A Slice of Heaven

No promises on the reliability of this, or even how long it might take for it to arrive, but just in case you feel like sending me mail while I’m down here, here’s the address:

Rancho Margot
Katie Osland
P.O. Box 124-4417
La Fortuna, Costa Rica

I had a little taste of heaven last night. Most volunteers only stay for about a month and it seems that this week and the next is when just about everyone is saying farewell to the ranch and leaving town. This is rather unfortunate as it seems that just as soon as you start to get to know someone (granted, I’ve been here 4 days) they leave. And it is kind of demotivating to try to get to know anyone when they are still here. However, in honor of each person leaving, or just as an escape, they walk 40 minutes into the dark jungle down the one gravel road away from the ranch to the oasis locally known as “Pizza John’s.” This oasis, formally known as “El Jardín Escondido” (which does translate to oasis), was just what I needed. We lucked out in that it absolutely poured about 10 minutes before we left, and then poured even harder about 20 minutes after we arrived but left us fairly dry, except for the mini stream crossings along the way on our trek there and back. As I mentioned in my last blog, nighttime is really dark here. It is especially dark when there are clouds covering any semblance of moon and/or stars. So far, I haven’t seen a clear night.
When I found out that it was a few people’s last night and just about everyone who was anyone at the ranch was heading out to Pizza John’s, of course Andrea and I said yes. In typical Latin American form, we left at 6:45 instead of the planned upon time of 5pm. After maneuvering amongst the rocks and mini streams and darkening jungle we finally arrived to the edge of the little town El Castillo (Castle) and Pizza John’s.

Pizza John is a middle-aged baby boomer ex-pat from Los Angeles with long gray hair that he had pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He amicably greeted me and Andrea and asked us how things were going thus far and told us the run-down. Ted, a 20-something from North Carolina, provided comic relief and took our orders with a thin, nearly full spiral notebook and a #2 pencil. Flo appointed herself as official photographer for the evening and told us we were truly in the best place in all of Costa Rica in terms of getting to see the best of the countryside. She hails from France and has been to Costa Rica twice before. She met Pizza John while hitchhiking along the road. Tired of being denied a ride by car after car, she decided to take matters into her own hands and jump in front of the next passing vehicle, flailing her arms and essentially hoping that whoever was driving had some sense of compassion towards one’s fellow human being, and also wasn’t going too fast to come to a complete stop before running her over. In Flo’s case, she lucked out and Pizza John came to a quick, complete stop: she and Pizza John have been friends ever since.

For 3000 colones, or about six U.S. dollars, you can get a homemade 8-slice pizza with homemade crust and ingredients to order. Andrea and I split a pizza with ham, mushroom, and tomato (guess who picked that combination) and loved every bite of the gooey goodness. In keeping with the friendly at-home atmosphere, John told us to just grab whatever drinks we wanted out of the fridge. I chose a Pilsen, which is one of the two main Costa Rican beers offered throughout the country. It was decent enough for a domestic beer and plenty chilled, quickly beading up with condensation as soon as I removed it from the fridge thanks to the inevitable 250% humidity. Pizza and beer would have sufficed to make the trip to the oasis worth it; however, after all that, it was ice cream time. For any and all of you who know me decently well, you are most likely aware of my obsession with ice cream. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I have found my new favorite spot here in the jungles of Costa Rica. Homemade ice cream. Vanilla, Vanilla peanut, chocolate, chocolate coconut, horchata, I didn’t know what to choose! Deciding to go with the most exotic “can’t get this at home” flavor, I picked horchata and spent the next 5 minutes or so enjoying every last bite of the lingering flavors of cream, milk, sugar, and cinnamon that did indeed replicate an horchata (milk-based drink usually made from a mix but this, I was assured, was no mix). Pizza, beer, ice cream, people, music, jungle. In this moment, I was happy. I felt a little less isolated and a little more at home. And it was cheap too, coupled with an hour and a half brisk walk! Despite the cloud cover we were able to just barely make out a few spurts of lava erupting from the active Volcán Arenal that sits majestically at the edge of Lake Arenal, orangish-red against the black night. This crazy excursion all ended at the late hour of 10:30pm when we arrived back at the bungalow. Whew! Now that I get up at 6:30am every morning, and considering there is little in the way of technology or billions of people to distract me, getting to bed early is really not so hard. (But don’t expect that trend to continue upon my return to the good ol’ U.S. of A.!)

A couple nice perks of being interns includes: a bungalow, which I found out the other day is not only a mansion compared to the bunkhouses which have room for a bunk bed and one, maybe two, people standing, but also has a private bathroom with warm water. The fieldhouse doesn’t get the privilege of having its water heated through the coils in the compost pile before pouring out of the faucet or showerhead. Also, while the connection is in no way fast, we do have access to the Internet. Being in the jungle as we are, the connection is very slow and the more people who connect, the slower it goes. Therefore, everyone else is banned from knowing the password and must share one central community computer that is almost always in use. This is definitely a difference I try to hide as best as possible; however, everyone knows we have Internet on our computers and I always feel bad getting onto Skype and chatting away. I justify this by the fact that they will not be here as long as I will be, and they are returning to civilization and high speed Internet quite soon. Therefore, consider yourself lucky if you hear from me via Skype throughout these next couple months.

I promised to tell you about the awesome innovations occurring around the ranch but I’m just about at 2 single spaced pages and it is nearly time for me to conk out before the new day begins so you’ll have to wait yet again. I’m not sure if the frequency of these posts will continue, but I do hope to write at least once a week at best. It will soon be time to start writing my papers for my internship class, and that will surely take most of my free time. I am excited for whatever the weekend will hold, hopefully some exploration of this place that I find myself in.

Until the next time,
Cheers!

Oh, and happy Fourth of July!

Katie