Hello!
Well, sorry for the depressing post earlier this week, and thanks for the words of encouragement. I am learning a lot on this trip, and much of it is about myself. I used to get a lot of pleasure out of anything social, including going out with tons of new people and talking a lot, even if it was about nothing. These days, rather unexpectedly, I´m finding that I don´t automatically get pleasure from social activity. I still like to be around people, but I´m spending more time alone than usual. I no longer really find it satisfying to talk and drink just to talk and drink, to fill the space, you could say. And there is a lot of that to be found on the Gringo Trail in Central America, not surprisingly. I´m not sure where the new attitude or awareness came from, but I´m sure it has something to do with throwing myself into a situation where I don´t know anyone, and even the culture is unfamiliar. It´s easy to segue into questioning/reevaluating everything... It´s a little hard to adjust to these emerging feelings, but I think overall it´s a good thing for me. I´m learning how to just be with myself, more than usual anyway, and I´m valuing the experiences I have with genuine people more. Some days are better than others, but overall I feel very positive and strong.
I stayed at the organic farm and found a really nice group of people there. After a few days of getting accustomed to the neighborhood, bus schedule, local businesses, etc, things were a lot better, especially with the local people. There ended up being several musicians in my hostel, so that was fun. We had a couple of jam sessions with a ukelele and two guitars...I really wished I had my mandolin. I took a capoeira class on the beach. That was interesting... Fun, but I don´t think it´s my passion in life! I also went horseback riding with one of the French girls. That was great. The horses here are trained a little differently. I haven´t asked anyone for the details, but the most distinctive thing I noticed was their trot. Visually and while you´re riding, it´s noticeably different. The horses we rode had a really slow, smooth trot - virtually no bounce at all. At the farm, I slept in my hammock for 6 days. It was awesome, cool and comfortable (thanks, SNL friends :) ). I stayed in a dorm my last night, and I missed the fresh air.
Now I am in Granada, and I have a feeling I am going to like this city. It´s small, with old colonial style architecture, and a really busy main street full of markets. I have a closet obsession (okay, not so closet) with markets. To top it off, there´s another city a 30 minute bus ride away that´s known as the city for craft markets. Yay! Supposedly, they also have several music stores, so I´m going to see what kind of interesting instruments I can find. Tomorrow, I´m going to go for a run in the morning and try to get oriented here. In fact, I´ll probably just spend the whole day wandering around. Then on Monday, I´ll probably go to Masaya, the craft-music-rocking chair town. I´m really excited! On Thursday, I head to the airport for my flight home, which is at 2:00 in the morning on Friday. Kind of a pain, but oh well. I´ll let you know how the craft scene is...
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Beach to present, and beyond!
The good...
Well, I´m a bit behind on blogging. It´s about an hour to get to internet where I am now, so I haven´t been online much. The beach was very nice and relaxing overall, although the tourists were starting to come in droves as I was leaving. It´s the beginning of the high season, so it will get a lot busier. I felt like I really got to relax there, and I gained some new perspective. I read some really good books. I stopped drinking beer :) I spent a lot of time with my Argentinean friends, who are some of the most genuine people I´ve met traveling, and let me stay with them for a week. And - my Spanish is really good these days. Not perfect of course, but I can communicate generally without any trouble. When people ask me if I speak Spanish these days, I say yes (instead of ´kind of´). Strangely, I keep getting asked (by several locals and 2 Germans) if I´m from Germany. I don´t think I have a German accent in Spanish! Either way, I take it as a good sign. Maybe, at the very least, it means I don´t have a screamingly obvious American accent :)
Thanksgiving was a huge success. I started cooking the night before, making cold salads and stuff, and cooked all day on Thanksgiving. We had about 19 people show up - 3 Americans and others from France, Belgium, Italy, Costa Rica, Argentina, Israel, England, Holland, and another little bitty country that I can´t remember the name of! There was plenty of food - I´ve never cooked for so many people in my life. Everything went really smoothly too, until about 5 p.m. I had been running back and forth from the house to the grocery store to a neighbor´s (because she had an oven), and about 5 or 5:30, she got home and ran down to tell me that the oven was out of gas. I had stuffed chickens inside it at that point and two casserole dishes waiting to go next. Eek! Fortunately, the Belgians own a bakery, so two of the guys left, balancing the chickens and the casseroles on their laps on a four-wheeler, to stick them in the oven at the bakery. What a trip :) They made it back safely and we all ate and drank wine. Overall, it was probably my most interesting Thanksgiving yet. Everyone thought it was really cool - a lot of them commented that the only things they new about Thanksgiving were from the movies. After that, I hung out for a few more days and then headed north. I did my first payed work before I left the beach though - I worked in a surf shop on the beach for 3 hours. They paid me $6. It was actually my friend Noe´s job, but she couldn´t go that afternoon, so I went for her. Crazy, huh? I don´t know of anywhere else in the world where you can send a friend to work for you if you can´t make it...
