaned it up - because of its deep woods location, it can become a moss-covered relic quickly – and is ready to rent it out again and the place never looked better.

Continuing on to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, we bumped into Marcos, a resident of San Luis, the farming community just below Monteverde, who is an employee of the Reserve and was out doing some road repairs. He is one of the original founders of La Finca Bella project down in the valley of San Luis. Since the 1990s, local families took matters into their own hands and, with some assistance from the Monteverde Conservation League, have worked at creating a sustainable agricultural center for the community, growing coffee and other crops and helping each other survive economically. It has been a struggle but somehow this project, along with other initiatives in San Luis (such as a satellite campus of the University of Georgia), have kept this simple healthy community alive.

It may be inevitable that tourism is going to replace agriculture eventually – the pressure to move into a tourism-based economy is too strong and the difficulties of a farm-based economy too real – but the families of San Luis continue to face the future with a communal concern and intelligence. They have the volcanic growth of the communities above them – Santa Elena, Cerro Plano and Monteverde – as a good example of what happens if you don’t plan and control the development that comes with the influx of new people and the demands of tourism.

Wolf & Lucas Ramirez, former Reserve employee at U of Georgia campus, San Luis

Many of the employees at the Reserve have come from San Luis. I remember being astounded in 1990 at the fact that most of these young men (and a woman or two) walked up from the valley. I’m not sure how many kilometers that is, but I can tell you it is a long, very steep climb. They worked all day at the Reserve and then walked back down at night.

Caroline with Yory Mendez and Luis Obando – who I remember walking up from San Luis since 1990

I decided back then that there is a genetic fortitude to the people of San Luis and my enjoyment of this, along with their humble manner and warm smiles, has made it a great pleasure to know many of the families - with names such as Leiton, Vargas, Brenes, Cruz, Ramirez, and Obando. 

Caroline and I visited with friends at the Reserve before continuing our tour by passing through the beautiful bullpen, which worked its magic on her as it does on all, for a quick visit with Wolf and Lucky. Lucky was in the middle of a terrible virus, so we didn’t linger. Wolf was relaxing in the hammock that he hung recently out on their wrap-around veranda overlooking the goats in the field and the Gulf of Nicoya in the distance.

We then went back down to the Friends’ school to catch the end of the CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange) group’s final presentations at the end of their two month’s program here. Their professor, Karen Masters, also happens to be my “boss lady” in the Bosqueeterno S.A. work I’ve taken on, and her husband, Alan, who co-runs the course with her, is also the excitable and talented keyboardist/singer in the group Chanchos de Monte, our local British rock band that I’ve written about before (and went to dance to that night).

We hungrily ate lunch with them and then walked out to the Rockwell corner of Monteverde, past the controversial pig farm that supplies the cheese plant with their pork products, and to see the stunning vistas from that corner of the community. We had a quick visit with Mary Rockwell, another of the original Quakers who arrived in 1951 with her husband Eston. In a matter of minutes, Mary had us intrigued by her many stories. Caroline truly saw for herself the beauty that is Monteverde.

We ended our tour back at the meeting house to discuss the flower decorations for the wedding that we were all attending the next day. Caroline and I, along with Wolf’s son Alberto and his wife Angelina, offered to take care of that – very pleasant work but someone had to do it.   I am truly appreciate of the help that Caroline has given me – as I said, she arrived just as I needed a new inspiration for getting Walking with Wolf out in the world. She is someone who will only add to the beauty which is Monteverde.  It is all around us, every day. I’ll keep with this theme in the next episode of …………

First, the pictures:

Here

I was in Costa Rica from Tuesday to Tuesday. The pictures are the best part. But if you’d like to know more, read on.

I was going to chronicle the whole trip here, but I feel like way too much happened to write about it all in long-hand. A brief rundown, in bullet-point form. Unfortunately, the really awesome stuff (rainforest, rainforest, rainforest) gets a little marginalized in this format, but trust me when I say it was amazingly wonderful and everything I thought it would be and more.

