Tears and Coffee

The coffee was sweet
much like Rocio and sons
good-byes are so hard.

Before You Drink that Next Cup of Coffee......

......think of us on our hands and knees hand-picking berries off of the coffee plant....

We have been working on a coffee farm with four other Americans in Costa Rica. Our alarm goes off every morning at 5:15 and we are in the fields around 6:00. We pick for about six hours a day, which isn't as bad as it sounds. There are two people to a row that work together. Robert picks on one side of the tree and I am on the other. Our fellow pickers are in rows near us and we spend hours gathering berries (getting bitten by ants, spiders, etc...) and telling stories. And you know how much I LOVE to tell stories, so the day goes by pretty quickly for me, but it may not be as painless for those listening.

We live in a cabin and make all of our meals together, which consists mostly of rice and beans. The Costarican woman who runs the farm is so sweet and she has taught us how to make corn tortillas and rice pudding. We really feel like we are a part of her family. On Sunday (our day off) we hopped in the family pick-up truck to go fishing and swimming in a nearby town. Robert caught four fish and I didn't catch any! Luckily, the restaurant has a net and catches fish for everyone to eat. We spent the day with Rocio, her husband, and two children. It was so much fun.

The farm is owned by a Canadian couple and they have taken us on a few hikes. We helped cut down a banana tree and milked a cow. Their property is so beautiful and they are trying desperately to preserve the rain forest around them. They have done quite a bit of work to fight the deforestation and keep buying land around them. They are a pretty impressive couple.

The woman who runs the farm (from Costa Rica) has a son, Esteban, who goes to University in the closest big city. He is the first person in the family to get a formal education. Esteban took us to his school today and we marched in a protest against the Central American Free Trade agreement. There must have been at least 500 people. It was such an amazing experience and pretty eye-opening. We have learned so much on this trip regarding our business practices and how they can negatively affect others.

We will be here for one more week before we start to travel again. We decided to head to Panama next and then start our ascent to Mexico City. We will be in Mexico City for the change in presidential administration, which should be interesting. It is hard to believe we only have 7 weeks left. Looking forward to our next adventure.

For Your Viewing Pleasure!

We made it to Costa Rica and found a great hostel with FREE internet. So, we spent a good chunk of time uploading pictures from the last two months (until the camera started having trouble).

Enjoy the pics!

We start work tomorrow on an organic coffee farm where we will be harvesting ¨grapes¨ for six hours a day, which is ironic since neither of us actually drink coffee. But, we are looking forward to learning more about organic labeling, getting some exercise, and sharpening our mad Spanish skills.

Since we will not have access to an internet connection for two weeks, we wanted to wish a happy birthday to our fabulous brothers!

Francis will turn 40 on October 17th (whoa, that´s old!) and Brian will turn 30 on October 21st (whoa, that's old too!).

Where are we?

Good question! 

Because Belize is unlike anywhere we have visited thus far on our trip.  It's shockingly different than the rest of our trip so far, primarily because the official language is English ("lazy English" according the to the shopkeeper we chatted with for over an hour last night).  Also, because everything is SO EXPENSIVE here.  Of course, it's all very relative, but it is putting quite a strain on our (completely unrealistic) daily budget.  Thus, not much internet access for updates.

 

So here's a quick summary with, funds providing, more details later:

• Spent one day as illegal immigrants upon entering Mexico
• Ruins at Pelenque: very nice and well kept (read: touristy).  Also, the only ruins so far where we've been able to walk and climb on almost all structures.
• Town of Pelenque: H-O-T.  Seriously, I don't know if I've ever slept in a room (if you can call the top floor, open air covered platform a room) that reached about 120 degrees in the middle of the day and didn't lower much for the night.  Also, we did laundry and they had the strongest smelling fabric softener ever...which we appreciate.  No washing since.
• Saw ruins at Chichen Itza (which must have changed names since my fourth grade memories of "Chicken Pizza"), and ended up being there during the equinox.  Who knew there would be 10,000 people there that day as well -- most popular time of year to see how, for those few days, the shadows of the setting sun form a serpent on the impressive main pyramid.  Amazing.  Also, HOT!
• Arrived in Cancun at 11:30pm, and are so happy our Green Bible was right about the hostel location....not a fun midnight walk.
• Proceeded to Islas Mujeres, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, all along the Caribbean coast, averaging at least 8 hours a day on the beach.  It was tough.  We also saw great improvements with Liz's flick.  She should be a handler come spring ultimate season in the 'Cuse.
• Oh, we played the Israeli version of Uno while in Islas Mujeres, where we also happened across the most amazing sunset our lives the first night there when we wandered to the beach.  It was the only hour of our trip that I wasn't carrying the camera!  damn.
• Cancun, surprisingly, was also a great place to practice our Spanish -- in the downtown area, but also on the beaches.  There were so many tourism related people very willing to talk to us, so we often just stopped to chat about anything.  It was often difficult, but great fun.
• Did I mention the beach time.  Seriously, we've never been this tan in our lives.  It looks completely unnatural and has meant added weight of large bottles of Aloe -- ugh.
• Just before leaving Guatemala, I FINALLY finished the 600+ People's History of the US (Liz is now trudging through that one).  Unfortunately, that was really only the second book I read.  (The World is Flat = also around 600 pages).  But, having a little beach time over the last two weeks, I finally played catchup and read the log of books Liz has filed away: Animal Farm, Blood and Oil (we're all SCREWED, but still manage to love our SUVs -- stupid suburban), Portnoy's Complaint, and are now awaiting on new shipment from Margaret at the end of the week.
• While in Cancun, we took a break from our "serious" books to get through 500 pages of HP6 for fun.  Hopefully, we'll find it again soon to finish up.  It was just getting SO GOOD!
• Why all the books, you ask?  Because that's what we do!
• Met even more GREAT people along the way and spent a few days (and towns) traveling with Ben (German), Nadia (Ben's friend from Germany who is from Prague and lives/works/studies in Mexico - got that?), Deano (British and fellow lover of LOST).  It's interesting really; along the way, often weeks apart we come across familiar faces.  The backpacking circuit can feel small at times.  Familiar faces are nice sometimes, we just always hope for the nice ones!  (I hate to not mention the dozens of great people that we met before getting to Mexico, both from our school all the way back in Xela over a year ago and many travelers on the Guatemala route....so much fun.)