The bad...
After I left the beach, I spent a night in Liberia and then crossed the border into Nica. The border crossing was LONG and hot. First I had to stand in line for a couple of hours to leave CR, then I walked across the border (maybe a third of a mile?), then I had to stand in line to enter Nicaragua. Then I had to cross through a gate to the border town, where I got on a crowded school bus to go to Rivas. Tourism has done some not so nice things down here. The main aspect of it that I find frustrating is the people constantly trying to ¨help¨ you. It drives me crazy. When I crossed the border, every time I got to a new location, about 5 people would surround me to offer their guide services, taxis, etc. And they all talk at once, and get too close, and it´s really nerve-wracking. I think it´s worse too because I´m a girl, traveling alone, so the offers are usually mixed together with suggestive comments and lots of kissy faces. Yes, truly - lip-puckering. No kidding. By the time I got to the border town I was frazzled, and when I got accosted there, I looked up and said in Spanish rather forcefully ¨Look guys - leave me alone, I don´t need any help, or a taxi, or anything, thank you very much, excuse me!¨ That worked pretty quickly. I felt bad for shouting, but geez! I was definitely channeling someone more assertive than myself :)
The ugly...
Well, it´s not really fair to call lay all of the ugly blame on Isla de Ometepe, where I am now. All of this was fairly common in Costa Rica as well. In fact it´s really gorgeous here - the island was formed by the two volcanoes that are still here, in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. It´s way calmer and safer here than it was in Costa Rica. There are some nice beaches, and yesterday I climbed the smaller of the volcanoes. But...the harassment continues, and it´s making me feel quite alienated. I can´t walk around by myself without people coming onto me - maybe it´s a common part of Nica culture, but it really makes me uncomfortable. To top it off, the other day this kid followed me home in the dark as I was walking back to my hotel, and seriously wouldn´t leave me alone. He was 16, for christ´s sake! I told him I didn´t need help, I knew where I was going, etc., but he just kept on saying he could ´accompany´ me. Then he started trying to put his arm around me, asked me to kiss him, etc. If I wasn´t so agitated I probably would have busted out laughing. I literally had to remove his hand from my waste tell ask him not to touch me or bother me because it was pissing me off. Then he was like, ¨Oh, sorry, I didn´t mean to make you angry. Do you want to give me a tip for walking you home?¨ I just walked off. I figured it wasn´t much use to try to explain to him why I most certainly did not want to tip him for making my walk home extremely unpleasant.