Tuesday:

• Flew in from Houston, a quick three hour flight.
• Waited at the airport for three more hours before my shuttle was ready to go.
• Rode from Alajuela (where the airport is) to my hostel in San Jose. Lots of factories and really scary traffic.
• LOTS of issues with money confusion. I had to walk all over town looking for an ATM that would work and give me money. Colones-dollars confusion was an issue the whole trip.
• My room was really icky — just a bed and a folding table and a high window — the smelly bathroom was in the hallway (you can’t flush toilet paper in CR, so every public toilet area REEKS, no matter how clean it is).
• Went to the underground national bank museum (art, gold artifacts, pottery, and money) and saw the Teatro Nacional (national theater), which is semi-renowned as the only pretty building in the otherwise utterly drab city.
• Got lost trying to find my way back to the hostel.
• Went to a Restaurante Colombiano for an avocado salad and margarita and met a girl from Austin, who helped me find my way around and to a supermarket for some food for my breakfast.
• Went out with some American folks from the hostel.
• Puked. Everywhere. For the next 12-15 hours. So embarrassing.

Wednesday

• Still puking.
• Rode a shuttle bus (on which I puked) for several hours, including a transfer at a soda (the Costa Rican answer for a truck stop/convenience store/rest stop/cafe/meeting place), to Monteverde, in the central-northwest mountains.
• Checked in at the Tree House Hotel, this cool building in Santa Elena with a giant tree growing through the middle of it.
• Walked around to explore the area. The clouds touch the tops of the mountains. So cool.
• Visited the Ranario (frog zoo). Tour guide was this adorable girl who said, “for example” before every single fact she recited. So many cool frogs and toads to see — I learned a lot!
• Visited the farmacia (uh, pharmacy) to get some stomach medicine — I had an upset stomach most of the trip, but finally stopped throwing up! They keep all of our regular ‘over the counter’ medicines behind the counter and you have to ask the pharmacist for them (even pepto).
• Met a group of Canadian tourists who invited me to eat dinner with them (a nasty sandwich at the hotel restaurant).
• Went to a little rasta bar with the Canadians.
• Was locked out of my hotel, which closed its doors at 10 p.m. Security guard (who spoke only Spanish — most people knew a little English) eventually let me in.

Thursday

• Woke up early to get a raincoat at the market. It’s drizzly a few hours every day there, but never quite miserable.
• Rode to Selvatura park and did an amazing canopy tour — about 8 loooong, many-stories high bridges through the cloud forest. It was so beautiful and amazing and everything I’d hoped.
• Went back to Santa Elena and walked around looking for a restaurant I’d heard about. Got pretty lost, but ended up at this fancy, pretty pizzeria way up in the mountains away from town. Mediocre veggie pizza (nearly everything there is bland, and they give you two shakers of salt instead of salt and pepper to season it!) for lunch.
• Went on a tour of El Trapiche plantation. A wonderful tour guide showed us the bananas, macadamia nuts, aracache, pineapples, naranjilla and other small crops, as well as the complete process of sugar cane and coffee growing and processing. At the end we got to make our own sugar cane candy, taste coffee made the traditional Costa Rican way, and eat picadillo made with local ingredients.
• Went on a night rainforest tour and saw loads of cool bugs, amphibians and birds. The experience of tromping through pitch-black forest with only a flashlight to guide you is really intense.
• Back to Santa Elena for dinner at Morphos, which has a cool butterfly (mariposa) theme — had a casado (typical CR plate) vegetariano, with rice, beans, local Quaker cheese, salad, preserved vegetables, and grilled platano (plantain).

Friday

• Rode in the shuttle with a sweet Belgian family, down the mountains and along the coast to Quepos (the town)/Manuel Antonio (the beach area and park) on the coast and to my hotel, Mono Azul (Blue Monkey), which was pretty plain inside but pretty on the outside, with tons of lush vegetation and multiple pools.
• Rode the bus for 200 colones (about 30 cents) down to Playa (beach) Espadilla and swam for an hour or so in the beautiful waters.
• Met the Canadians again and went to dinner at Bambu Jam, this funny tiki-hut where there was a band playing a mix of salsa, hip-hop and easy listening (these people either love that junk or think the tourists love it, ’cause easy listening is EVERYWHERE). Watched the others dance while we waited nearly two hours for food (mine was a dish of plantain gnocchi that looked like it belonged in a toilet but tasted delicious, if texturally odd).

