The Adventure to Guatemala: Part 1

As I entered the terminal at La Aurora International Airport, I studied the faces of men and women from a different world. This was my first flight within Central America and I didn't see a single gringo lining up to get his or her ticket checked before stepping onto the plane. Guatemala was the first country I knew I would travel to before I even mored to Costa Rica. I wanted to see where Marleny, my family's housekeeper since I was three, grew up; I wanted to meet her family. I wanted to experience Central America.

In the last decade, only 5% of the murders in Guatemala were prosecuted. The number of kidnappings have quintupled; annual murder rates have risen from 2904 to 6498. Despite new penalties for femicide, they are considered useless in a country where so many murders go unsolved.

These dangers stem from poverty, which is impossible not to notice if you look out the airplane window as the plane hits the runaway in Guatemala City. Between the forests and rolling hills are dilapidated homes as far as the eye can see.

The first thing you can't help but notice when you step out of the airport are the Mayans, Nearly half the population consists of "indigenas" clad in traditional garb - striped skirts, ornate blouses, and long, beaded necklaces for the women with braided hair, cowboy-like sombreros for the men. The Mayans may be the poorest people in the country, but they possess an incredible richness in history and culture. It was to an ancient city, Antigua, where I was headed, to which my friend, Reuben, who traveled the slither of land from Costa Rica to Guatemala, described as, "the Jerusalem of Costa Rica".

Marleny's niece, her husband, and their three daughters, ages 15, 17, and 19, picked me up at the airport. Cesar, who has a note written by one of his daughters above the desk in his office that states, "el mejor papi del mundo", rented a van just to have enough room for me and my luggage (which was only a backpack).

After lunch at a nearby mall, we set off for Antigua. Not only does Antigua retain its beauty through colonial building and ancient ruins, but it is surrounded by 3 volcanoes. But I only knew of them through books and photographs. By the time we left lunch, a deep fog had taken over the sky, and it started to rain. Hard.

In the midst of a thunderstorm, Cesar Palacio took the wheel, dodging potholes left and right, on the road to Antigua. The three daughters were in the back , playing with their blackberries, and Mirna was silently observing. When our tires hit the cobblestone streets, I could tell, despite the horrid weather, that Antigua was a special place. In fact, Antigua looked pretty in the rain, heavy droplets falling in front of the lights of the Catedral de Santiago. I studied the local dwellings, built with mud, stones, and wooden poles "bajareque" style, through the blurred car window. Perhaps this was the way Antigua should be seen - the city has stood the test of time, surviving earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and has retained its traditional charm, not unlike that of Kyoto, Japan.

All was fine as we ran back into the van and left the ancient city. But on the road back to Guatemala City, Cesar was unable to avoid one of the many potholes. One was all it took.

Part 2 soon to come...

Yom Kippur in Costa Rica

There are four synagogues in Costa Rica: an orthodox and Sephardic temple in the Jewish area of Pavas, a chabad, and one in the outskirts of San Jose, which a member described as “reform or conservative – whichever way you look at it.” Costa Rica is nearly 85% Christian (70% Roman Catholic and 14% Evangelical Protestant). There are a total 2500 Jews.

B’nai Israel, the “whichever way you look at it” synagogue, was my shul of choice. I took a long taxi ride through San Jose traffic to a destination I feared the driver had no idea how to find, let alone what a "sinagoga" was (my explanation: Una iglesia para judio!). The sun set and it was dark. But as I scanned the buildings out the window, I spotted the Magen David (Jewish star) in the window and shouted, “Esso!”

The services were conducted in English, Spanish, and Hebrew. I felt strangely drawn to the Spanish prayers, to chanting aloud in the native tongue. When the service ended, I kibitzed with the congregants. They were from all over the world: Spain, Mexico, USA, Colombia. The rabbis were a couple from Argentina.

Although I wasn’t spending the holiest of days with my family, I was glad to experience Yom Kippur in Latin America. It felt good to be part of a larger community. There I was, saying the same prayers as Jews around the world, atoning for my sins, fasting. It’s nice to know that almost anywhere I go in the world there will be a synagogue for me to go to, the Magen David proudly displayed. Now if only that were the case with a good bagel.

Final Thoughts on Fate

This is my third time in Costa Rica. The first was a trip with my family and the second a group tour when I was in high school. There was a rebellious side to me as a teenager - I lauded Catcher in the Rye, and opposed almost anything mainstream. I associated a lot of these ideas with music, hailing classic rock as the sole genre worth listening to and insisting that that pop had no value except as a drug of conformity.