So, I´m feeling a bit isolated. I can´t really blame the Tico (Costa Rican)/Nica (Nicaraguan) culture for all of it. Honestly, there are plenty of people who show up in the smallest towns down here, don´t speak a word of Spanish and have no desire to take a bus, and they want someone who speaks English to lead them to a taxi. So there is a demand for this sort of thing. To top it off, although there are some well-intentioned ex-pats and travelers, there are also plenty that are arrogant assholes, so I guess I might not have that much respect for me either, if I was from here, and I didn´t know me! There are some other travelers to hang out with - yesterday I hiked a volcano with some of them. There´s a French couple in the hostel/farm where I´m staying that is really nice, but other than them, I haven´t really connected with anyone recently. I think that I will leave here on Tuesday or Wednesday and go to Granada, which is a decent sized city. It´s supposed to have beautiful architecture, and I´m sure there´s plenty to do there. I´ll probably stay there until the 18th, when I´ll head to Managua for my flight home for Christmas.
Sorry for the downer post, I´m just feeling a bit disillusioned this week. Como siempre, estoy segura que solamente necesito tener paciencia. Espero que todo esta bien con ustedes :)
Well, I´m a bit behind on blogging. It´s about an hour to get to internet where I am now, so I haven´t been online much. The beach was very nice and relaxing overall, although the tourists were starting to come in droves as I was leaving. It´s the beginning of the high season, so it will get a lot busier. I felt like I really got to relax there, and I gained some new perspective. I read some really good books. I stopped drinking beer :) I spent a lot of time with my Argentinean friends, who are some of the most genuine people I´ve met traveling, and let me stay with them for a week. And - my Spanish is really good these days. Not perfect of course, but I can communicate generally without any trouble. When people ask me if I speak Spanish these days, I say yes (instead of ´kind of´). Strangely, I keep getting asked (by several locals and 2 Germans) if I´m from Germany. I don´t think I have a German accent in Spanish! Either way, I take it as a good sign. Maybe, at the very least, it means I don´t have a screamingly obvious American accent :)
Thanksgiving was a huge success. I started cooking the night before, making cold salads and stuff, and cooked all day on Thanksgiving. We had about 19 people show up - 3 Americans and others from France, Belgium, Italy, Costa Rica, Argentina, Israel, England, Holland, and another little bitty country that I can´t remember the name of! There was plenty of food - I´ve never cooked for so many people in my life. Everything went really smoothly too, until about 5 p.m. I had been running back and forth from the house to the grocery store to a neighbor´s (because she had an oven), and about 5 or 5:30, she got home and ran down to tell me that the oven was out of gas. I had stuffed chickens inside it at that point and two casserole dishes waiting to go next. Eek! Fortunately, the Belgians own a bakery, so two of the guys left, balancing the chickens and the casseroles on their laps on a four-wheeler, to stick them in the oven at the bakery. What a trip :) They made it back safely and we all ate and drank wine. Overall, it was probably my most interesting Thanksgiving yet. Everyone thought it was really cool - a lot of them commented that the only things they new about Thanksgiving were from the movies. After that, I hung out for a few more days and then headed north. I did my first payed work before I left the beach though - I worked in a surf shop on the beach for 3 hours. They paid me $6. It was actually my friend Noe´s job, but she couldn´t go that afternoon, so I went for her. Crazy, huh? I don´t know of anywhere else in the world where you can send a friend to work for you if you can´t make it...
The bad...
After I left the beach, I spent a night in Liberia and then crossed the border into Nica. The border crossing was LONG and hot. First I had to stand in line for a couple of hours to leave CR, then I walked across the border (maybe a third of a mile?), then I had to stand in line to enter Nicaragua. Then I had to cross through a gate to the border town, where I got on a crowded school bus to go to Rivas. Tourism has done some not so nice things down here. The main aspect of it that I find frustrating is the people constantly trying to ¨help¨ you. It drives me crazy. When I crossed the border, every time I got to a new location, about 5 people would surround me to offer their guide services, taxis, etc. And they all talk at once, and get too close, and it´s really nerve-wracking. I think it´s worse too because I´m a girl, traveling alone, so the offers are usually mixed together with suggestive comments and lots of kissy faces. Yes, truly - lip-puckering. No kidding. By the time I got to the border town I was frazzled, and when I got accosted there, I looked up and said in Spanish rather forcefully ¨Look guys - leave me alone, I don´t need any help, or a taxi, or anything, thank you very much, excuse me!¨ That worked pretty quickly. I felt bad for shouting, but geez! I was definitely channeling someone more assertive than myself :)
The ugly...
