Pixies, Playa y Projecto

Started off this Sunday morning doing yoga to the Pixies. (It is a trifle interesting how much inner peace can actually be found in “Debaser.”) While I stretched and fought the urge to play air guitar, Chris nurtured his armadillo-ravaged vegetable garden (those scavengers!), and Wilder flew around on his “Nimbus 2000” (his Harry-Potteresque broomstick made out of bamboo and a pineapple top). The morning was windy and cold. We could neither hear nor see Volcan Arenal as Wilder and I did all last week, when the clouds had disappeared and the lack of wind quieted our hillside enough to hear the volcano belching thunder. But it was a nice respite from the heat.

The heat here, however, is nothing compared to the beaches. We just got back from a relaxing yet hot day at the Pacific Coast. Chris returned on Friday from a week in Texas, so Wilder and I picked him up from the airport and we drove out to Playa Junquillal, a serene and secluded stretch of beach on the Pacific side. We stayed at a cool little hotel that overlooks the ocean called the Iguanazul (http://www.iguanazul.com ) and spent our time collecting seashells, exploring tide pools, running through the warm surf, lounging in hammocks, reclining poolside, and sipping ice-cold beverages. We pretty much had the beach and the pool all to ourselves. It was a very cool, low key spot and despite the loud Southern fishermen who occupied the bar with their Ticas for-hire, we enjoyed a fantastic sunset from the outdoor restaurant/lounge while dining on nachos, lobster, and mahi mahi. Really, it was a great little paradise.

Last week while Chris was gone, Wilder and I did fine. No balls up noses, nor cars in reposes, nor snakes in the roses, nor snoozles on hoses. Nago was working here all week during the day (more on why below), and our gardener Venicio was here too, so it felt good to know that someone was here if we needed anything. Wilder and I pretty much just hung out around the house except for when I had to teach, during which time he went to Gordo’s to hang out with Alexandra, Carlos, and Jose. That’s always a treat. …We also got to go on one very special adventure with Nago and his family to his mother’s ranch (Finca Lobo) in Tonjibe, a small town about 12 miles from here. As the crow flies, it’s probably about 15 minutes away. As the car flies, it takes an hour. Nago’s mom is 75 and has lived on the farm for 35 years, since he was seven. It encompasses 50 acres of farmland, gardens, and forest, and it still boasts a modest assemblage of residents -- dozens of chickens, several turkeys, a dairy farm’s worth of cows, and a rancher’s envy of bulls. We wove in and out of the grazing animals to tour the rolling green hills of the finca, then had a nice Tico dinner (rice, scrambled egg, black beans, and a bit of pork), and met more of Nago’s family – two of his sisters, an uncle, and two nephews, with whom Wilder and I exchanged songs in English, Spanish, and Maleku, the indigenous language they learn in school. It was great fun and Nago’s mom sent us home with fresh natilla (sour cream), a papaya large enough to feed all of Arenal, and several different types of flowers and orchids for our garden. She was an amazing woman.

So, we’ve started a new project with Nago – he’s building us an outdoor rancho and kitchen. We wanted to have a covered patio area so we can spend more time outside when it rains, and an outdoor kitchen so we can, well, barbecue and have parties, of course! It’s coming along and we’ve got piles all over the place: two volcanoes of sand (as Wilder calls them), a craggy mountain range of gray slate, a dozen bags of cement, several small towers of concrete block, a few long tangles of rusted rebar, 1800 feet of teak posts, and a partridge in a pear tree. It’s going to take up to two months to complete the project, so we’ll be living in a construction zone for awhile. All the more reason to head back to the beach . . .

Another highlight is that we just got a bunch of new pirated DVDs from the video store in Tilaran. Woo hoo! For two-fiddy a piece, we got copies of Crash (which Chris and I just watched last night . . .oh-mah-gawd), Capote, Memoirs of a Geisha, Pride and Prejudice, A History of Violence, and a barely passable copy of Ice Age2 in badly dubbed Spanish (Wilder got about half-way through it before abandoning it). Add to that the couple of trashy celebrity mags that Chris brought back from the States and our temporary reaquaintance with media and celebrity is complete!