Saturday

• Rode Manuel Antonio bus to what I thought was the park. Turned out, after I crossed a creek that was reported to have crocodiles in it,  that I was actually at the exit.
• Found some Americans who helped me find the actual park. Unlike national parks in the U.S., this one was marked by a little hand-lettered sign (Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio) in an alley between two hotels. Then, after a good journey through a couple of alleys, you came to the park entrance, which was a little more what you might imagine (a booth with a guy in a khaki shirt taking your money), then you enter the park itself, which was waaaay too cool for that kind of introduction!
• Explored the amazing park, which includes a little more than a mile of easy trails and a bunch of gorgeous beaches just off the main trail. Saw:
  • Frogs
  • Red and purple crabs
  • Spiders
  • Dragonflies
  • A sloth
  • Lizards of all shapes and sizes, including giant iguanas
  • A boa
  • A funky little raccoonish creature
  • MONKEYS (little capuchins)
• Rode the bus into Quepos, which used to be a little fishing village until the nearby park made it much more popular, and ate at this quirky health food restaurant called Jungle Cafe that used pictures of ’40s pinup models as its theme. Costa Rica may not have very good food, but it does fruit shakes WONDERFULLY and cheaply — a glass bottle of Coke (the only kind they have, really — and it uses real sugar instead of corn syrup and is really tasty) was about the same price as a fresh mango-pineapple yogurt shake or a straberry-banana-papaya smoothie everywhere.
• Relaxed at the hotel for the rainy part of the day, and ate the most bizarre ‘enchilada’ I’ve ever seen at the hotel restaurant — it was actually a deep-fried quesadilla in a spinach tortilla.

Sunday

• Rode bus back to Manuel Antonio, got wonderful gelato de cafe (coffee gelato) from this old Italian guy’s shop for breakfast.
• Beach day! Spent the late morning exploring the park some more, then went to Playa Manuel Antonio for a long session in the calm, crystal-blue water.
• Kept an eye out for monkeys trying to take my things on the beach. A little Spanish-speaking boy kept looking out at the water and SCREAMING, “Tiburon! Tiburon!” to scare (and eventually just to annoy) people. Tiburon means “shark.” Otherwise, the perfect day.
• Walked back to the shops and restaurants outside the park and ended up at a place called the Marlin, where I sat with these two Israeli-Floridian ladies (they split their time between the U.S. and Israel) who wanted to set me up with their sons. Nachos in CR are really odd — a bowl with a small quantity of rubbery melted cheese, lots of black beans, tomatoes,  cilantro and lettuce, with thick brown chips on the side — but I liked them a lot.
• Relaxed in the hotel for the evening. (I read a lot, as I had planned, on this trip. “Wicked” is strongly recommended. What a neat book.)

Monday

• Waited waaaay longer than expected for my shuttle, during which wait I ate more bizarro nachos at my hotel’s restaurant and nearly finished reading “A Confederacy of Dunces.”
• Rode from Manuel Antonio to San Jose with another soda stop, this time at a really quaint stand with a wood-burning stove that had a huge (probably 8 gallon) dented aluminum pot of soup people could scoop from, in addition to the normal soda trappings (nuts, fresh fruit, convenience store crap, fresh pastries).
• Back at hostel where I stayed the first night. They screwed up my reservation, so I had to stay in this even tinier room, farther from a bathroom, with a warped tiny bunk bed in it (and no other furniture).
• Went to the Automercado (grocery store) for bread, cheese and fruit as I was running out of colones and didn’t want to get more just to buy dinner before leaving the country. They really do fruit right there — a huge cup of mixed, cut up fruit that’d be $5+ here was about 75 cents there (everything else cost as much as or more than it would have in the U.S.).
• Hung out at the funky hostel bar/Internet cafe for a bit before attempting to sleep (I kept nearly rolling off my bent mattress, and the walls were thin as paper). Ended up reading a lot instead.

