Journey to the Chocolate Farm

February 2, 2009. 5:00am. I wake suddenly, startled by a strange beeping sound. I have become accustomed to waking up to strange noises here in Sierpe, so I wait lying in the darkness for the irritating ringing to subside. I wonder, what the hell is that noise, it´s killing me. After a few more minutes of frustration, I realize the beeping is emanating from a tiny alarm clock my host mother loaned me for this morning. Today I leave Sierpe for the chocolate farm, north up the pacific coast. I´ve been asleep not two hours. Last night I couldn´t fall asleep, and I had forgot to bring my water bottle back to my room. Around 2:30 in the morning I was desperate enough to enter the main house and get a drink from the fridge. Of course the door was locked, but ma heard my open the gate, and came out to investigate what was going on. ¨lo ciento¨ ¨disculpame¨I stammered, but she motioned me inside for a drink of water. I opened the fridge to find an old ocean spray jug filled with cold water - I didn´t bother to ask if it was filtered, at that point, it really didn´t matter either way.
5:30am I sit in the dark waiting for my first bus of the day, the bus pulls up as I start to glimpse the first rays of the rising sun, and I am pleased to see it is a big yellow school bus. As I stumble to catch my balance on the stairs of the quickly accelerating bus, I realize that I have only 10,000 colon bills to pay a 300 something fare. I opt for adollar, which is worth about 550, and of course the school bus driver shorts me about 100 in my change, but I´m not about to fight with this guy for 20 cents. As we move out of town, we gather more and more people, it seems like you just stand at the side of the road and the magic school bus will pick you up. As they board the bus, the sky is still partially dark but their smiles are beaming, I am the only whitey, and I am grumpy. They giggle and tease each other as they walk past the rows, givng daps and hand shakes. They sit down with friends, smiling and chatting, and I am struck by how appropriate the big yellow school bus now seems.
I think back to what Bill Mckibben has been stressing to me in Dep Economy in recent days, about the importance of community in our lives. I think about how nice it would be if we all traveled to work with our neighbors and friends in a magic school bus.
In Palmar Norte, I get off the bus waaayyyy to early, as I have no idea wher teh bus station is, let alone that ther are multiple stations. I end up walking some 20 minutes to the station, asking directions all the way. I twice board the wrong bus, running to catch one of them, only to be turned away by the shake of the bus drivers head when I ask ¨Va por Uvita?¨ I could not be more out of place, but I laugh at myself and eventually make it onto the bus for Uvita.
2:30pm Fourth bus of the day, one more to go. When I got to Uvita, I easily find the mango tree across the street from the bank where I´m supposed to catch an hourly bus to Quepos, but I´m told that this bus won´t be arriving for another 3 hours 15 minutes. I stood there numb as a taxi driver offered me a $15 ride to Dominical where there would be a bus to Quepos in an hour, at 9am. The bartender, who was a woman - I don´t know why that mattered, but it did, encouraged me to hitch hike to Dominical. I laughed and asked if anyone would kil or rob me, but she said it was safe. I walked to the other side of the street, stuck my thumb out, and before I knew it an older middle aged white guy was pulling over and telling me to hurry up and hop in because he was in a rush. When he said he was going to Dominical, he pronounced the last three letters like in California, which left no doubt in mind that he was an American. We chatted along the way, he was from North Carolina, vacationing as always in this area, and get this... he had pioneered as a land developer. I started asking him how he goes about doing this, and he tells me that you have to be careful not to get scammed, and that he has two lawyers in the area. All I wanted to do was respectfully ask him if he thought he was scamming anyone by buying cheap land from the Ticos and selling it at hugely increased rates to foreigners, pocketing the profits. I held my tounge, him picking me up was a kind act that really helped me out, and after buying six of the most delicious bananas for about 40 cents, and boarding the wrong bus for a third time (thank goodness I ask each bus driver if they´re going where I want), I was off on a bus to Quepos. Quepos was the biggest city I´d been to in a while, and I was able to find a post office and an internet cafe (which was of course interrupted by a routine 15 minute blackout), before returning to the bus station where about 100 people, half pregnant or with small children, where waiting for an array of unlabeled buses. There was one guy who seemd to be running things, as he would yell out where the buses were going before they left. I aked him to please let me know when the bus for Puriscal arrived, because I wouldn´t have a shot without him. The bus for Puriscal climbed slowly into the mountains, stopping long enough for me to buy two empanadas and a bottle of water, which I was dying for. Finally we arrived in ¨Santa Rosa¨, which turned out to be a tiny roof on the side of a completely abandoned mountain road, where a bus would allegedly pass for Mastatal in an hour. I spent that hour unsuccessfully trying to hitch a ride, which probably would have been easier if I would just cut my hair or shave my increasingly ridiculous looking face. When the bus came I was glad to have finally boarded my fifth and final bus of the day, although the bus driver seemed to be giving driving lessons to a friend. This led to a stall for every hill, turning a 15 minute drive into a 30 minute one.
Arriving at La Iguana (the chocolate farm) has been an absolute dream, and the week I´ve been here has easily been the best so far. I am sleeping in a kind of tree house in my own room, and there are about 10 other volunteers staying at the farm, although they change frequently. We are staying in the house of a Costa Rican family, who are wonderful and I´ve grown close with. My Spanish has dramatically improved, and I can get on in conversation without too many problems, I´m even starting to make and understand jokes, the thing that has elluded me in my Spanish so far. Anyway, I´ll talk more about La Iguana soon, I have to get back for dinner now. The meals are absolutely glorious, so much rice and beans with every meal, I´m absolutely in heaven, and over eating too much. Until next time, Pura Vida.