Costa Rica

Right now I’m in Costa Rica in a small community called Santa Elena. It is in the south of Costa Rica about 20 km from the nearest city, San Isidro. The community consists of simple houses, twisting dirt roads going up and down, and lots of green mountains. Within the community there is a rain forest reserve called the Biological corridor Alexander Skutch which brings bird watchers from around the world. Although the tourists come to visit the corridor they leave the community after and don’t visit the small restaurants, horse farms, properties with cabins, coffee and sugar farms, natural hot springs, and other small businesses that the community has to offer. Our work here has been to visit the owners who belong to a group called Ture-Cobas. Ture Cobas is a group of young locals who wish to help market the area so that more people come into the community. Since we have been here, we have been working for Ture-Cobas. So far we have visited the business owners in the area, and talked to them about our plans to create two marketing campaigns to target the locals from the city close by, and the foreign tourists who pass through the area. Out of all these businesses almost all are just in the starting stages of development. They all have the hope that more people will visit and help support their modest incomes which derive from farming the land. The projects are developed at a very slow rate because in almost all cases there is very little money to finance the development, and right now there are very little people who come into the community from outside. As the director of Ture-Cobas described, this is a grass-roots campaign because there is very limited funding. So far we have created brochures and are working on a webpage, posters, flyers, and arranging for radio and tv interviews to familiarize the locals with this area, and also bring foreigners.

Aside from lots of waking far distances the day-to-day work hasn’t been too strenuous. Now that we get to know people in the community quite often trucks will stop and we jump in the back of the pickup and get a free haul up the road. All the people we meet are very friendly, humble people who are more than happy to show their property, pour you a coffee and explain there hopes of developing some type of tourist attraction.
In the house where we live there is large extended family. This means theres always somebody on a four-wheeler pulling in our out, or neighbours visiting. As well, there are two small children 2 and 3 years old. In Costa Rica they are lots of coffee farmers, and children are given coffee at about 8 months old. Not surprisingly the two children we live love coffee and usually be spotted darting around the house from one room another. It is always busy and rarely quiet. The family is always making sure we are well fed, and going out of their way to make us feel comfortable at all times. You get the impression that if you asked they would give you the shirt of their back.
Often on the weekends the host father takes us to a small city called Dominical where there is a nice beach along the pacific coast. There, the host father likes to go harpoon fishing. The spot is beautiful –overhanging coconut trees and huge waves are always crashing in. There are lots of exotic fish, and exotic animals, large lizards, monkeys, and “perezosos” – (lazy’s) which hang in trees and look like a huge ball of cotton. When they move they unfurl and actually look like a mix between a monkey and a small bear.
Across from the street there is a small cemetery which has above-ground tiled caskets, and every 8 years the corpse which has been deteriorated is taken out and the casket is refilled. Behind the you can see the tall clouded hills in the distance which consists of patches of farming properties and the Pan American Highway which cuts across. At night you can see the lines of lights from the houses and streets which are scattered on the mountainous hills. Behind the house there is a coffee plantation which stretches out until the start of a closer mountain range. This is the start of Los Cusingos, and its dense rain forest stretches high up the mountain until its clouded top. It’s also a real calm view so I usually spend sometime sitting out side and enjoying the tranquility.