With Benito as our guide....

Last Thursday, Alec and I set out early in the morning on the 3-day trek with ten other people to hike through the Monteverde Cloude forest, to Lake Arenal and the Arenal volcano.

Our Guide: Benito Guindon, (uncle Benny) our newfound friend, square dance caller, dairy farmer extraordinaire.

Our route: Unknown to all but Benny.

The legality of said trek: cloudy, at best.

Weather Forecast: same as above.

As we set out comfortably within the confines of the touristy reserve, I spoke to Benito and discovered that the only times people use this trail are when he takes them on it. Benito is the son of Wolf Guindon, who was instrumental in the reservations founding, and cut most of the trails himself. This trail gets hiked maybe twice a year.








For the first few hours, we followed defunct cattle paths and passed the occasional park sign, but ultimately this was a trek through a land absent of human intervention. It gave me the same feeling that snorkeling gave me the one time I did it: we were passing through a wilderness that was utterly indifferent to our presence. This whole world that we know so little about was growing, composting, flying & squawking around us, at the same pace & volume it had been before we knew about it.

"Hot Lips"

 A purple crab in the cloud forest

This reserve is so well protected, so little studied, and so unique. Benito told us the story of a fern specialist who came on the trek with him once, sent some samples back to a lab, and discovered 7 never-before recorded species of fern.

Our experience spanned the spectrum of comfort and enjoyment, all in three days. Rough terrain and slippery conditions forced three of our fellowship to turn back on the first day. It rained non-stop during all of day one, and we just barely made it to 'camp' before nightfall.

On day two, as Benito hacked through the forest with his machete and we all struggled behind, the rain lightened, the sun came out, and we rejoiced to see blue skies, and incredible stars. Day three led us out of the forest, crossing paths with a few snakes, and eventually, to a volcano.

Us and Kathy Hooke

Atop Cerro Chato, an extinct volcano with a lovely swimming pool

Us with Jessica and Ahren Klasen-Wright, our new best friends from Saskatoon

Bad Hair day at the Volcan Arenal

Wildlife!

Wildlife sitings are part of everyday existence in Monteverde. We've seen Capuchin monkeys and sloths in our backyard, and an incredible diversity of birds on the way to & from school. There are more species of birds living in Costa Rica (which is the size as West Virginia) than in all of the US and Canada combined.

Here's a taste:

Scarlet Macaw, cracking a nut

Capuchin Monkey, staring longingly across our yard

Camouflage

 

Our friend Chessi is standing at the base of this tree, and those flea sized black splotches to the left are cows.

Bats on thatch

Gigantor spider, Chancho in the backdrop

Sarah, conferring with a blue Morpho

About to ride the creakiest roller coaster in Central America, with Chessi and Robin

A sloth shakes his booty:

Chancho the Dog

Chancho the dog entered our life at 6am last Saturday. We were walking along a country road in Los Planes, Costa Rica, and he started following us.

We were trying to have a nice long hike in the jungle, sure to be filled with tapir sightings,  monkey interactions and quiet moments in the rainforest. Much to our displeasure, the dog stuck to our tail all day. More accurately, he ran 50 feet ahead of us, punctuating his pursuit with frenzied forays into the forest. We heard lots of bird squawking, crashing, and shrieking in the forest...but we didn't see much wildlife.

8 hours and 10 miles later, Chancho was still following us. As we were walking home we encountered a boy who claimed to be Chancho's owner (our saviour). Rather than taking Chancho home though, the boy tried to hit him with a big stick. Chancho fled into the forest and we kept walking with pity in our hearts. However, as soon as the boy disappeared from sight Chancho reappeared from the bush and continued to follow us.

After 5 more miles walking (including over a suspension bridge) we arrived back in Drake Bay, our home for the week.  Chancho was still there. That night, he curled up under our chair when we went out the bar, then slept outside our tent. The next day we went kayaking and he waited on the beach for us! By the time we were to leave Drake Bay, Chancho had become our dog.

SO, we brought him back with us to Monteverde. He now hangs out with us during the day and hangs outside our compound at night. We're investigating the options for taking him home to VT...

