Tico Tales Part 5: Armonía con la Tierra

This is a place to truly feel relaxed and unrushed, at peace and a part of nature. I already miss the barefoot jungle hikes, dozens of biting, stinging insects, homemade pizza, stimulating conversations, fresh food, shoveling shit and leaves into compost, chopping trees with machetes, and the wonderful family I made in six days.

Mastatal is a small farming community of less than 100 people. Two hours into the mountains from Puriscal it is missed on most maps, and many Ticos have never heard of it. Costa Rica’s political stability, high biodiversity, and pleasant climate attracts plenty of foreign investment, retirees, expatriates, and tourists from industrialized countries. The result is an economy with many prices comparable to those in the United States. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was going to need to offset some of the expenses of my trip. After a quick craigslist search in the volunteer section of Costa Rica, I emailed Javier at Villas Mastatal.
Getting There -
On Monday afternoon I was on the direct bus from San Jose to Puriscal. When I got there I had a little over a hour to find the bus to Mastatal; it was suppose to be in front of the soda Doña Toña. After not much wandering an American couple that had retired to Puriscal over a decade ago pulled up in a pickup. They could tell I was lost and even had bets that I was going to Mastatal. They drove me to where they knew a bus for Mastatal stopped, but the lady at the nearby cafe said it had already passed at 1:15. The couple immediately offered to put me up for the night and drive me back to the bus stop in the morning. When I mentioned Doña Toña they drove there to see if another bus ran that they weren’t aware of. Another Gringo stood in front of the soda with a couple dozen farmers and school kids waiting for the dusty bus. Geoff was from London and also on his way to Villas Mastatal. We loaded to the back of the bus with the locals and supplies for the farms: bags of essentials from the market, stacks of sacks of livestock feed, and at least one box of baby chicks. I was stuck standing in the aisle with half of the passengers when the bus began its creep up the hill but soon took a seat on top of a sack of cattle feed. The bus meandered further into the hills on a narrow gravel and muddy road. We stopped frequently to let off locals and unload feed deliveries to farmers waiting on the side of the road. Geoff and I somehow volunteered for this task, searching under seats for the sacks with correct names written across them.
We got off in Mastatal.

one-horse town

There was a bar, a soda, and a payphone next to the bus stop. Geoff and I strapped on our backpacks and hiked the uphill road. After about fifteen minutes of sweating and walking we almost turned around, entertaining the idea that we were going the wrong way. But a truck came along, and the driver ensured us that Villas Mastatal was just ahead. We later learned that after the bus continued down the road past town, it turned around and went up this road right past Villas Mastatal.
Bienvenido –
We arrived at the farm to learn that Javier and Raquel had left for San Jose as Raquel was soon due with their first child. Three other volunteers were there: Karen from the States, Teddy and Claudine both from France. The main house was a simple construction on a concrete slab. Inside were Javier and Raquel’s three-room living quarters. Outside was the kitchen, communal and dining area comprised of two long picnic tables, two hammocks, a ping-pong table, wooden bench, and sparsely filled bookshelves. The entire structure was covered with the typical tin roof which extended past the kitchen over the garbage area, a washing machine, a second wash basin, and brick oven. From this area a path led past an outdoor shower, the composting toilet,

view from the shitter

and a private cabina for couples. The path led up the hill behind the house to our dorm building. There were ten bunkbeds with mosquito nets in the open air building with more on the second floor. A second dorm building with shower and composting toilet was down the hill from the main house.
The others were making dinner when we got there, and Geoff and I settled in for a well desired meal. Teddy had previously owned a hotel-restaurant in France and was good to have in the kitchen. Food cannot get any fresher than straight from the vine, or the dirt, or the cow, or the chicken… every meal at Villas Mastatal became a favorite.
Breakfast the next morning consisted of Geoff’s soon-to-be-famous pancakes, papaya, oatmeal, and bananas mashed with sugarcane syrup. Javier had left a to-do list, but we did not rush to get to work, as is tradition with pura vida.
The first work of the day was to shovel dirt into a pond project that did not take – a task that was not even finished when I left.Next we constructed steps down a slippery slope. The morning dragged by slowly, but soon it was time for lunch, and the day’s work was done.
Pizza Fiesta –
The next day was Teddy’s birthday. Javier came home as we were preparing lunch. After lunch he took us to the waterfall behind the farm; a trip that led us up and down muddy trails through the forest. Javier grabbed a vine hanging over the cliff-side trail and explained how someone swung far out over the ravine on a rotten vine and fell the fifty feet or so through the trees below. He demonstrated by barely swinging off the ledge a few feet on the green vine, then continued to walk down the path. Geoff and I both wanted to test the swing. Geoff swung along the trail. I took the vine and pushed off for a short ride over the ravine. I heard the snap from above almost immediately. My eyes quickly searched for something stable, and I latched onto a young, skinny tree with one arm, sliding down and scraping the skin from my arm as the vine came down around me.
After a nice, relaxing swim at the small waterfall we returned to the house to prepare for Teddy’s birthday-pizza fiesta. Geoff, Javier and I rode to Mastatal to get a case of beer. While waiting at the bar Geoff and I saw some volunteers from other farms. While the locals we had met remained warm and friendly, we found it odd that many of the other Gringos we saw on the bus or around the village appeared standoffish, ignoring our greetings and smiles.
A new volunteer –