Well, it´s not really fair to call lay all of the ugly blame on Isla de Ometepe, where I am now. All of this was fairly common in Costa Rica as well. In fact it´s really gorgeous here - the island was formed by the two volcanoes that are still here, in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. It´s way calmer and safer here than it was in Costa Rica. There are some nice beaches, and yesterday I climbed the smaller of the volcanoes. But...the harassment continues, and it´s making me feel quite alienated. I can´t walk around by myself without people coming onto me - maybe it´s a common part of Nica culture, but it really makes me uncomfortable. To top it off, the other day this kid followed me home in the dark as I was walking back to my hotel, and seriously wouldn´t leave me alone. He was 16, for christ´s sake! I told him I didn´t need help, I knew where I was going, etc., but he just kept on saying he could ´accompany´ me. Then he started trying to put his arm around me, asked me to kiss him, etc. If I wasn´t so agitated I probably would have busted out laughing. I literally had to remove his hand from my waste tell ask him not to touch me or bother me because it was pissing me off. Then he was like, ¨Oh, sorry, I didn´t mean to make you angry. Do you want to give me a tip for walking you home?¨ I just walked off. I figured it wasn´t much use to try to explain to him why I most certainly did not want to tip him for making my walk home extremely unpleasant.
So, I´m feeling a bit isolated. I can´t really blame the Tico (Costa Rican)/Nica (Nicaraguan) culture for all of it. Honestly, there are plenty of people who show up in the smallest towns down here, don´t speak a word of Spanish and have no desire to take a bus, and they want someone who speaks English to lead them to a taxi. So there is a demand for this sort of thing. To top it off, although there are some well-intentioned ex-pats and travelers, there are also plenty that are arrogant assholes, so I guess I might not have that much respect for me either, if I was from here, and I didn´t know me! There are some other travelers to hang out with - yesterday I hiked a volcano with some of them. There´s a French couple in the hostel/farm where I´m staying that is really nice, but other than them, I haven´t really connected with anyone recently. I think that I will leave here on Tuesday or Wednesday and go to Granada, which is a decent sized city. It´s supposed to have beautiful architecture, and I´m sure there´s plenty to do there. I´ll probably stay there until the 18th, when I´ll head to Managua for my flight home for Christmas.
Sorry for the downer post, I´m just feeling a bit disillusioned this week. Como siempre, estoy segura que solamente necesito tener paciencia. Espero que todo esta bien con ustedes :)
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Nicaragua...and Christmas!
Well, I made it to Nicaragua. I haven´t ever walked across a border before! The trip was interesting, but I haven´t got good internet right now. I´ll blog about it later this week. For now, I´m on an island called Isla de Ometepe, place called Venezia, which is in Lake Nicaragua. I´m going to spend a week here exploring and then we´ll see.
In other news, I´m coming home for Christmas. Long story, but I kind of already had a ticket, so... I´m flying to Atlanta on Dec. 18th, and I´ll be flying to Guatemala on Dec. 30th. If anyone is still thinking about joining me around the New Year, I plan on being in Guatemala for several weeks, starting the 30th. It´s really cheap to fly before the new year! I´m not sure what I´m going to do for New Year´s Eve yet, but I´ll find something.