I now present, Chancho the dog:

Chancho...firmly entrenched in our hears...and our rental car.

Chancho after his first bath...he needed it.

how could we say no to that face?

goofin on the beach. We were worried that our kayak trip would be the end of our relationship with Chancho, but he waited for in the shade on the beach until we came back. .

Chancho in the early stages...Shannon looking not so pleased with his presence on our hike. In an interesting twist, he found us a pack of Capuchin monkeys towards the end of the hike.

yup, alec made that hat out of a palm leaf.

Chancho the ocean explorer

note the dog in mid-leap at alec's heels

Pie Social!

On Saturday we witnessed a 4.5 decade long tradition here in Monteverede...the PIE SOCIAL (capitals are to impart the appropriate effect that this event has on the Monteverde community). This event has been the talk of the town since we arrived in here, and we weren't totally clear on what it was going to be all about (or why there was so much hype). It all became clear in due time. First, though, some history:

The first PIE SOCIAL was held shortly after the original quakers came down from Alabama. The purpose of that first and fateful event was to raise money to build their meeting house here in quakerville, Costa Rica (Monteverde). The event has been happening every year since. Each year, this is a night during which the whole community pours their hearts and souls into 9 inch pie pans and puts them up for auction.

Thus, in 2013, we were sitting in the same meeting house that the first pie social had built, raising money for the new meeting house that we are building. Will the circle be unbroken!

Here are some pictures to help you understand the event:

At 4pm on Saturday afternoon, every house hold in Monteverde was engaged in the same activity. Ours was no exception. I made banana chocolate pie with coconut almond crust. Sarah made pineapple upside down cake (pie), and a vegan, gluten free avocado chocolate mousse pie.

Some local starving musicians provided music for the pre-auction pie-viewing (short haired squares need not apply).

60 pies were entered into the auction! This was the pre-auction pie-submission and viewing period.

Jimmy, the auctioneer (from South Boston) showing off a square pie, while Michelle (the other auctioneer) looks on with skepticism. The boy in front is doubled down in laughter, as we all were for most of the evening.

Post-auction pie viewing and tasting. If you won a pie in the auction, you have to share a piece with the creator. If you unwittingly bought your spouses pie, you have to pay double! There was also a silent art auction happening simultaneously. You can see some fine samples of local artists' work in the back ground.

 

This is Benito, our local dairy farmer and sloth rehabilitator enjoying a post-auction cupcake with his baby sloth. He is one of only a few people in Costa Rica who are allowed to do this (rehab baby sloths that have fallen out of trees...not eat cupcakes). 

 

 

 

 The next day at meeting we found out that the pie auction raised almost $3000 dollars for the new meeting house project! Combine that with the silent art auction proceeds and the whole evening netted $4,400. It's not over yet though. If you want to send a pie to a special someone in Monteverde (or anywhere else), you can donate $100 to the project and the pie committee will make sure that person gets the pie of your choice. See the Monteverde Friends School facebook page for more info on that (or just email us).

Out of all 60 pies sold that evening, there we some definite stand-outs. My chocolate banana pie sold for 27,000 colones ($54), Sarah's pies sold for 35,000 ($70) and 28,000 ($56) colones. The top pie, however, went for a hefty price of 55,000 colones ($110!). If you can guess what kind of pie that was we'll send you a special something.

Lots of love to you all up North. I hope you're enjoying a sweet something with a sweet someone in front of a warm fire somewhere.

You say Monteverde...

I say Vermont!

Monteverde is a secret outpost of Vermonters and Canadians. They've even set up the same institutions that you might find in the northern environs:

Local Yoga studio featuring $5 classes and unlimited monthly pass for $40 (take that Vermont)

Monteverde Cheese factory. Milk gets delivered here from 50 local farms, some of whom carry it by ox cart in metal cans. We get our milk from Benito (dairy farmer, nature guide, and surrogate sloth mother), every Sunday at Quaker meeting.

