Trip to Grano de Oro

Prepárese - Prepare yourself.  This post is about to explode with cool pictures.

I am exhausted.  We spent Monday night in Grano de Oro, a town high up in the mountains.  And of course, being so high up in the mountains is one thing that will deter many visitors, but another factor is the crazy winding road we took to get up there.  Starting at the base of the mountains, it took about 45 minutes to climb it in the Safari, one of many death-defying journeys up the narrow, rocky, unpaved roads that always snaked around the sides of cliffs.  To distract us from what looked like imminent doom from the bus window, there were lots of beautiful views along the way!

 The hotel was very nice, with all three hot meals served to us and a pool surrounded by bromeliads, fruit trees, and astounding views.  The mystery, though, was how they stay in business!  We were clearly the only ones there this time, and I can’t imagine that many tourists discover this hotel while casually passing through treacherous mountain roads.

        We saw a frog in the petals of the bromeliad by the pool!

 Here's the view from the patio of our hotel.

After some lunch, we climbed in the bus and headed to the Cabecar territory, the territory of an indigenous group (called, as you might have guessed, the Cabecar).  This group of about 10,000 people lives in an area about 1000 square kilometers -- it's very sparsely populated and with all the mountainous regions, there are no real community centers or gathering places.  The main town is Grano de Oro, where there is a primary and secondary school, an EBAIS, and some houses.  The main form of transportation is horses (they can navigate far better than any car, or student-filled bus).  Here I am, with the mountains in the background:

The EBAIS that we saw was very bare-bones.  Everything is written in both Cabecar and Spanish -- since the Cabecar are so isolated, they've kept their language very intact and have a strong retention of their traditional culture.  There is electricity, but only to power the radio and the refrigerator.  One of our resident professors, Jorge, worked there for a while.  He and the other physicians slept in the same building as the offices -- it is a primary care facility-type building, but can also function as a hospital in cases such as pregnancies.  Jorge even delivered a baby on this table!

Speaking of pregnancies, women in this territory head to Grano de Oro (the bustling metropolis of the mountains) a week before their due date so that they can stay at a shelter where food and beds are provided before going into labor.  However, there are always surprises -- inside the EBAIS there was an article on the wall that said, "No sabia que iba a tener trillizos!" = "I didn't know that I was going to have triplets!"

We walked around the territory a little while longer, and ended up at a beautiful look-out point.

Just another day of class in the jungle, no big deal.

Back at the hotel, it was naptime for the puppies.  This has nothing to do with anything we learned, but the puppies (belonging to the owners of the hotel) were so darn cute!!  (even coming from a cat person).  Most of the dogs around here are lean and mean, and seem to serve primarily as guard dogs rather than pets.  The cat-calls around San Jose are not nearly as prevalent as the dog-barks!  At least in my neighborhood, there are tons of dogs pacing around the gate, growling and barking at passerby.  The poor things are locked up all the time, but to end on a happy note, these puppies were frolicking outside in the mountains until naptime:

The next day started out with a delicious breakfast (waking up at 6:30 is no problema anymore.  I've adjusted alarmingly fast -- it must be the bright Costa Rican sunlight that is out by 7:00 am!). We then boarded the faithful Safari to scale some perilous hills.  Check it out:

The point of this field trip was to get an idea of how difficult it is for indigenous peoples to have accessible health care.  One can imagine that it must be tough to hike for hours up those steep hills (we hiked part of the way and the Safari split time taxi-ing two groups -- walking all the way wouldn't have gotten us there and back in the timely manner that this program depends on).  But there's also mud that swallowed up our boots, steep rocks, and narrow, poorly maintained trails to deal with.  AND this is with sturdy boots (many indigenous people don't have shoes), and with a group of twenty-something students who aren't eight months pregnant or suffering from diarrhea!

We saw some pigs along the way (another cute non-sequitor):

...and then we made it to the Puesto de Salud, or Health Post.    This is so isolated and so small it's really easy to see why so many indigenous people prefer traditional (as opposed to western) medicine -- it's so much closer!  The Puesto de Salud, as you can see, doesn't have high-tech equipment either.  It's made of local materials and doesn't have electricity (big surprise).  While it's easy to see the inaccessibility of healthcare here, Jorge pointed out that an equally striking thing is the efforts made by Costa Rica to provide healthcare to these remote areas.

There was just enough time for a celebratory photo before we began the mud-filled hike back down.

You can see how the mud claims its victims.  Here we are, helpfully giving assistance (a.k.a. staring and taking pictures) as someone goes down.

Lunch tasted wonderful on the way back.  We did some serious hiking, and we had earned our gallo pinto.   But there was one more sight to see before we left Grano de Oro: the first snake sighting of the semester!  And this one wasn't just chilling on a log until one of us stepped on him, he was wrapped around a tree!  This was one giant snake -- speculation has it that it was a boa!!!

Today was slightly less full of crazy animals and intrepid hiking.  We're back to classes at CRLA, and although it's tough to shift gears from our English excursions to Spanish school, I can feel my habilidades improving.  I made a breakthrough with my family this evening: my papa tica (host dad) asked his daughter to talk in English, because I couldn't understand her fast talking.  Well, that was when I realized that he had been so quiet around me because he didn't think I wanted to speak Spanish!

Upon further investigation it turns out that many of the other students they've had were serious buzz kills, and wanted to speak English, not Spanish.  So after clearing it up that yes, I wanted them to speak Spanish so I could practice, I had an hour-long conversation with the daughter of my mama tica, which was great!  She lived in the US (in North Carolina) for a while, teaching Spanish as a high school teacher, so she understands why I want to immerse myself in Spanish (what I wouldn't understand is people who go to CRLA here and want to lapse into English with their Latino host families!)

Tomorrow is another day spent completely at the Costa Rican Language Academy.  We get to sleep in until 7:30 -- ¡Que maravilloso!

Hasta luego!

Anya