In other news, I´m coming home for Christmas. Long story, but I kind of already had a ticket, so... I´m flying to Atlanta on Dec. 18th, and I´ll be flying to Guatemala on Dec. 30th. If anyone is still thinking about joining me around the New Year, I plan on being in Guatemala for several weeks, starting the 30th. It´s really cheap to fly before the new year! I´m not sure what I´m going to do for New Year´s Eve yet, but I´ll find something.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Staphylococcus
Well, I went surfing 4 days ago, which was so ridiculous you wouldn´t believe it. It was really hard, but fun. I laughed a lot, at myself, because there was nothing else to do. I did manage to stand up once, for about 2 seconds. Glory! I´ll try again one of these days. However, I violated one rule of surfing unknowingly. I wrapped the leash around my hand a couple of times in an effort to hold on to the board as the waves were trying to rip it away. As a result, I noticed the next day, I had a nasty rope burn on the side of my hand. Swollen, pussy, the works, but I wasn´t too worried about it. However, yesterday, my friend Noe asked me why I had red streaks running down my arm. I hadn´t noticed them before but we decided they must be from the same incident. Later on last night I a guy in my hostel pointed out that those lines can be a symptom of potential blood poisoning. Hmmm...it did look rather nasty. I googled it, called my mom the med-tech, and well, I ended up being escorted through Mal Pais to the closest emergency clinic on a 4-wheeler by a Belgian guy with 30 inch dreads, plowing through the dust like we were in the movie Wild Hogs. I´ve never actually seen this movie, but I imagine it has scenes that resemble last night. His friend accompanied us on his own 4-wheeler, and they both did a little tire-squealing and engine revving. It was classic. After a long consultation with the medic in Spanish (I was so proud of myself!), I went home with instructions to take Amoxicillen for a week and to keep an eye out for blistering down my arm, which could indicate blood poisoning, in which case I should proceed directly to the emergency room.
Besides contracting a potentially fatal infection, everything is going great. I´m running again (yay!), reading a lot, and generally enjoying the beautiful sunsets and gorgeous beaches here. I forgot that I haven´t blogged since I got to the beach. I´m in Santa Teresa (near Mal Pais), visiting my Argentinian friends that I met at the ranch. I´m staying at a quiet little hostel with a few other folks, which I like. There are a lot of tourists here, and I really didn´t like the first hostel I was in - lots of loud, crazy, young people drinking all day long. Now I´m a lot happier, although I´m still anxious to get away from the crowds and actually meet some local people. I´m finding that a bit tough to do in Costa Rica! I think I´m going to stay another week or so, then go north to meet a group of friends from the ranch, then continue north to Nicaragua. A Swedish friend is going to meet up with me for a couple of weeks in Nicaragua. I´m thinking about coming home to Georgia for Christmas.
Hope everyone is well! More to come, including pictures...
Aura
Besides contracting a potentially fatal infection, everything is going great. I´m running again (yay!), reading a lot, and generally enjoying the beautiful sunsets and gorgeous beaches here. I forgot that I haven´t blogged since I got to the beach. I´m in Santa Teresa (near Mal Pais), visiting my Argentinian friends that I met at the ranch. I´m staying at a quiet little hostel with a few other folks, which I like. There are a lot of tourists here, and I really didn´t like the first hostel I was in - lots of loud, crazy, young people drinking all day long. Now I´m a lot happier, although I´m still anxious to get away from the crowds and actually meet some local people. I´m finding that a bit tough to do in Costa Rica! I think I´m going to stay another week or so, then go north to meet a group of friends from the ranch, then continue north to Nicaragua. A Swedish friend is going to meet up with me for a couple of weeks in Nicaragua. I´m thinking about coming home to Georgia for Christmas.
Hope everyone is well! More to come, including pictures...
Aura
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Aura's Unintentional Abuse of the Spanish Language
Ahhh...if only some of you bilingual people could have heard the things I've managed to say this month without meaning to. I think it's time for some comic relief. Here are some of the funniest slipups I've had with Spanish in the past month:
Aura (to Mosco): Me quieres hacer algo en el compost?
Literally, 'do you want to do something to me in the compost?' What I meant to ask was, do you want me to do something in the compost. Mosco almost lost it when I asked him this one day after lunch. It became a running joke from then on out...
