Conversations on a Mountaintop

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Yesterday Robert brought a couple of gallons of raw milk to the
kitchen and taught us to make cheese. The process is surprisingly simple, and
this morning I was rewarded with hot pepper cheese in my scrambled
eggs.

I finished my eggs quickly because Crispin, Max, and I were late for our bus. The previous afternoon I had been
climbing around in an avocado tree dropping avocados down to Crispin when the wind picked up. We looked upwind and saw clouds swirling and lightning flashing around the top of the mountain that dominates the eastward view from Robert's
farm. The windmills that typically turn at the mountain's summit were obscured. As we watched the clouds churn, we realized that we hadn't yet climbed that mountain. I am leaving the farm soon, so we promptly asked Robert if we could miss work the following morning to do the hike. Robert said it was fine, and morning found us scurrying to catch the 7:30 bus.

Luckily for us, Ticos are incredibly helpful or we never would have found the path up the mountain. We
started by waiting at the wrong bus stop. After 10 minutes of waiting, the Tico who had told us that it was the correct stop (they would rather give you wrong directions than no directions) stood up and spoke Spanish with a passerby. This passerby, a maize farmer who had walked into town to sell two bags filled with husked corn, beckoned us over and told us that we were at the wrong stop. He took about ten minutes to walk us to the correct one, and even waited with us until the bus arrived.

A short bus ride later found us wandering in the wrong direction in a town we didn't know the name of. We
were not even sure if we were in the right town; everyone had simply cleared
the bus and the driver hollered at us gringos to get off. As we crossed a
bridge near the outskirts of this town a short man in a dirty white shirt and
sunglasses told us we were going the wrong way. He told us that the road to the
mountain was one kilometer in the other direction, left after the next bridge.
In retrospect, my amazement that this man knew where we were trying to go was a
bit unfounded. We were three gringos with hiking packs, where else would we be
going but the mountain?

We easily found the road, and
the ensuing hour and a half hike was one that amazed me, even after two months
in this beautiful country. The San Jose metropolis spread behind us through
central valley. Clouds seethed behind the distant silhouetted mountains which towered
over the city on the other side of the valley, and around us were the steep
green mountains that I feel I have described so many times.

Our path was eventually obstructed by a barbed wire fence, which we promptly ducked
under. The next part of the journey was through terraced coffee fields, and
horses grazed casually along the sides of the small dirt road. The land leveled
and we came upon a large old lean-to structure, likely used in the past
by coffee harvesters. We stopped here for a break, and began an interesting discussion.

Crispin, a Brit, offered a vital foreign counterpoint to what Max and I, Americans, view
as (ab)normal. Max and I were discussing people's reactions in the States when
we told them our plans to work at a farm in Costa Rica. We met similar
reactions. Many people thought it was just outright weird, and we were both
called hippies, or hipsters, or whatever other words that people use to
describe people who do things that aren't entirely "normal". Normal being, for instance, having an internship at this point so that I can secure a corporate job to sell my soul to after graduation.

Crispin was incredulous that doing this type of thing is considered strange in our
culture. Most of the people that he knows in England take a "gap year" to travel either before, during, or after college. It is a widely accepted notion that college teaches you certain important things, but that the knowledge of yourself and of others gained by traveling through different cultures and living in different ways is invaluable. Thinking back, I realized that other Europeans I have spoken with during my travels had indirectly confirmed this. In June, I explored a rainforest with a Belgian girl who was living in Guatemala for 9 months before pursuing her Master’s degree in psychology. She was in Costa Rica meeting a friend who
was engaging in similar travel. Alex, my friend from the farm, was taking a post-graduation break, and during a similar talk he inferred that gap years are normal. I have spoken with individuals from at least a half dozen different countries and they all tell
similar tales. It is incredibly normal. So why is America different?

I have a number of ideas, none of which I am going to offer right now. I am
simply going to say that it is unfortunate. How can people know which is the “right”
way to live unless they experience other ways of living? Feral children raised
among chickens think that it is “right” to scuttle around on their haunches
clucking and pecking, and without a point of comparison this idea of “right”
will not be challenged or changed. Without escaping the system of concrete interstates,
bombarding advertisements, and miles of cubicles, how is one to decide if this
is the best way for him to live? He may live in a feral society, the worst way
of living for himself, and he would have no more idea than the feral child
pecking at corn feed.

Disturbingly, many of the individuals engaging in this mentality
are some of the “brightest” and most influential people that I know at Kansas
State. They are the people who did not understand why I could not attend things
that were important to them so that I could deliver pizza 5 nights a week so
that I would have the money to travel in Central America. They are also the
people who will make large sums of money, exercise influence in corporations,
and make important decisions someday. These are the people who operate well
within a box. The only outside understanding required for “success” within this
box is an understanding of how to create desire for Coca Cola and Bigmacs in
other cultures, to increase sales.

I am in no way condemning people who have not managed to travel,
or are uncomfortable or uninterested in the activity. I am just saying that it is unfortunate the number of people I have encountered who see outside ideas as taboo and who believe that intentional exposure to different perspectives is "weird".

Anyhow, we reached the top of the mountain and ate home-grown
bananas as we listened to the whir of behemoth windmills. The windmills dotted
the narrow spine of the mountain crest for miles. After enjoying the view, we
departed.

Lush slopes and forests beckoned, so we decided to attempt an offroad trek back to the mountain's base. I’m glad that I found friends who enjoy getting lost in strange places as much as I do. We descended through fields,
scattering tiny horses before entering dense, untrained jungle. This part was
incredibly difficult, and I gained a new respect for the Amazonian explorers I
have read about. We were forced to duck-walk through a hundred yards of thick
tangled vines that wrapped themselves in strangling holds around us. We used these vines to shimmy into a dry river ravine, which we followed for a time.

Eventually we climbed out and fought our way through the rest of the jungle,
rejoicing as we came upon a maize terrace with a path that led us to a brown dirt road.
After a scenic hike down the mountain we entered Ciudad Colon. That morning, we had departed Ciudad Colon from the opposite side of town, and by bus. I have absolutely no idea
how that happened.

Four more days here, then to Panama.

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Photos

The river ravine
This was the first spot we could stand straight since entering the canopy