A whole lot of shaking

It’s been a week when we’ve travelled up country to the mountains north of here, and have run into some very Irish weather.

Earthquake!
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Pressure of space didn’t permit me to mention that we had an earthquake the very morning after Rita’s arrival. It was just coming up to 9.30 in the morning. I was in my bed with the laptop reading the morning’s Irish Times when there was a very pleasant gentle rocking motion. It was quite clearly an earthquake, it just lasted a few seconds, but I could see the bedroom curtains swaying gently back and forth.

It turned out to have been a mild earthquake, 5.2 on the Richter with an epicentre in Quepos (beside Manuel Antonio, where I’d been the previous week). They have two words for earthquake in Spanish, temblor for the mild kind, and sismo for the shake it all about kind. This was definitely just a temblor.

La Fortuna / Monteverde
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We headed off on Tuesday for a few days in the mountains up north. I had been to Arenal and the Tabacón Hot Springs before, but wanted to show them to Rita. I think she was quite impressed with them too.

Afterwards, we took the ‘jeep-boat-jeep’ transport to Monteverde. Although physically close, the presence of the Arenal lake and bad roads means that a road journey would take over 8 hours. The ‘jeep-boat-jeep’ transport turned out to be a minibus to a boat for the lake crossing, and a minibus to complete the journey on the other side. It still took 3½ hours because of the unpaved roads.

Irish Weather
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Monteverde is higher than Arenal, and is therefore colder. It’s a tourist destination because of the cloud forests high on the mountain where the Pacific and Atlantic winds meet, causing cloudy fronts and rain. These give rise to cloud forests that are abundant with life. There are more trees in this region of Costa Rica than there are in the United States and Europe put together, according to our guide. This cooler weather has a very Irish quality. Read cold, windy, wet and damp. We were unprepared and cold. For the cloud forest hike, Rita had to put a black sarong over her shoulders, and looked for all the world like Madam Zara here to tell our fortunes.

The highlight of our tour was the spotting of a very rare ‘quetzal’. This bird is sacred in the indigenous historical Mayan traditions, and there is a Mayan king who is always depicted with a quetzal flying overhead. It’s the national bird, and the name of the currency, in Guatemala. It’s very rare, and can’t survive in captivity. Our guide was really impressed and excited when he saw it. He set up the tripod telescope and we could see it quite clearly. I was so impressed when he said, with great enthusiasm, that it was the first one he’d seen this year. Impressed, that is, until I realised that it was only 6th January.

Alguinaldo
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One other very pleasing point of Tico life I meant to mention in December is the “alguinaldo” everyone is paid in December. It’s essentially a 13th monthly payment, which by law all employers in the country must pay their employees. Not only that, but you are paid the entire gross amount. There is no tax or social welfare deduction from this payment. It think it’s one of the best ideas I’ve seen, and I would strongly recommend that you all lobby for its introduction before the next election!
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So that’s it for this week. We’re back off travelling again in the morning, this time heading for the Pacific coast.

So until next week,

Pura Vida,

Éamon

Today’s headline in La Nación: Candidates intensify election campaigns