Tuesday

• Shuttle to the airport, then lots of waiting in the very nice airport — a man with a guitar played long, accoustic versions of American easy listening hits — then home to the U.S.A.

The latest from Costa Rica Community Service!

The Westcoast Blogger

Hello again to all our families and friends!

The last time we left you we were on our way to surfing at Flamingo Beach. Emily and Alex were naturals on the boards while Peter came in a close second to the ladies. We found ourselves getting up on the board and feeling like professionals.

The next day, we volunteered helping a local school by sanding desks and painting them for the students. Nikki worked hard while keeping track of how many desks we had sanded at the school while Jake created the softest and most beautiful desk out of a vandalized desk. That afternoon we went to Pencu beach where we relaxed in the ocean in a beautiful local spot and took in the beautiful sights of Costa Rica.

The next day we got back on the bus with our famous bus driver, Mao, to Travel to Monteverde. When we arrived we organized a soccer game. JP’s professional soccer skills were shown up with some serious skills by Anna, Alison, and Simon. The group started calling Sophie ‘the wall’ because of her stellar defense skills while Carly’s wild side came out.

The next morning, we rode to the coffee plantation where we were given the task of digging holes in between each coffee plant as a natural way to create fertilized soil for the plants. Peter and Alex excavated the biggest rock while they were digging, and Matt and Illana worked hard at digging all the way until our time was up.

That afternoon we went zip lining and were fortunate enough to see the top of the canopy. Alison and Alexa were partners sliding across the canopy while Mallery and Robin were the pair that screamed louder than the howler monkeys as they ‘zipped’ through the forest.

The day concluded with some time at the disco where Emily, Alexa and Micole were ripping up the dance floor. Traveling to La Fortuna the next day brought us to a large naturally heated hot spring. On our travels back to San Jose we saw monkeys, sloths and lots of amazing birds and other wild creatures like Gus that sported a pink child’s shirt for the duration of our travels.

We are back at Central Valley at the Hotel Monte Campana for our service project with the Costa Rica Humanitarian Foundation. Speak to you soon for new stories and perspectives!

All the best!

I’ve been in the house quite a bit lately due to the hurricane-type weather we’ve been having on the green mountain. I have lots to do on my laptop and have internet in the house I’m staying at, so I don’t need to go out in that wind and rain unless there is something on my social calendar that demands it. So Wilkens, Betsy and Cutie Pie, the K-9s, are thrilled – like most of us, they enjoy having company.

A relatively recent phenomena in Monteverde – likely all over Costa Rica – is that there are people trying to deal with the problem of street dogs. Veronica, the mistress of these three dogs, is a very kindhearted woman with a great love for animals. To see any creature suffer, no matter how small, breaks that kind heart of hers. Wilkens is a little terrier she rescued eight years ago in the U.S.; Betsy was found here in Monteverde last September, a strange tiny puppy left in a cardboard box in the middle of the road (a brutal method to let someone else in a car take care of your problem); and Cutie Pie was brought to a spaying clinic that Veronica, her friend Andrea and the local vet had arranged, and she was just too cute to let go.

The problem of hungry, homeless dogs has always been huge in Costa Rica (as it is in many places in the world) but the recent influence of North Americans – who sometimes treat their dogs better than their children – has meant that attitudes are changing. You see more purebred dogs here now. Costa Ricans have caught on to this new attitude and often are happy to get a fancy model dog, but getting them fixed isn’t necessarily a top priority or in some cases an economic reality. That’s why people like Veronica get the local vets to participate in spaying and castrating clinics – to try to limit the amount of unwanted dogs and cats left to wander the streets.

