Tico life for a few days

- January 06, 2020

Hmmm, what to write about this. I'm torn because it is a touchy subject right now. I will at least say that I went to spend a few days at a friend's Luis house, in his family in a little village close to the first place I stayed at in Costa Rica near Quepos, on the Pacific coast. Most of the village is part of his family: aunts, uncles, cousins. He has a big piece of land, cows that he brings up to high pastures every 3 months while the pastures close to his house are growing back.

That Sunday was the time for him to hike up to his cows and bring them back down. About a 2 hour hike up a steep path in the lush jungle. It was something I really wanted to experience, see how different it is from the tradition in Switzerland of moving animals from one pasture to the next. And what an adventure it was for me to hike up, meeting the cows and walking back down on their footsteps! They knew the way and were running down so fast, leaving lots of mud behind them, making it easy to follow them.

At some point my knees couldn't handle the steep downhill as well so I told Luis to just go ahead so I coudl take my time walking down slowly for the last part. That's when I stopped to drink some water and in this moment a man with a machete and a riffle appeared from behind me. I said hello, he answered back and kept walking passed me on the path and took a turn into the jungle. What a fright! But actually I knew nothing could happen to me and I was safe as the only non-Tico person in the area and everybody knows each other here. I found out he is the one that we could hear at a distance illegally hunting on the private properties on our way up. There will probably be some arguments in the village later on to settle this, as multiple land owners suffer from the decrease of biodiversity and animal presence because of illegal hunting.

It was also a few days a real Tico* life for me, living with the family, his Mom and grandparents all living together and all the sweet and funny cousins coming over. Also exploring the surroundings, so much lush nature, rivers, waterfalls, going swimming with the locals when it was so hot I could hardly move! I got to taste delicious local food hat I had never seen before. Including patacones made from the green plantain bananas picked on their farm. Sadly I don't remember all the names of the food because I just couldn't understand everything - even though I speak Spanish, it is a whole other language for me here!

*Tico is the way Costa Ricans call themselves :-)

On the way to the village, crossing the palm tree plantation for oil - they still use buffaloes to carry the palm fruit. Here they are brought to the river in the late afternoon to drink water. It is a huge desolated dark mono-culture, yet very peaceful and quiet.