Our final trip...

the beached boats near the place where we picked up our boat for Isla de Chira
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This week has been such a wonderful blur for me. It's gone by way too fast. We left early last Wednesday for the Isla de Chira in the Gulf of Nicoya. Isla de Chira is a small island with about 3000 inhabitants and 5 small towns. We arrived in Guanacaste in time to have lunch and learn about the women's group who works on the mainland. Then we walked down the dusty (hot!) road with our packs to the place where the boat would take us across the gulf to the island. It was only about a 20 minute boat ride to get to the small 4 mile long island.

enjoying the water of the gulf of nicoya
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The local bus (an old yellow school bus) drove us to our albergue. The log cabin lodges were in the middle of the forest complete with a tiny restaurant and solar ovens. :) Guanacaste is a very hot place. Because of this many of the trees are deciduous. Since we were there during the dry season, almost all of the trees had lost their leaves. The island was so dry and barren (in terms of vegetation). It reminded me of images of an African savannah. Anyway, we spent the rest of the day trying to escape the heat.

The women brought with them caca de vaca (cow pies) to light on fire to keep the bugs away.

on the boat
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The following day (Thursday) was spent with a pianguas collecting women's group. Basically, these women spend hours everyday crawling through the mangroves to collect pianguas, a supposedly delicious clam. They took us to the mangroves by boat to see the process and to collect some ourselves. It was such a cool experience! We were given booties to put on our feet. The booties were just pant legs cut halfway up and sewn at the bottom. We were also given one long glove for our picking hand. We jumped out of the boat and into the very watery mud of the mangroves. We had to climb over and under the numerous mangrove roots digging through the mud to look for these special clams. It was awesome. I was able to find 2 (which I put back). They weren't too tricky to find. The women also brought with them caca de vaca (cow pies) to light on fire to keep the bugs away. What an experience. Later in the day we learned about a fisherman's association (Isla de Chira and the gulf of Nicoya are famous for their fish). The association is the only one on the island who fish with only a single line instead of long lines and nets, which are detrimental to the health of the ecosystems. The association also took the initiative to protect the coral reef that was being destroyed by fellow fisherman. They were very inspiring. We then conducted interviews with the locals about the women's groups on the island to see how they felt about them.

our room on the island
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On Friday, we talked with the women's group who runs the lodge and then headed back to the mainland. We drove to a very small town in Guanacaste called Ortega. We all stayed with families in the town. I was with a family who lived in a very small house on a very dusty road on the outskirts of the town. The house had 2 small bedrooms, a bathroom, very small kitchen and living space. Behind the house was the washing area where lots of chickens and roosters hung out. Four people live there including the mom, dad, and her two daughters (16 and 10 years old). They were very sweet people. I got my own room while all four of them shared the other small room. I felt weird about that. But the dad worked from 5pm-5am every night at the sugarcane refinery, so he really didn't sleep there when they were sleeping.

our gingerbread cabin
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On Saturday, we went to a sugar cane farm and watched the workers harvest the cane. It's a very grueling, dangerous process. They use huge machetes to chop down the tall canes in the blazing hot Guanacaste sun. They're paid a very miniscule amount as well. On the way to the farm, we lucked out and saw howlers monkeys up close and personal. They howled at us when we drove away. Such a crazy noise for such a small animal. The afternoon of Saturday was spent reading outside of my house and doing a presentation for the class. Saturday night we all went out to the local bar to watch the Saprisa vs. La Liga game (the two most popular soccer teams in CR).

in the boat in the way to the mangroves
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Sunday was a great day! We got up early and took the boat tour on the Tempisque River that RAICES offers for tourists. It was great! We saw a ton of crocodiles, one very close. We also saw more howler monkeys, white faced capuchin monkeys (who were climbing all over our boat) and tons of beautiful birds. It was relaxing not having to take notes on everything like usual. After the tour, we learned more about RAICES and what they're doing to preserve the wetlands in the area. The rest of the day was once again taken up by reading and a presentation.

the mangroves
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The next day we left really early for Nicaragua. Check my next blog to read more!