Alexis' Waterfall Chateau

Alexis met us half an hour up the road, gorilla-like and wielding a machete.  He whispered to me that the paths on our route were treacherous, so we would have to walk single-file in some places.   This little spark of danger made me a little nervous, but it was worth it, as Alexis would take us on one of the most diverse and beautiful hikes that I have been on in a long time.  We started in the forest, looking for snakes, those tiny adorable leaf cutter ants, and (I quote here) 'monkeys moving in troops swinging through the trees'.  That is right -- apparently monkeys move in troops (troupes?).  Through some clearing in the brush, we could see the entire valley spread below us.  Completely green and terraced with coffee plantations, it continued on forever.  Alexis took us to two waterfalls, looming giants which you could barely approach because the water fell too strong.  The rocks stood slippery with algae and slime, no path existing, and I realized that this is not a place that many people get to see. 

After swimming in rapids, Alexis took us to his own farm.  It lay bare on a mountainside, the coffee, pepper, chayote, and blackberry plants raising a kaleidoscopal labyrinth which induces a mixture of diziness and wonder.  He kept some land fallow, and we climbed up to the bald peak of a hill -- in fog so thick it was almost solid.  Leaving the forest and instantly coming to this foggy wonderland was, without any other words to put it, horror-movie-creepy.  'Oh-my-God-someone-is-going-to-kill-me-soon' creepy.  I would not have been surprised if the mist had suddenly turned red and a bloodthirsty Costa Rican stumbled through, dual-wielding machetes.  But, Alexis guided us safely out of the fog and to his house.  Like everything during this experience, it was out of a fairy tale; built by hand, his house is made of smooth logs of different colors, fitting together to make the quaintest dwelling imaginable.  It is decorated with hundreds of gourds hanging from the ceiling, mini-watercolors plastering the walls, and woven baskets in the corners.  The furniture is cut by hand and topped with animal pelts.  He has three trout ponds out back, with more than a thousand minnows swimming in each.  And there we are, standing in the middle, jaws agape and marveling at the personality and color of the place.

Note: at the end of the trip, Alexis asked us all to sign a piece of wood.  He is going to have his daughter paint scenery around the signatures and hang it up on his wall.

Melvin #1 and the Cheese Factory

For our first excursion we drove even further up into the mountains.  

Melvin lives an hour from town and has a farm that mainly produces cheese.  We arrived at 6:30, just in time to lend him a hand with the morning milking.  He shames our weak American fingers, producing fire-hose strength streams of milk while we barely get a tinkle. Melvin is an ageless child, standing  5 feet tall and skinny, a large face and mocking grin.  Wearing knee-high rubber boots, he slogs through the mud and cowpies, directing the flow of cows in and out of the barn.  After the milking, we start with the cheese-making process.  He takes all of the fresh milk (about 2 buckets worth) and strains it into a bowl.  Melvin then adds 3 (or was it 4?)(or 5?) drops of a chemical that magically speeds up the separation of the curd from the whey.  And we wait an hour, conveniently greeted by a breakfast of eggs, tortillas, and fried plantains.  Melvin's wife and brother cooked for us, the kids amazed that they could make so much food over a tiny wood stove (with fire! and smoke!).     

After breakfast, Melvin showed us his farm.  It was like seeing a Latin American Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory guided by a shrunken Costa Rican Gene Wilder.  He walked everywhere with a machete.  We went to his sugarcane fields, where in one smooth arc he lopped off three stalks and carved them into little edible sugar bombs for the students. We toured his pigs, turkeys, rabbits, chickens, genetically-inhanced-dwarf-dogs, and horses -- making it back to see the cheese develop.  The next step is, strangely (is there really anything strange in this place?), to pour hot water over the cheese.  Somehow, the solid part becomes more defined, and Melvin carefully pours out the excess liquid.  He continually lectures us on the importance of hygeniety -- while he fondles the cheese like a piece of play-do.

Nonetheless, we taste the cheese and it is amazing with a pinch of salt.  The students are, by now, cracked out on a combination of endless coffee and sugarcane, so we leave Melvin's farm frollicking and in high spirits, ready for the second leg of our day.  

Some things that I did during my first week in Los Angeles de Paramo

1. Bought $800 worth of cement and cement accesories in a nearby town

2. Began teaching most of the neighboorhood population of children how to juggle

3. Wove a basket out of newspaper and wood glue

4. Got my 2010 Hyundai Tuscon stuck in a ditch

5. Ate tasty homemade Costa Rican food with only a spoon

6. Did not get bit by any mosquitos

7. Planned out our 16-person group's stay for the rest of the month

The First Week: And So, It Begins

I stepped off the plane in San Jose to find that American Airlines had lost my luggage.  "No big deal," I told myself.  "You can't do anything about that".  The incompetence of American Airlines actually allowed me an extra day to explore San Jose before I had to head to the village where we would stay for a month.  I immediately got lost in San Jose, a city of interminable signless streets and potholed pavement.  In big areas, I try to move with the crowd, to become lost and overcome with the collective sentiment.  But here, it is impossible.  You find some streets in the center strangely deserted, and others filled with people on individual trajectories, like arrows horse-blinded to their purpose.  Then there are the lotterymen and street vendors, barking eddies of desperation, making you wonder 'do they actually sell any of this stuff?'.  

So I left the city a day late and slightly disillusioned, but ready to find out everything I could about my new home.  The road from San Jose to Los Angeles de Paramo is, when compared with anything in the USA, treacherous.  The Panamericana (a main highway in Costa Rica) is a two-lane windy mountain road.  Common obstacles are: fog so thick you have to slow to a crawl, rock slides closing off half the road, Mack trucks in your lane speeding at you head on as they try to pass slower Mack trucks, scooters, bicycles, angry Panamanian window tinted tailgating BMWs, and your  own exhaustion as you fight to hang on to the inside of every curve.

Leaving the Panamericana, I had to take a dirt road an hour into the mountains.  It is a different kind of horrible than the Panamericana, requiring slow and careful driving to avoid the ditches where you could get your 2010 Hyundai Tuscon stuck forever.  At one point, the road had even been closed down for a month -- a mudslide due to heavy rains washed it completely away.  So I arrived in Los Angeles de Paramo in a drained and dazed state, carried only by the momentum of the roads and some odd vestige of energy I had tucked away before the trip.  

My first meeting was with our Costa Rica contact, Juan Vianey, and the local-head-of-town-shop-owner, Hugo.  I was so exhausted during that interaction that I sat sipping my blackberry smoothie while they blabbered away in fast Costa Rican Spanish.  Apparently, they had decided a lot of things during that conversation, including but not limited to: (1) I was to stay with Hugo for the week (2) All of our projects for a month (3) and that Juan was going to sell Hugo his 15-passenger green Safari Land Rover.  Juan left in his tiny green truck, and there I was, up in the clouds and coffee plantations, preparing myself for what would be one of the craziest months of my life.