2nd week in Costa Rica – butterflies and otter research – and recollections 8 years on

Many people were friendly and happy to assist with my limited Spanish. I managed to ask  directions to a bank and tackled 2 bus journeys, finding the exact bus stops in a maze of ´stops´ around Allejula and understood departure times for a trip to a Butterfly Farm about 12 miles away. The pupa are exported to zoos or gardens around the world. I tried out my Spanish on a tour guide who as a 20 year old student spoke very good English. The conversation included the mythical wonders between yoga spirituality, the cosmos and butterflies as an attempt to get visitors, as well as the locals who rear the pupae, not to view the creatures purely as a money spinning exercise. Fortunately, the banners with colourful cosmic healing and freudian levels of consciousness were also in English.

The butterflies were lovely and fluttered around a small garden full of plants and artificial feeding platforms such as bananas. As it was the dry season, the garden was watered as much of the land was parched and milky coffee coloured with a few strands of greenery.  I wondered which bits of dry grass the horses and cattle ate in the paddocks, but they didn’t look starved so I guess there was nutritional value from some source..

There were few other tourists. Two ladies of about 60 from, I believe, Columbia did a lot of travelling. One still lived there and mended clothes for the artists of Disney World and the other lived in Seattle. They were both very patient teachers with my Spanish and we finished with a late lunch of spinach, mushroom and cheese crepe with garlic bread and salad and a strawberry water refresco drink. I was able to order food in Spanish, ask the cost and even understood numbers if said slowly!

I should remember such small language successes, as I found it hard to acquire reasonable fluency in Spanish with consequent social isolation. This was disappointing and frustrating as I worked my socks off with books and practice for 10 months – but unlike many of my continental European counterparts who were wizards at other languages I found learning a language hard going. The variants such as that from my books, my host, local Costa Rican’s and in subsequent countries where words and the accent can be quite different probably made it harder. Perhaps, older age didn’t help or like trying to learn English jumping between linguistic regions in the UK.

We helped Rocio. with her MSc dissertation research who hoped after completion to return to her home country of Mexico and work on ecological projects. On the first work day of Monday we left early at 5am for about a 2 hour car journey with Manuel to meet a biologist who worked for the Hydro Electrical Company.  The trip went north through the Cordillera Central and an active volcanic region to small towns or villages such as Venecia and Rio Cuatro. We looked at some rivers where they are studying impacts from an earthquake in January and much re-building is underway. Roads and bridges were swept away with spectacular landslips where trees and scrub were ripped asunder. I think the flooding was made worse by a dam wall eventually breaking and a wall of water about 30m tall swept very fast down the valley taking people, houses, animals etc.  They never found some bodies including one lady who was in a hydro station.

H&S seemed rather relaxed compared to the UK where forms and risk assessments abound. Despite my general endorsement of a more pragmatic approach, I did have some reservations about the current and slippery rocky substrate we waded into and detected similar thoughts from Manuel!  Even just up to my knees, I found the current and uneven stones interesting and my neoprene wetsuit, which we wore to presumably stop being electrocuted, was baggy and I waddled about like an over cooked egg. For all other river work, we wore walking boots or trainers plus loose trousers or shorts and tops to wade up to our waist- chest. This was very practical in the conditions, being cooling and like being in a tepid washing machine where footwear and clothes quickly dried.