My first week in La Legua

So, I´m back in San Jose for the day.  La Legua (where I´m spending my IP) is basically in the middle of nowhere.  It´s high up in the mountains about a 2 hour bus ride from San Jose. The town consists of about 5 buildings including the church and small pool hall and 2 pulperias (mom and pop stores). The country side is beautiful though. There are gorgeous views of the mountains and valleys everywhere you turn. Lots of coffee is grown in the region (really high quality coffee too). Don Egerico owns a cattle/organic fair trade coffee farm. 

Don Egerico and his wife Doña Cecilia have 9 children, 4 of which live with them (Christian, 27; Samuel, 20 something; Rodolfo, 20 something; and Fracia, 20 something with two kids – Brian, 2 and Brandon, 4).  They have a pretty large house with a nice vegetable garden in the back. They also have two large pigs, 2 white geese, and a bunch of chickens in the back. From my tiny room, I have a pretty good view of the mountains. :) 

The past week, though, has been pretty slow.  It was Semana Santa so everyone and their brother was at Don Egerico´s house.  Their other daughter Mercedes came for the week with her 3 kids (Kimberly, 14; Johan, 12; and Jason, 1).  I mainly hung out with Kimberly and Johan for the week.  They took me to the soccer games the first Sunday I was there.  The field is awesome.  It´s basically cut into the side of the mountain, and if there weren´t a fence you could drop right off the cliff. It has an amazing view of the mountains beyond.

The rest of the week was mainly spent playing basketball with Johan, rollerblading, playing some pool, lots of reading, and a TON of Catholic activities. If you can believe it, I went to Catholic mass Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (the mass on Saturday was 3 hours long!). In addition, I attended the procession where they parade around life size figures of Jesus; Mary and some saints. It was pretty intense. Luckily, I had Kim and Johan with me for the first couple days of church. We just hung right outside the door of the church and chatted. The one fun thing about mass at this church was the band. They had a full out band with guitar and drums who gave every song a nice Latin beat. 

On Thursday, I went with some of the family to the aguas termales (hot springs). It was a really nice place. There was a decent sized cold pool and three warm pools in the forest next to a river. The water was constantly circulated and completely natural. We had a picnic lunch and enjoyed the baths for the majority of the afternoon. On the way there and back, me, Johan, Kim, and Christian rode in the back of the pick up truck. Now that was an experience. It was like a rollercoaster driving along the rocky roads in the mountains. We would grab fruit off the trees as we passed by and snack on them. It was honestly just as fun as the hot springs. On the way back our car busted out as it started getting dark. We had to sit around for 20 or 30 minutes with bats circling above our heads before Rodolfo came along to help. Good times. 

Other than that, my week hasn´t been very exciting. I interviewed Doña Cecilia and Don Ejerico on Saturday. Tomorrow I´m going to be interviewing the owner of a conventional/organic coffee farm. Then the rest of the week will be spent looking at birds, setting up traps for bees, and doing pretty much nothing (reading, maybe?). 

On Friday, I´m visiting Kim and Johan in Desamparados (a “suburb” of San Jose). I´ll be with them for 2 nights before going to Indira´s baby shower on Sunday. Then I´ll head back to La Legua on Monday. 

Until next time!