As I’ve written before, these three dogs have matured a lot in the last months but they are still a gang.  We live in a house near the cliff edge surrounded by bucolic pastures, the feeding trough to a couple of horses, bordered by dense forest, and the dogs run free range out there. Around here, noise pollution means barking dogs – when one starts, the whole neighbourhood responds!  The full moon of the last week has kept Betsy particularly on edge and I wake up with her nightly yowls still ringing in my ears.  Although I love these dogs (usually), I have yet to totally adapt to this new reality in Monteverde.

This is a place where wildlife has always come right to your window, if not walked in your door – agouti, pizotes, monkeys, birds, olingos, amphibians, on and on – but the large presence of dogs in the community is changing things. Most houses here now have at least one dog, but many have two, three, four, even five. Once you start rescuing them, it is hard to stop when you know a little dog needs a home. Another reason for people wanting dogs is to protect their homes from the recent rash of robberies (a whole other blog there folks). But the fact that lots of these dogs run free around the houses, often barking incessantly, and more than one dog creates a pack-like mentality, has meant that there are less wildlife sightings near the houses.

I say that, yet in the next breath I will tell you a tale about the visiting white-faced monkeys. I was sitting here working on my laptop the other day, one of the few beautifully warm and sunny ones we’ve had this week. The top half of the door was open and the dogs were running around outside. I glanced up and noticed the branch of the tree just four feet from the door was frantically nodding up and down. It wasn’t long before the dogs were jumping around, barking up a storm. I went to see what was going on. As I headed out the open door, I stared right into the white-face of a capuchin monkey. I could almost touch it. On further scrutiny, I realized there were four more crawling around the branches – one very young – eating the tree’s little fruits (the kind, I’m sorry, I can’t say).

The dogs, all short-legged, were driven insane by the fact that these smaller creatures were just out of reach. The monkeys were coming down, quite aggressively as white-faced monkeys will be, barring their teeth in primate-sneers and jumping up and down on the branches. I put the puppies in the house where they stayed glued to window, watching the intruders. The monkeys stayed around for at least fifteen minutes, shaking the tree and almost smiling in glee. I’m sure they would have come in the open door if the dogs weren’t there.

So there you go, my theory of the dogs keeping the wildlife far away already disproven.  But I would still assert that having all these dogs around the Monteverde houses is affecting the behavior of the wild kingdom here. Generally the wild animals have returned in the forest since hunting was banned with the creation of the Reserve and the League decades ago and the critters feel safer. But as more houses are built on the edge of the forest, there are different threats now, and the dog population is definitely one - unless they are tied up or kept inside.   

We have a lot of talented cooks around here and a recent addition to the list of culinary treats is the new bread that Andy and Flori are baking. In an outdoor adobe oven, they bake beautiful sourdough, buttermilk, and whole grain breads. They have the oven working in the morning and then take their warm loaves (along with their sweet daughter Mora) around to different places in the community to sell…or you can go out to their home, which happens to be an old homesteading house on Wolf Guindon’s farm. I devoured the first loaf I bought last week while chatting with Andy as Flori and Mora sold the rest – great idea Pan Casero Artesanal!

My Canadian friends, Kevin and Doug Fraser, along with my friend Mercedes (the environmental education coordinator at the Monteverde Reserve), came to dinner the other evening. Doug is an award-winning biology teacher in northeastern Ontario, now also engaged in writing biology textbooks and creating teaching programs, who brought a student group here to San Luis, just below Monteverde, about ten years ago. There was lots of great story-telling, Doug entertaining us with his tales of going to Montreal to be part of Al Gore’s environmental disciples…the chosen ones who learn how to present a slide show based on Gore’s famous documentary spreading the word about climate change. Doug also was chosen to be part of the Cape Farewell project which took a group of students and adult mentors (Doug being one) from across Canada and a variety of other countries on a boat through the Canadian Arctic waters to Iceland and Greenland. A program developed by British artist David Buckland, it combines the creativity of art and the discipline of science along with firsthand experience to teach about the realities of climate change and through the creation of art to inspire action. What an experience! 