Aura (to Noe): Que significa chino? Entonces, por que ellos dijieron que querian comprar un chino?
Literally, 'what does chino mean?' Noe tells me that chino means a chinese person. I then proceed to ask her why her friends said they wanted to buy a chinese person. Everyone laughs hysterically, even me, although I have no idea what we're laughing at. Turns out, I overheard the argentinas and another guy talking, and I thought they said they wanted to buy a chino (chinese person). What they really said was they wanted to buy something in a chinese store, like food.
I'm working and Jerry and Lolo walk up. Jerry looks at Lolo and says, 'Ovejas?'
Lolo: Si, si. Las tengo.
Jerry: Se vende? Are they for sale? Aura, can you translate for us?
Me: Sure, sure, but I'm confused. You really want to buy ovejas from Lolo? (I'm laughing)
Jerry: Yes. (He's not laughing).
Aura: Are you sure?
Jerry: YES!
Aura: Okay, okay. What do you want to know?
I proceed to translate for about 10 minutes. Lolo describes his ovejas, signalling with his hands how big they are and how old they are. We discuss when they can meet so Jerry can see them. I'm completely incredulous - Jerry is the volunteer coordinator, and he works with bees. I can't figure out for the life of me why he wants to buy a sheep from Lolo, but I play along, trying not to giggle. They agree on the details. They leave. I shrug and continue working. The next day, I hear Jerry talking again about this issue, and well, basically I figure out in front of about 10 people that they were talking about 'abejas,' which are bees, pronounced suspiciously like 'ovejas,' especially since Jerry doesn't really speak Spanish. Hilarity ensues :)
Aura (to Mosco): Me quieres hacer algo en el compost?
Literally, 'do you want to do something to me in the compost?' What I meant to ask was, do you want me to do something in the compost. Mosco almost lost it when I asked him this one day after lunch. It became a running joke from then on out...
Aura (to Noe): Que significa chino? Entonces, por que ellos dijieron que querian comprar un chino?
Literally, 'what does chino mean?' Noe tells me that chino means a chinese person. I then proceed to ask her why her friends said they wanted to buy a chinese person. Everyone laughs hysterically, even me, although I have no idea what we're laughing at. Turns out, I overheard the argentinas and another guy talking, and I thought they said they wanted to buy a chino (chinese person). What they really said was they wanted to buy something in a chinese store, like food.
I'm working and Jerry and Lolo walk up. Jerry looks at Lolo and says, 'Ovejas?'
Lolo: Si, si. Las tengo.
Jerry: Se vende? Are they for sale? Aura, can you translate for us?
Me: Sure, sure, but I'm confused. You really want to buy ovejas from Lolo? (I'm laughing)
Jerry: Yes. (He's not laughing).
Aura: Are you sure?
Jerry: YES!
Aura: Okay, okay. What do you want to know?
I proceed to translate for about 10 minutes. Lolo describes his ovejas, signalling with his hands how big they are and how old they are. We discuss when they can meet so Jerry can see them. I'm completely incredulous - Jerry is the volunteer coordinator, and he works with bees. I can't figure out for the life of me why he wants to buy a sheep from Lolo, but I play along, trying not to giggle. They agree on the details. They leave. I shrug and continue working. The next day, I hear Jerry talking again about this issue, and well, basically I figure out in front of about 10 people that they were talking about 'abejas,' which are bees, pronounced suspiciously like 'ovejas,' especially since Jerry doesn't really speak Spanish. Hilarity ensues :)
Friday, November 13, 2009
Pictures from the ranch
Here are some pictures from my last couple of weeks at the ranch. I changed my mind yesterday and ended up going to Montezuma. It went something like this: bus, bus, bus, ferry, bus, bus... Argh. Anyway, I'm chilling now and I'm going to visit some friends from Argentina tomorrow in Santa Teresa. More about the journey later - now I'm going to visit a butterfly garden and relax on the beach!
