Pet update: One of the chicks disappeared the other night :( Now we're left with one hen and one chick. Daisy the chubby mutt is as sweet as ever, greeting me with a "pet me please" look on her face every morning. Oso the lab still loves bananas and stepping on my feet and taking my hand with his mouth. I've been trying to hand feed bananas to the ducks, still no success but they are inching slightly closer every day.
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| Daisy is always chill as ever, unless there's a thunderstorm. |
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| Luca was momentarily heartbroken when we told him that Yang (the white one) had disappeared :( |
Staff update: my co-worker handyman Mr. F has announced his departure after a month and a half or so here, citing the need to seek medical attention. But I think he's a bit frustrated about the lack of decent tools and the overly laid-back attitudes around here.
My update:
The original plan was to spend 3-4 weeks here chilling, doing a bit of work, adapting to the lifestyle, self-study Spanish, perhaps interact with the local community, before heading off to visit a couple of national parks for 10 days, which will take me to 15 June which is when my flight to Panama is booked for.
But after 11 days, I reckon I've spent enough time chilling here. It's an absolutely lovely place to be in, but there's just too little going on here. My mental rhythm, my internal pace-maker, programmed by living most of my life in a city is catching up with me, and it's giving me itchy feet again. I also haven't been studying as much Spanish as intensely as I'd like, and I haven't had any meaningful interactions with anyone other than my colleague Mr. F. here and the owner. Turns out the 'local community' is majority white & retired North Americans who own or stay in these big casitas in big plots of land (and come here for free ta, and not very many Ticos (local Costa Ricans) other than builders, gardeners and maintenance guys looking after these places.
My social life is hungry. My brain is thirsty. I want to do more, see the country more, interact more.
While I do 'work' here, I don't feel like it is a great use of my time or skills. Before I arrived, the owners said other than general helping out, they also wanted to pick my brain about the business-side, and give them suggestions. I don't proclaim to have any concrete knowledge or experience in running a hospitality business, but I did share what I observed and know from experience of travel, growing up in a very hospitable home and seeing how my family run their hospitality businesses.
But it turns out that owners have built this place not really with the intention of running it as a business per se, but as a lifestyle. The rental villas are a way for them to share this space and environment with others, and the rates they charge are simply to cover their costs and keep it going. They aren't so driven about business as to perfect every detail and fix every bit of wear and tear. They have people come here to use their space for free for Tai Chi class, meditation sessions, 'spirituality' talks and yoga class. They grow all sorts of fruits and vegetables in the gardens for volunteers & staff to help themselves to eat. Their groundsman Mr. M spends half his day chilling out and watching YouTube videos. The philosophy of this place is to share, chill and let be.
And it's a great philosophy. I just don't feel like I'M the one they need here. And there's just something about flying halfway across the world to clean houses, feed chickens, watch Netflix and learn a bit of Spanish on my phone just doesn't feel quite right.
Also stumbling upon this article has really challenged me and what I'm doing here
http://www.unavainabienspanish.com/volunteer/
But I sure will miss is sipping my morning cuppa watching hummingbirds sip their morning nectar from the Heliconias around my deck. And picking wild mangos.
So change of plans: I'm leaving in 2 days, going to Drake Bay (gateway to Corcovado National Park) for a few days (apparently it is the most biologically intense place on the planet), booked myself into a family-run lodge, and will get a local guide to take me trekking & wildlife spotting. After that, I'm looking into doing a 1 week intensive Spanish + Surfing course in the coastal town of Nosara. All of this is a lot more money, but at least it's going to the local economy and I'm learning new skills. I've also left a week unplanned at the end - I'll either be staying on the coast or going up a volcano.
Plus the mosquitos are absolutely killing me. I am either completely lathered in bug-repellent cream, or in Mopiko - bite-relief cream. So, I am literally getting itchy feet, pun-intended.
Random bits
This week I learned
- how to use an electric drill
- and what gecko poo looks like.
- Up until 2013, its largest source of income was microchips before the huge Intel plant moved to Asia in early 2014.
- Renewable energy in Costa Rica supplied about 98.1% of the electrical energy output for the entire nation in 2016.
- It is home to over 5% of the entire world's animal and plant species.
- It hasn't had an army since 1949, and they're VERY proud of it.
- Instead, all that money goes into health care (11% of GDP) and education (7% of GDP), making it a very peaceful, politically stable and highly educated and developed nation in a region quite often troubled by turmoil.
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| They love their craft beers here in Costa Rica! |
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| One of the few restaurants in this village serves international cuisine - wasn't expecting to find bahn mi and kimchi gyozas out here! (Gyozas were not great, bahn mi was not bad). |
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| Mango hunters |
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| Day off in the nearby surf town of Dominical - where I had the best grilled-cheese sandwich of my life (out of not-very many) |
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| "Pet ME, not the darn cat." - Oso |
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