(why the bullets?)

 

Some of our best and most memorable experiences so far have come from the many and varied conversations we have had: fellow travelers from around the world, local kids, shopkeepers, hostel owners, restaurant servers.  They have covered quite a range of topics, and have never been disappointing.  The common theme is generally sobering, with others wanting to know if we, and Americans in general, understand the real implications of US foreign policy.  It often begins with talk about the Iraq war, but has taken many directions from there.  We often find ourselves tempted or wanting to either defend or distance ourselves from our current administration or ongoing policies, but we try hard to be good listeners more than anything else.  We have learned so much and look forward to many more conversations.

Luckily, not all conversations are so intense!  We learned how big American sitcoms are in Europe and pondered the reality of David Hasslehoff being such a superstar in Germany (yes, it IS true!).  We covered so many shows: A-Team, Fraggle Rock, Simpsons, Lost, Gilmore Girls...the list goes on.

After splitting from our friends and reluctantly leaving the white sandy beaches, we headed to Chetumal, Mexico, on the Belizean border where we experienced a great museum (on Mayan history and culture) and urban sprawl.  It was shocking really.  The downtown area had an assortment of shops, most of which seemed open, but there just weren't many people.  When we headed out for a movie date just outside of downtown, we certainly found the people...at a huge mall!  Weird, though it really shouldn't be I guess.  Anyway, we really liked The Devil Wears Prada...and movie popcorn!

 

As we left Mexico the next day (yesterday), it turned into a bit of a fiasco.  There is no official "departure tax" listed in our guide book, so we decided not to take out more money opting to wait to Belize and not bother with the money changers near the border.  Oh, what a mistake that turned out to be!  Little did we know, on our paperwork we received when entering Mexico (only illegal for one day, remember?), it said at the bottom that we each owed a good 210 pesos to exit.  I'd like to think it was just small print, but we just never read the whole thing I guess.  Customs agents didn't really care about our ignorance, so we had to scramble.  We only had a few pesos, 1 US dollar, traveler's checks, a bunch of Guatemalan Quetzales and some Honduran Lempiras....not going to cut it.  We were the last of the six foreigners on our bus to check at the immigration window, starting to get a little worried.  Then the ATM across the street didn't accept our card.  The bus' assistant was trying to help us out, taking us into what we thought was a bank.  No luck.  The only other option he gave us was to go back to Chetumal, find a bank and try again later.  When contemplating that, we realized the bus was gone!  What?!?  Our BAGS WERE ON THERE!!  He said not to worry, but it had to keep moving and already crossed the bridge into Belize.  En Serio? Si. Our last ditch effort was to run with him over the bridge into Belize (illegal once again!) and beg the other foreigners on the bus to let us borrow some money, promising we'd follow them wherever they were going and pay them back once we find a bank together.  Looking very desperate, winded and sweaty, a nice German couple helped us out!  This time, Liz stayed on the bus and I ran back with the bus guy with the passports and money to get the stamps.  THEN, thinking all was finished, we ran back into Belize only to realize the bus had left once again.  He started to try to hail down taxis already full of other border-crossers, eventually jumping on an old school bus full of random car parts.  They must have been friends, because he just told them to start driving.  Less than a mile up the road, we were dropped off at the Belizean immigration office where I ran to meet up with Liz who was sitting on our bags wondering if I were ever coming back and thinking she was going to live the real life version of Terminal.  Whew, what a day!

 

That said, we had to skip out on Northern Belize to head to Belize City to find a bank and pay back our new doctor friends.  Crisis (mostly) averted!

 

Oh yeah, Margaret arrives in Belize City in only two days!!  We really look forward to having some homely connection, which we deeply miss these days.

 

However, to help ourselves over the inevitable homesickness, we "splurged" (really, out of very little options) on a room in Belize City with a TV, where we were absolutely GLUED to the tube last night.  So much so that we just ordered Thai food from the connected restaurant and they delivered it to our room!  It was awesome!  And great to watch the news and catch up a bit on what's going on in the states and elsewhere in the world, though of course most of it was completely depressing: school shootings, sex scandals in congress, and Vanity Fair once again coming through with the first baby pictures that no one should care about.

 

However, we will take this opportunity to watch the season premier of Lost tomorrow night!  Sweet!

 

Until next time...