Costa Rica, 2010, 3

: Monday, October 18, 2010, 11:11 PM

Something that reoccurs for me whenever the importance of staying open to new experiences and also the willingness to learn humility.  This evening as I was preparing to prepare my first dinner here I discovered that I didn´t know how to operate the stove.  Fifty-four years old and I don´t know how to work a stove although I have been told that I am an excellent cook and dinner guests have almost always asked for seconds (or maybe because what they were eating was vegetarian and no matter how much they ate they still didn´t feel full)  Well, this is a gas stove, and i have not cooked on a gas stove in well over twenty years.  Besides, whenever i hear or think of gas stoves I am reminded of Sylvia Plaith, the American poet who was married to notorious womanizer, Ted Hughes, British poet whose infidelities sent her over the edge.  I guess there is no need here to describe how Sylvia died.  So, I turned on the gas as instructed, then was frustrated that I couldn´t get the element to light.  I went to Esteban, interrupted his dinner, and he promptly came over to show me how it is done.  For some reason I could not get the matches to stay lit, wooden matches that would go out as soon as a flame appeared.  It worked for him, but not for me.  It also turned out that I had not turned on the knob before lighting.  So he gave me a cigarette lighter and now I can use the stove (the food was great by the way if I must say so myself).  It was great Spanish practice too, because whenever I`m bugged or upset about something my Spanish fails me and I want to switch to English, but this time we were able to do the whole interaction in Spanish. Tue., Oct. 19, 2010 at 7:18 p.m. Today I went to San Luis, a tiny rural village seven kilometres down the mountain.  I never would have imagined that walking downhill could be so difficult and painful but that is how steep the grade is and how long the road, which is mostly unpaved rubble except for a brief paved section where it gets really steep.  I was in pain from the descent and for a while feared that I was becoming ill.  The view and the surrounding natural beauty were worth it. The clouds were dispersing enough to bring in some sunshine and also to provide a clear view of the valley and the forested mountains.  I must have seen at least a dozen blue Morpho butterflies, those huge iridescent blue ones that have the wingspan of a sparrow.  As the descent leveled I took a trail into a coffee plantation and discovered a sheltered area with benches where I sat to rest a while.  I wasn´t sure what to expect of San Luis and for a while I didn´t know I was there.  It is simply a collection of farms, small houses, a couple of pulperias (small general stores), and chickens, dogs and cattle wandering loose.  Then the road narrowed to a stoney trail that went up towards the mountains on the other side.  I thought to go further but had already been walking for three hours or longer and felt very tired from it.  As I turned to head back a small family group was walking uphill towards me with their dog.  ¨¿Buenas tardes, donde estoy aqui?¨( good afternoon, where am I here?) I asked them.  ¨San Luis¨, the mother replied.  I asked for directions as to where I could get a cab since I was not about to try climbing back up a slope that nearly killed me going down it.  She suggested one of the pulperias.  I stopped in the nearest one where I purchased a bottle of pop, hoping that would make her more agreeable to calling me a cab.  She seemed at first to think I was trying to flirt with her, and I think we both quickly saw the humour in the situation.  It turned out she didn´t have the phone number for a cab but directed me to the next pulperia, just past the small cemetary.  There Mario, the young man who owns the store, obliged.  Since we had a twenty minute wait for my taxi I bought another cold drink and we stood around and chatted for a while.  It turns out that, like most of the Ticos I have met here so far, he grew up in this area and has never been outside of Costa Rica.  A lot of people here haven´t, as my cab driver confirmed, not because this country is too beautiful to leave but for lack of funds.  Even though you do not find in this country a lot of the desperate poverty in other Latin American countries (though it does exist here in certain pockets) there are very few people here whom I would describe as well-off and it is clear that many of them still have to struggle.  I have sensed in a lot of Ticos an almost steely inner strength.  They certainly seem very practical and pragmatic.  I so far haven´t seen much indication that there are many romantic fools living in this country, outside of some of the wealthy and not so wealthy North Americans who retire here or try to move here to escape from their past and reinvent themselves.  I am almost inclined here to wonder if the Ticos might be this way because they have had to protect themselves from being seduced by the surreal magic of their own country.  It would be like me, having to watch each step I was taking on the rocky road for fear of spraining my ankle or worse, and having at times to ignore the beauty around me in order to do this. When I returned to the Mariposa I had a slightly plugged toilet to contend with, nothing serious.  I went to the main building to ask Esteban for a plunger.  He told me where I could find one in the kitchen.  (The kitchen by the way is right next to my room in a separate building. It is huge with a dining area and veranda.)  I looked and it wasn´t there.  I went back to the office to get Esteban who returned with me to seek the plunger.  It was not where he said it would be, then he remembered it was likely in my bathroom.  In the bathroom he opened what appeared to be a secret compartment underneath the sink and behold the plunger!  Incidently I had to own up to plugging the toilet by carelessly flushing one piece of toilet paper.  Tico toilets (how do you like that sound!) are notoriously finicky and all used toilet paper has to go into the waste basket next to it.  Kind of gross, eh?  Then I told him to put on some shoes (he had been wandering out on the damp pavement with me in his socks.)