After our interesting evening, the men left the next morning on a hike with Eladio Cruz and another local guide, heading through the Monteverde Reserve, over the Continental Divide and down the Peñas Blancas River valley to Poco Sol – the same hike that makes up the introductory chapter of Walking with Wolf. Unlike the sunny, dry weather we had back in February 1990, they walked in torrential downpours that filled the rivers as well as the paths with raging water. Both Doug and Eladio seemed to be stricken with some kind of bug as well. I had thought about them down there in these last couple days, knowing that what the weather was doing would not be kind to them. They did survive, barely, and called me to come out for a drink last night and told their tale of crossing raging streams only by luck, the constant water rolling down their backs and filling their rubber boots, and their amazement at the fortitude of 62-year-old Eladio…now just a little older than Wolf was when I went on that hike with him in 1990 (he was 60). Even Eladio doubted that they could continue on traversing the heavy waters at one point, and did twice as much walking as the others. He ran back up the steep ridges to try to get reception on his walkie-talkie and cell phone to get help. My Canadian friends were as impressed as I have always been when out in the tropical forest with Eladio, Wolf and the other men like them. What an experience!

Wolf, Lucky and I shared a panel on the history of Monteverde for a group of aspiring environmental teachers from Bank Street School in the Bronx (New York City). This gig came to me thanks to Marian Howard, a former instructor and now director at the school who hosted me in her home in the Bronx last April. It was wonderful to listen to Lucky since I haven’t heard her tell her own tales of life in early Monteverde in years. Her experiences as a young woman, mother of eight, living as a pioneer, learning to do just about everything in a different way than the way it was done in her home state of Iowa, was fascinating. Wolf, feeling pretty good and talking in a strong voice, added in stories of selling chainsaws and felling trees, the beginning of the cheese factory and the Reserve. I chimed in with additional stories that I’ve gathered, many from the book. It was a very pleasant afternoon that ended in the sale of several books. A good experience!

This weekend I’m going to help decorate the Friends meeting house for the Sunday afternoon wedding of Jannelle Wilkins, the Executive Director at the Monteverde Institute. I’ve been seeking out peace lilies (callas) and will join a few other folks to make the place beautiful for what will no doubt be a special day. May this crazy wind and rain stop before then – in fact, this morning has dawned clear and bright. And, hopefully, people will leave their dogs at home.

The last several months have been filled with love and wonder, but it would seem that the cross-cultural, cross-countries relationship between Roberto and I is being put to the test. We have taken a break and today he headed back to his home on the Caribbean coast. I am here in Monteverde with my three dog friends to keep me company. Relationships are hard to make work and sometimes you just can’t. Despite the many things that we have in common, the chemistry and the cooperative effort, we may not be able to get past some basic differences. In the meantime, we carry on…

As I write this, the earth just shook, another tremor, and thunder is rolling around the sky. I awoke with a troubled heart, but the day arrived with an almost clear blue sky and the hot sun consoled me. At some point,  layers of cloud drifted down through the trees and the whole world turned white with a green base. And now the gods are rocking the joint and showering us with yet another deluge. The world around me seems as unsettled as I do.

I have taken on a contract with Bosqueeterno S.A., the organization that owns the original Watershed Property that the Quakers set aside in 1951. It would be the original “Reserve” in Costa Rica and became one of the first pieces of the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve puzzle in the early 1970s. In more recent years, BESA has amassed some money and is considering ways to spend it such as local eco-projects that it can support. They have hired me, largely due to the fact that I wrote Walking with Wolf, to write a history and description of this beautiful primary forest that sits at the top of the mountain, skirting the Continental Divide and protecting the spring waters that furnish the community to this day with its clean, clear water.

As with all historical accounts, there are varying versions on the flow of events, the participation of different people, and the roles that were played. My job is to search for the common details which all can agree make up this story of visionary-planning by the community. Many of the original players have died and in some cases it is the second generation – some who were very young children when the Quakers founded Monteverde in 1951 and others not yet born – who are interested in telling their family’s involvement. 