Aura
Aura
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Back to the city...kind of
Well, I left the ranch yesterday, but I didn't make it very far. I am currently in the closest town, La Fortuna, staying in a $4 a night hostel and trying to get all my crap together. I washed all of my clothes, sent a bunch of emails, and I'm looking for a place near the beach to go chill for a few days.
The last few weeks were pretty eventful! Let's see... Noe had to leave because her boyfriend had an accident with a four-wheeler. She's in San Jose with him right now - they had to do surgery, but he's going to be okay. I haven't been working with the sheep any more, because they've been staying in the barn, but I've been visiting them every day. They were getting used to me and starting to eat from my hand.
We threw a surprise party for the wife of one of the garden guys. Francisco (the husband), who I worked with for my first 3 days at the ranch, invited me. I was already going to Fortuna for cash, so I offered to pick up the supplies. I got a bunch of beer, meat for grilling, and a cake, and then me and 3 of the other guys snuck up to their house in this little barrio near the ranch and surprised her. Mosco was playing the guitar and we were singing. It was so sweet - she had no clue, and she started crying! She said no one had ever done anything like that in her whole life. I got to meet her daughter, who is 12. I had already met Flor (Francisco's wife) and her son. She taught me how to make corn tortillas, and her daughter gave me a picture she had painted. We all sang and ate and drank...fun, fun.
I went to Earth University with Mosco last week, and it was amazing. It's huge and beautiful, but there are only about 400 students. It's the oldest certified organic farm in Latin America. I did an all day soap workshop and made soap and shampoo, which was really cool. I have to wait a couple of weeks until I can use it, but I'll let you know how it turns out. I finally decided that I need to travel right now, but I'm still considering going back to the ranch later on. Mosco says he'll pay me to help out for a couple weeks or a month, so I'm going to keep that in mind over the next few weeks. Right now, I want to plant my ass in the sand somewhere sunny! I spent last night and today laying around the hostel reading...deliciously lazy.
Anyway...I'm going to post more soon, including an update of where I go to next, pictures from the last couple of weeks, and a summary of how I did when I planned my budget and packing list. Hope everyone is well!
Aura
The last few weeks were pretty eventful! Let's see... Noe had to leave because her boyfriend had an accident with a four-wheeler. She's in San Jose with him right now - they had to do surgery, but he's going to be okay. I haven't been working with the sheep any more, because they've been staying in the barn, but I've been visiting them every day. They were getting used to me and starting to eat from my hand.
We threw a surprise party for the wife of one of the garden guys. Francisco (the husband), who I worked with for my first 3 days at the ranch, invited me. I was already going to Fortuna for cash, so I offered to pick up the supplies. I got a bunch of beer, meat for grilling, and a cake, and then me and 3 of the other guys snuck up to their house in this little barrio near the ranch and surprised her. Mosco was playing the guitar and we were singing. It was so sweet - she had no clue, and she started crying! She said no one had ever done anything like that in her whole life. I got to meet her daughter, who is 12. I had already met Flor (Francisco's wife) and her son. She taught me how to make corn tortillas, and her daughter gave me a picture she had painted. We all sang and ate and drank...fun, fun.
I went to Earth University with Mosco last week, and it was amazing. It's huge and beautiful, but there are only about 400 students. It's the oldest certified organic farm in Latin America. I did an all day soap workshop and made soap and shampoo, which was really cool. I have to wait a couple of weeks until I can use it, but I'll let you know how it turns out. I finally decided that I need to travel right now, but I'm still considering going back to the ranch later on. Mosco says he'll pay me to help out for a couple weeks or a month, so I'm going to keep that in mind over the next few weeks. Right now, I want to plant my ass in the sand somewhere sunny! I spent last night and today laying around the hostel reading...deliciously lazy.
Anyway...I'm going to post more soon, including an update of where I go to next, pictures from the last couple of weeks, and a summary of how I did when I planned my budget and packing list. Hope everyone is well!
Aura
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