news from the costa rican campo (countryside)

here are some new pictures to accompany this update:
http://picasaweb.google.com/arisahagun/CostaRica2OutsideTheCentralValley

background / what we've been up to:
so our lease ran up in the "city" (metropolis of the central valley, specifically, heredia) and we've been traveling since then, the 15th. on the 14th, we came to san isidro for a permaculture workshop with a few other white people. the fact that so few non-white people practice permaculture is becoming more and more apparent to me, and i've been thinking about it a lot. i'm trying to figure out the backstory on that.

so after we moved out, we spent a few nights in Mastatal, a really rural town west of san jose. the bus had to stop at the top of a hill, and all the passengers got out and walked to the bottom of it because there was a small mudslide that wiped out the road. we eventually got to Marcos' little finca (farm). he made some really delicious food. here's one example: mashed potatoes, a little diced onion and cilantro, mixed with canned tuna, stuffed into cooked noodle tubes (i can't remember the italian name) about 4 inches long, then coated with "criollo" (creole, or, well, spicy ketchup) sauce, then deep fried. it was good. we slept basically out in the jungle. it was a 10 min hike into "la montaña" he called it, and we slept on a lofted structure under mosquito netting. when we woke up in the morning there were like tons of black/green-spotted frogs just chilling all over the ground (which he previously told us were poisonous if you touch them)...and at this point, we had only seen 1 frog in all of CR. ...so we were a little surprised by the amount there were.

we basically had to pack up and leave mastatal because the internet access was limited to 3 old computers in a hot cement-brick room with a slow connection. we couldn't start the beta test under those conditions. this was unfortunate because we both really enjoyed marcos' place.

so we hitched a ride with 2 irish hippies who worked at the chocolate place (la iguana chocolate) next door. they bought a $2,000 1950's land rover in san jose and drove it all the way out there. we rode with them to the coast and got off in quepos.

quepos is a hot destination because of manuel antonio, a huge national park nearby. the setting was beautiful, except for the rampant development going on. we found a hostel in the town of manuel antonio - well, i say 'town' loosely. it was basically a collection of hotels and over priced restaurants which had bottlenecked and corroded the entrance to the park. we've found that where ever there are tourists, there's wi-fi internet...and our hostel was no exception. mind blowing internet speed...best we've had. and in an otherwise rural area. so there are monkeys and parrots and bright blue butterflies and palm trees and epiphites and beach and tourists flying everywhere. and we finally launched the beta test. yay!

we stayed there for a week, and left on the day that the power had died for the entire town...we saw downed trees on the lines on the bus trip out of town.

now i'm sitting in noe's 'yoga dojo' (say it, it's kinda fun). back around the town of san isidro again. we've been here for a few days (since sunday) and i'm still trying to get used to the place. there are a LOT of contradictions and conflicts. crazyness and meditation, work and yoga, white and tico, native and foreign, really disruptive cattle farming in the jungle, permaculture, tourism, respect for the earth and destruction of it, paradise, paradise lost, objectification, sexism, racism, myopic over-focused anthropocentrism...so i'm a little confused here. i think i'll have more coherent thoughts of it after a few more days and some distance from it.

in the meantime, we're working to facilitate the beta test getting off the ground. michelle (our advisor at uiuc) recently made contact with a large costa rican organization which might be interested in funding/sustaining the network, so we're very excited about that prospect.