You have a little blog on your shirt.: Of body odor and composting toilets

The morning of January 1 we struck out for an ecovillage near San Mateo. Not that telling you it's near San Mateo will give you any indication of where we were; the town only has about 500 residents. But in case you're interested it's about halfway between San Jose and Puntarenas if you go the back way. The bus ride was a good opportunity to see the areas surrounding San Jose (including the Walmart and Dennys) the mountains, pineapple plantations and all variety of four-wheel-drive vehicles. I must take a moment to admit that even recognizing that pineapples are very heavy and it would be anatomically illogical...I thought they grew on trees. The road itself was quite steep and extremely curvy. Some small children were yelling "wheeeeee!" at every curve but even they got silent and motion sick in short order.

We arrived in San Mateo around 1ish to find that the guy who was supposed to meet us had not shown up. He was also not answering his phone. L asked everyone and their mother if they knew this character or if they had any idea where the ecovillage was located. We even asked the one cop and all the little old men hanging in the plaza who were less than helpful; the cop couldn't even figure out how to dial his cellphone. I voted to just go to the only bar in town and just wait and eventually L found a taxi driver who sort of knew where we were headed so we relaxed with a burrito and a few beers before setting out. The town (and the bar) were actually quite charming.

The taxista took us about five miles out of town and up a dirt road for a few miles before determining that his car couldn't handle the terrain....so he dropped us off. Ok. L and A started walking while I guarded the bags and read the Economist until a jeep came and picked me up about five minutes later. The guy driving was actually a local farmer who was going home for the day. He just picked us up out of the goodness of his heart, recognizing that it would be a loooong walk. Like good little nerds, we talked with him about his citrus crops and asked about the other landholders and the history of the site. And then we arrived. I could tell that the farmer was particularly curious to see what the crazy hippies were doing in the middle of nowhere. I'm not sure what he was expecting, and I'm not even sure what I was expecting but this was....different.

Sure, an ecovillage is an "intentional community with the goal of becoming more socially, economically, and ecologically sustainable." Sure, that indicates some alternative worldviews, a lack of electricity and composting toilets. But this place was a bit less formal. They created a shareholder group with half American and half Costa Ricans to live on the land in the ideals of permaculture....which until this trip I didn't realize included communitarian aspects.

Anyhoo, people lived in half built houses with a communal kitchen. Each hut had a dry compost toilet (that they didn't really dress up much so it was basically "shitting in a bucket"), solar shower (which judging by the smell of certain individuals was not universally used) and a communal kitchen. As I later learned it had been formed by a small group of people who had a camp together at burning man in the early 90s...which should give you an indication of the vibe. Sure I've hugged a few trees in my time and my personal goal is to have a composting toilet in my house...but I'm not much into cleanses and spritituality. I don't believe in the paranormal or indigo children and I'm pretty sure that cutting off a cow's horns does not affect the quality of its digestion. (The last two were actual conversations with residents of the village. long conversations. Mostly one-sided.)

the kitchen

the little girls room complete with New Yorkers to peruse

Our humble abode

I was ridiculously cranky from wasting an entire day traveling and waiting around only to discover that I would be stuck in the middle of nowhere being bitten by ants. I even got angry when I discovered that the dog was named Yaku. (It means water in Quechua and in the recent movie Even the Rain is used as an example of neocolonialism; the foreign characters in the movie are criticized as thinking that they are somehow more enlightened because they know this one word and are therefore more "one with the people.") I didn't say it was rational anger; in fact, I apologized the next day for being so snippy. L responded, "I don't know what snippy is, but I didn't like your tone!"

So A and I immediately began to plot our escape. Jan 2 we got a ride into town to plan our next stop. Like dealings in any "non-Western" nation this involved talking to everyone and their mother to figure out bus schedules and calling lots and lots of hotels that all seemed to be full. After successfully figuring out how to leave town and reserving a room over the phone, we rewarded ourselves with ice cream and headed back to the hippies.

That afternoon we had a lovely vegetarian lunch and headed up to the river to swim in the waterfall where L mocked me mercilessly for being so white. On this trip I was even more obsessive than usual about sun exposure and remained yuraq siki (See...my Quechua extends towards racial slurs for white people and their white asses!). The most eventful part (for me) was when I fell on my ass climbing down the rocks. It hurt so bad that my legs went numb for a second. A bruised tailbone right before the day we had a long day of travel planned. oh boy.