Javier preparing a pizza for the oven

Chole, an American expat living in Istanbul – arrived that night. Geoff made the pizza dough with a simple recipe that Javier had. We fired up the brick oven and prepped the sauce and toppings: garlic, onions, sausage, tomatoes, and freshly made cheese. Geoff and I both attempted sliding the pizzas in the oven, but ended up with losing all the topping (which we saved for the most part). We left the fate of dinner to Javier. We got drunk and had the best pizza that I’ve ever had anywhere in the world (sorry Italy).
Co-existence -
It is interesting to watch how the earth was meant to work: all organisms existing together to promote the continuation of life cycles. Most people raised in an urban environment would brush down a spiderweb on the side of their house as soon as they see it; here they are left alone to grow to massive sizes and trap mosquitoes and other biting insects. Everything used went back into the earth or was recycled. Javier cut bottles into drinking glasses and fashioned their tops into drainspouts. We broke up old plasterboard signs to pound into our mud steps to add traction and ease erosion. We made compost by collecting, layering and mixing together a large pile of cow manure, forest leaves, wood ash, and chicken manure. The mixture was covered to “cook” and had to be re-mixed daily.
Whistle While you Work –
While working with a machete in a rainforest, and especially while also wearing a brown, brimmed hat, we tended to hear John William’s “Raiders March”constantly playing aloud in our heads. And if not then someone would start humming it. Music was always a topic of conversation on the farm, and we regularly broke into song. The most reoccurring was Teddy’s favorite: “Stand By Me.” But the machete and accompanying Indiana Jones tune were always present. It is not uncommon to see someone walking down the street or beach wearing a machete in Costa Rica. The tool can also be seen behind bars and in kitchens – it is the easiest way to get into coconuts. We used machetes for chopping firewood, cutting down bananas, bamboo, and the majority of a tree (we used an ax for the trunk). Cutting down something that will not be reproduced goes against the objective of a sustainable farm, but it was a justifiable and necessary task: the tree had grown dangerously close over the house; Javier was planting a garden and the tree blocked all sunlight from the area; all of the tree was chopped up and utilized – the large pieces were added to the pile in the woodshed to be used for some future project, and the branches and leaves were arranged into a permaculture mound that will in one year’s time become nutrient-rich soil ready for crops.
We never worked more than five hours a day and rarely more than four. That left many hours for reading, writing, and relaxing in a hammock, but we spent most of our free time interacting in card games, ping pong, chess, dominoes, and conversation. It often rained in the afternoons, as is tradition in Costa Rica in August.
the weekend -
The dealer from the local cocoa farm came by Friday afternoon with goodies for sale: freshly made chocolates in flavors ranging from ginger to pineapple to chile, solid chocolates melted into designer forms, and still warm cookies. Karen made chocolate chip cookies with an assortment of the chocolates. Javier was leaving early the next morning to visit Raquel in San Jose, and Chole was catching a ride with him.
Weekends at Villas Mastatal are free, and we were left completely to our own. We decided to visit La Cangreja National Park on Saturday. It would be my last full day. Geoff, Claudine, and Karen were leaving over the next few days and Teddy was staying for another week or so. The main entrance to the park used to be up the road from the farm, and Mastatal prospered relatively because of it. Small hostels and farm-stays sprang up to accommodate visitors that had to pass by. They are now all but gone. The main entrance is now on the main road a few miles before the village leaving Mastatal to the locals and volunteers. We walked up the dirt road to the old entrance. Through the gate we found an empty pavilion area at the top of muddy hill. There was not a sight or sound of anyone. We went back to the entrance and took a sendero into the forest. The trail cut up and down the sides of the rainforest. There were signposts and make-shift steps but no indication that other tourists had traipsed through anytime recently. The sound of flowing water grew louder and then fainter as we moved along the trail. We hurried along anxious to find some magical swimming hole or waterfall. Soon we could see the river at the bottom of the ravine, but the trail continued to switch back and forth. Eventually we came to a steel bridge where we could reach the water. It wasn’t just one river but a system of streams that split here and joined others there. The sunlight cut through the trees overhead to choice spaces on the riverbank below. Unfortunately the riverbed was too rocky for any swimming to take place, but that did not stop us from enjoying it. I briefly explored the trails that forked from each side of the river and wandered as far as I could without getting lost. The trails did not seem to have any foreseeable end nor any other hikers. We decided to go back across the bridge and continue on the path we were initially on. It circled through the forest and came out behind the pavilion that we had first come to five hours before. We left the park without seeing a single other person and made it back to the farm just ahead of the rain.
goodbyes –
As it was my last night, we decided to try another pizza dinner. Our late start and impatience led us to neglect properly preheating the brick oven, and we had to finish the pies in the conventional toaster oven. Still, it was a nice farewell meal. My time at Villas Mastatal would come to be the high-point of my trip, but one that was over too soon. I sadly gathered my things after dinner. I would need to leave the farm by 5:15am to catch the bus to Puriscal.
My alarm went off at 4:20, but I was already awake. It was still dark. I made coffee, filled my water bottle and grabbed a couple of bananas for the bus. We were up on workdays around 7am. But it was Sunday, so there was no need to get up at all. Regardless, all four of my companions got up before the sun to see me off that morning.
The bus bounced down the bumpy road alongside the horizon as I tried to not let go of the peaceful surroundings.