Five times barking (April 5 – 23)

that's how you open a coconut when wanting to save its juice

After two days in Cartago we went down South of Costa Rica to Palmira Norte. About two weeks before the incident in Cartago we met Joanna on the road, providing us with fruits and coconuts while we were waiting for a ride to San Isidro. Then she invited us to stay with her when coming back to her town. Since we needed a place to stay and really wanted to know Johanna better we went down to Palmira Norte. We spend there three lazy days, without moving nor doing much, as my leg still did not work fine.

Though not healed yet, we felt the urge to move towards San Jose. We got a ride by Luis, who invited us right away to stay with him as long as we needed. Thus, the last two weeks we lived in San Rafael Abajo, a small town South-East of San Jose capital.

Luis - our angel in San Jose

Luis is an excellent cook, providing us with tasty meals during the first days. When he got too busy with his work as a consultant for ecological-projects, we took the chance to make him feel like in a 5-star restaurant. Once Luis was vegetarian for 3 years, but then he decided to accept meat from time to time, as often he is invited by village people who only offer these kind of food.

Luis garden is a hit. Besides providing dog shit all around the grass, he has a little greenhouse, growing tomatoes and herbs. He also has got a compost corner. To maintain this we had to collect biological waste. In the kitchen fruit and vegetable waste was collected in a small plastic bin.

Luis's tiny garden has even a green house

Was it full, we transfered its content to a bigger trash bin in the storage room. In that big one, as it needs time to get full, meanwhile crew lots of white, slimy maggots. Was the big one bursting at the seams, the stinky-slimy waste was transfered to the compost outside. Being placed on top of the compost box, a plastic foil was put on top. Now all the creepy insects like cockroaches, maggost, and other worms did a great job converting the waste into earth. We felt really amazed about so much effort put into waste and the establishment of an ecological-home-system. Have fun trying it at home!

The best part of all living creatures in and around Luis eco-house were his dogs. In the front part of his garden Rottweiler Mariposa (“butterfly”) and Chihuaua Pinki are on watch. Whoever passes, whatever they hear or smell, they both run at the same time to the gate, barking like hell. What a funny picture, when Pinki, which is too small to look through the gate, jumps between its barks about 3 feet high to check the situation. In the backyard, separated by a gate from Mariposa and Pinki, Husky Beluga, Rottweiler-Mix Gill, and Terrier Princessa live in all but too great harmony. Gill and Beluga are both female Alfa-dogs, which especially makes Beluga suffering. Beluga is fairly calm. Its crystal-blue eyes and its welcome yowl are fabulous. Gill seems the most quiet, which it isn’t, as it loves to rule over Beluga. Princessa is happy and crazy for freedom. Every night it destroys the protection in front of the garden gate, slips through, and barks powerful. If I catch it doing so I only say “Princessa! Atras!” (Princessa! Back!), which makes it turn around and squeeze back through the garden gate into the backyard. During the day the dogs are fairly calm, but during night, when the street-dog gangs pass by, they are in fierce competition. Forget about sleep.

We are moving on now!

My leg is much better and I believe travelling will heal it. We give us two weeks to get up to El Salvador and to travel Nicaragua a bit, which I wanted to see since I was a kid. In El Salvador we have a mission. Back in 2006 we stayed in Copper Bank, Belize, becoming good friends with one of the poorest families in the village. We offered them to try and find Fernando’s family in El Salvador, as their contact broke several years ago for unknown reasons. We hope to establish a new contact between them, as not only this is important to Fernando’s family, but especially to his oldest son Otoniel (12 years old). His son has the dream to get out of school, go to El Salvador, and become a mechanical engineer. He wants to work and study at the same time, which seems hopeless in Belize. El Salvador would be the solution. Let’s see if we make it up there and how it goes.

We also wrote a blog for www.CoolWorks.com which you can find here:
“Angels of Costa Rica“

Sunny barks from San Jose,
Katja & Augustas