Now this is just weird.

racoons....Actually this is called a kawati, but it looks and acts just like a racoon. It eats the compost that we throw off our back porch.  There is this solo male, and then a pack of 20 females and youngsters that regularly ambles through our yard.

Jam sessions in our living room. Somehow 3 copies of rise up singing managed to make the packing cut (along with a 40 pound mortising machine, 72 pounds of chisels/planes/tools, 2 fiddles, an accordion, a banjo, and a sourdough starter that was lost en route...are we the same couple that biked across the US?).

Freak February Snow Storms. Just kidding, this is the driveway at the Mcintyre estate as of yesterday. Apparently the truck made it out alive.

Such is our life in Costa Rica. Full of the same wonderful things that fulfill and sustain our lives in VT. Much love to the snowy North!

Alec Makes it to Monteverde

Truthfully I made it here on Thursday. My trip was much less eventful than Shannon's except for the very bumpy takeoff from Boston in 50mph winds. People on the plane were screaming aloud in fear. Nonetheless, I made it safely to Monteverde by evening time. The man sitting next to me even let me share his ear phones while we watched a very violent movie on his laptop (Taken 2...not recommended).

On Friday Shannon had arranged a birthday party for me with cake and lots of new friends. We got the rise up singings out and sang songs for a few hours, then I promptly fell sick for the next day and a half (I think something was brewing before I left).

Thus, my experience in Monteverde has so far mostly consisted of the inside of our bedroom. Today I got out, and there is lots to share about our adventures. We went to Quaker meeting (not so adventurous), climbed a giant strangler fig tree, played music with new friends, and went to the Bel Mar hotel juice bar, where we met the manager. Our exchange with him was the following:
Pedro: "Hello I am Pedro."
Alec: "Hi I am Alec."
Shannon: "Hi I am Shannon."
Pedro: "Where are you from?"
A & S: "Vermont."
Pedro: "And you play the fiddle?"
Alec: "um, yes"
Pedro: "Yes, I have heard of you."

...apparently Pedro knows some of our friends from Montreal (he went to the University of Montreal), and was previously alerted to our comings and goings. We were startled, but we got some free juice out of the whole experience so it worked out well (for us).

Here are some pictures, lots more to come from the green mountain!

Shannon pretending to work on the Timberframe

Looking down out of the mountains into the Pacific

Shannon climbing up the inside of a gigundo strangler fig tree

Fig tree in profile...looks remarkably like an ent in full stride

Shannon chillin with the strangler fig tree (don't worry, it moves very slowly).

Monteverde Meeting Hall

So, the whole purpose of coming to Costa Rica for a couple months, besides the obvious (Get out of the Northeast in the winter!!!!) is to help out on a timberframe project for a community here in Monteverde. The community comes together around Quakerism, as it was founded, and continues to be grounded by, Alabama quakers who moved here in the 1950's in protest of the Korean war.

They were dairy farmers, and they left their homes together to travel to Costa Rica (which had recently abolished it's army) not knowing where, or if, they would find land they could pasture their cows on. They travelled by car and sometimes built the roads as they travelled. They lived in the capital for a year, sending out scouts to check on land up in the mountains that was for sale. They finally settled on Monteverde, for it's good pasture land and affordable price. They had to buy out both the land "owners", and the squatters who had legal rights to the land they'd been working for several years, as per Costa Rican law circa 1950.

They constructed homes, a school, and a building to house Quaker 'meetings', where people gather to sit together mostly in silence, until someone feels moved to speak. They had children, married with Costa Rican folks, had more children, made great cheese, and thus the story goes. 60 years later, the community has grown too large for the original meetinghouse, and is ready to build.....

Mexican Cyprus, invasive to Monteverde.

Before I came down here, I was pretty sure there was no way a 30' x 60' timberframe, made out of dern tough wood, would get cut with volunteer labor from the community, using hand tools, in 2 months. 6th graders and old folks, HANDSAWING the joints. But now I'm a believer, and am psyched to see this project through. 

 

Cedro- that's a smooth surface, with wild figure

A volunteer drills a hole

Cool Bug. Big Plane.