Monteverde; Part 1

Saturday the 20th, we ventured to the Monteverde Biological Cloud Forest Reserve. The village of Monteverde was founded in 1951 by Quakers from the US who wanted to escape the threat of war. They chose Costa Rica because it had abolished its military in 1948. In 1972, 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) of land was set aside to be preserved and studied.

Although it is only 146 km (90 miles) to Monteverde from our house it is quite an adventure to get there and a 3 hour trip. During the last hour, we drove 35 km uphill on an unpaved road with spectacular views of the “green mountains”. We had to dodge piles of rock that were dumped on the road to be spread out later. This explained why the road was so bumpy, since the piles included boulders. We had a little reprieve of paved road through the towns of Santa Elena and Monteverde and then another dirt road that ended at the Reserve.

For the Record (and Recordkeeping)

A gazillion is a little high but it is close. We are talking in the tens of thousands range for a 20 pound turkey. The price is 3.600 colones per kg. So, for a 9,072 kg turkey, the total price is 32.659,2 colones. If we use the easy factor of 500 colones to 1 dollar we end up with a 20 pound turkey costing $65.32. (Of course that doesn’t account for the extra you have to pay on your credit card for a “foreign transaction fee”.)

You may have found it difficult and confusing when you read the sentence above. In Costa Rica, there are two major recordkeeping differences from our practices in the US. The first, is that they interchange the use of periods and commas when writing numbers. So, 3.600 colones per kg. should be read as “three thousand – six hundred” colones not “three point six” and 9,072 kg should be read as “nine point zero seven - two” and not “nine thousand – seventy two”.

The second difference is how they write dates. This past week, I went back down to the Immigration Office so that I could have my picture retaken, so that they could replace my stolen Costa Rican cedula. I had to look at the computer screen to verify my information and had to think twice before agreeing to the information. My birthdate was written 4/3/1959. This was written correctly, but my birthday is March 4th, not April 3rd.



Two weeks ago, Costa Ricans started to put up their Christmas decorations. There are now holiday posters on the light poles along the highway, Christmas trees in front of stores and inside of stores and businesses. People have put lights on their fences and houses. There are blow up Santa Clauses and wreaths. I haven’t yet seen anything that looks unique to Costa Rica or different than our holiday decorations.  

Two Questions

How much do you think a 9.072 kg (20 lb.) frozen Butterball Turkey costs in Costa Rica?


If Thanksgiving is just another Thursday in November and the daytime highs are still around 80 degrees and there isn't a foot of snow on the ground; when would you put up your Christmas decorations?

A National Emergency

Yesterday morning our rain gauge was full. That’s 6 inches of rain. I’m sure you’ve heard that Hurricane Tomas is headed towards Haiti but it has already left its mark on Costa Rica. Costa Rica doesn’t get the full force of these Caribbean hurricanes but it does get lots of rain from them.

Pico Blanco is the mountain that towers over Escazu that we see from our back balcony. The top picture in the October Weather Report is Pico Blanco and the town of Escazu. Early Thursday morning, there were massive landslides on Pico Blanco. 20 are dead and another 10 are still missing, buried under tons of rocks and mud. Other parts of the country also suffered landslides and flooding.

Guayabo National Monument

Last weekend we ventured two and a half hours from our house to see the largest and only archaeological site in the country, Guayabo National Monument. We traveled through San Jose, over several mountains, through the city of Turrialba and continued another 19 km over roads with steep hills, hair pin turns, one lane bridges, shoulders that ended in cliff like drop offs without guard rails, landslide damage (the sign read “calle esta mal”) and finally gravel, until we arrived at our destination.

One thing that we have discovered driving these back roads is that no town is complete unless it has a futbol field. Even if the town is on the side of a hill, there will be a flat rectangular piece of grass with two goals.

The first excavation of Guayabo ruins was in 1968 and it was deemed a National Monument in 1973. It has remained for the most part unexplored since…probably because all of the interesting gold, pottery and stone sphere artifacts were moved to the National Museum. We read that the place was inhabited between 1000 BC and 1400 AD, with the height of the civilization coming around 800 AD, when the population approached 20,000. We’re not so sure about these statistics – we doubt there are 20,000 people living between Guayabo and Turrialba even today, although the road there was probably better in the 9th century. Other sources estimate a peak population of 500.

The excavations reveal many rocks and stones arranged to form a calzada (a road that is in pretty good shape by Costa Rican standards), monticulos (mounds), acueductos y tanques (for water distribution and collection), tumbas de cajon (tombs) and the monolito del lagarto (a stone carving of a lizard).

We enjoyed a couple of short hikes through the rain forest and by the ancient ruins and came to the realization that given the relatively remote location and the ability of the rainforest to grow rapidly on any surface, whomever discovered Guayabo was lucky to do so.
On the way back we enjoyed a lunch at a restaurant (Bocaditos del Cielo) with fantastic views of the patchwork farms on the slopes of Irazu and other volcanic formations beyond the valley below.

October Weather Report

When we first moved here at the beginning of the rainy season, Jim’s boss had told me that I should go back to the “States” for October, to escape the rainiest month. But, October has not lived up to this title. We had 5.3 inches of rain in the first three days but that did not last. We had a whopping 17 days without rain. I’m sure that is some kind of a record. We ended up with a total of 13 inches of rainfall.

A friend informed us that it is good to get a lot of rain now because that will limit the number of days in the Spring when they will need to ration the water and electricity (it is hydroelectric). When supplies get sparse they start announcing which cities will “go without” for the day. (Alajuela on lunes, Rohmoser on martes, Escazu on miercoles, etc.)