In my travels with Walking with Wolf, I have seen the need to publicize Bosqueeterno and tell about this example of forward-thinking, as many people don’t know that the present day Reserve was started with this 554 hectare piece of land as a major part of it. Many confuse it with the Bosque Eterno de los Niños (BEN), a much larger (22,000 hectares) piece of protected land that is managed by the Monteverde Conservation League and was largely funded, back in the late 1980s, by schoolchildren and the government in Sweden. The Swedish kids named it Barnens Regnskog which translated to Children’s Eternal Rainforest and became another “Bosque Eterno” when translated into Spanish, thus causing confusion in the public mind. Due to the League’s websites and higher public profile, BEN is known internationally by tourists and rainforest conservation groups whereas Bosqueeterno S.A. is not nearly as well known, even here in the community.

I have been hired to collect the stories, write the history and then create a website, or more likely a blog, that will increase the public profile of the land and the people behind its conservation. Local nature guides and environmental education teachers will also have this information so that visitors and school children can understand how that early group of Quakers, hardly aware in 1951 that there would be deforestation and water shortage issues within a few decades, was inspired by God (as one of them told me) to protect this forest that in turn protects the headwaters of the Rio Guacimal.

This was the nineteenth year that the Monteverde Institute has run its Sustainable Futures course. It brings interested university-level students here for ten weeks to look at the issues of planning and functioning in a community in a sustainable way. This year’s participants gave their presentations a couple of days ago and I went, specifically because a friend from northeastern Ontario, Kevin Fraser (son of Susan and Doug, he being a great biology teacher as well as one of Al Gore’s disciples) was part of this. Kevin and a couple of his classmates created a design for an ecological garden on a piece of land directly behind the large Institute building right here in the center of the Monteverde community. This land had pine trees and cypress on it that the Institute harvested a couple of years ago to use for lumber, and so the lot has been sitting waiting for a brilliant idea to come. The students presented their plan for a small interpretive building and trails running throughout a multi-faceted garden.

This would be planted with a variety of organic, native and diverse plantings that would cover everything from food crops to a heliconia collection to bird and butterfly attractions. Having lived near and walked through this empty lot for the last couple years, it was great to see this intelligent and creative design. One can only hope that it will be implemented by future groups, volunteers and community members. That would be a wonderful cooperative project that would give us a beautiful place to wander, learn, sit and even eat from. 

In my last blog post, I spoke about not worrying about the possible calamities awaiting us at Roberto’s in Cahuita until we got back there. As it would turn out, they happened here – first I lost my wallet with my VISA and bank card, which I was able to cancel before any damage was done, but it makes getting money from Canada impossible. Secondly, Wolf and I found out that the local bank, where we do our book business, was mixing up our book accounts with his and Lucky’s personal accounts. We were able to rectify the situation and get their money back to them but it drained our business accounts. Sigh. Noone ever said that I was writing a book to make money. Or that Wolf, Lucky nor I were good book-keepers!

Then Costa Rica lost (but almost won) against Mexico to go into the finals of the Copo d’Oro, a major soccer tournament that Mexico eventually one.  Roberto and I went in to Santa Elena and Bar Amigos to be part of the festivities – always joyous when winning but quickly subdued, even funereal,  when the score goes wrong.  But I love being around the passion of the Ticos in their favorite sport.

And then of course Roberto left. Another sigh. I will miss him and his great humor, warmth and vitality, but fortunately I have learned something about love in my life and am relatively calm about the whole thing – or at least philosophical.

As in all relationships, there are tensions and hopefully through discussion, respect and compromise, consensus will be reached to the mutual benefit of everyone. Sometimes that doesn’t happen, but one must continue working in that direction.  Personal relationships can be ended, but communal ones will continue even when the individual participants change. And cooperation is important to our collective well-being. When there are good examples of positive community-work, they need to be recognized and then can hopefully be repeated.  Just as you hope that sometime in your life, you will stop repeating what doesn’t work. There is always hope that with time, effort and love, we will learn. One last, but not least, sigh.