It was on an organic farm in Costa Rica that I put Zeppelin II into my CD player for the first time, watching rain pound against the roof of my camping tent. The effect that album had on my rebel teenage spirit was immense: when I returned from the trip, I arrived at school with “Ramble On” blasting through open windows.

In college, I got into more current music, rap, modern rock, and eventually jazz. While my devotion to The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and The Who remained strong, Led Zeppelin loomed farther into the background. As the years passed, I listened to them less and less.

Two weeks after moving to Costa Rica, I scanned my iTunes list for something to listen to. I had forgotten about the night on the organic farm with Zeppelin in my ears. Yet that night, I chose Zeppelin II. But that wasn’t all. The strangest thing wasn’t that I happened to put on the same album I got into the last time I was here, but that I got the same feeling I had while listening to it. I was into it like I had been that rainy day…a decade ago. It was only later that I made the connection. As the lyrics go, “I’m goin’ round the world, on my way, I’ve been this way ten years to the day…”

Journey into Nature Part 2: Is it fate?

As soon as I arrived in Costa Rica, there was talk about fate. Now I’ve never really been a believer in fate – I believe in choice and in God. In the recent months before coming here, I was becoming wary of making decisions. Maybe it was my future looming in the distance, but for whatever reason, I began taking a different approach for the small decisions: let fate handle it. And then suddenly, and completely unexpectedly, I ended up in Costa Rica.

When I first arrived here, Carlos told me the story about how the day he arrived in Costa Rica was the same day his wife's birthday (who is a Tica). Is that fate? My journey to Barva looking for the waterfall to no end, yet finding myself in the very festival I thought I was missing…is that fate? And why am in Costa Rica, anyway? Three weeks before landing at Juan Santamaria International Airport, feeling the humidity hit my cheeks, I never would have imagined myself living here.

With these thoughts circulating, I made a second attempt to escape the urban life and commune with nature. This time, I would head past Barva to San Jose de la Montana, which I was told, was a real mountain town, and was near the entrance of Barva Volcano. I didn’t know how long it would take to hike up to the peak of the volcano, or which path to take, all I knew was that I wanted to find a spot in the woods, eat a sandwich (I packed a PB&J with pretzels), and read my book (In Cold Blood).

I hopped on a bus, and when I arrived in San Jose de Montana, I got off at the very last stop, and asked the bus driver, “Donde esta la Montana?” Keep hiking up, he said, take a right, and a left, and then I’d reach the volcano. It sounded simple enough.

Simple, sure, but long and steep. I hiked up that road for four hours…and it felt fantastic. As I walked higher and higher, it became more rural and rural. I saw cows grazing on a cloudy field. Wet local cheeses for sale lying lonesome on a wooden table. A middle-aged man and woman igniting a fire with sticks along a stream. As I kept hiking, I entered into a white mist. It was gorgeous drifting through the trees that dotted the hills. But soon, I couldn’t see any trees. All I could see was white. I was in a cloud.

Fine, I thought, I could keep going all day – maybe I’d even reach the volcano. But then it started to rain.

I took shelter at a nearby restaurant – the first one I had seen for miles (or should I say kilometers). I had an umbrella but I didn’t bring my rainjacket, and I was getting cold. I knew then that I was done hiking for the day, even if I was just three kilometers from the entrance to the volcano. I had imagined the walk from the entrance to the base of the volcano to be a five-hour journey, but I’d find out later, it was only five kilometers away.

I sat down at the restaurant and was thrilled to see a cheese omelet on the menu. Cheese omelets here mean ham and cheese, so I tried to explain what I wanted to the waitress (no ham!), and a man came over asking if I needed help. I didn’t really, but I let him anyway. He said, “Welcome to Costa Rica!”, and sat back down with his family of four. When the omelet arrived, he came to my table again, and said, “Don’t worry, I already paid.”

I was wowed by this man’s generosity. Then as I began to walk back down, I debated whether I should try hitchhiking or not. On the one hand, it was pouring, but on the other, was it safe, in a country with metal bars and electric fences in front of homes? I finally got fed up with the rain, stuck out my thumb, and was picked up twice.

Although I didn’t reach the peak of Volcan Barva, it felt great to hike, and see rural parts of the country. And although I didn’t reach my goal – I never found that spot where I could sit down, eat my sandwich, and read – I discovered something more valuable. Maybe the generosity of the people I had met that day came from the fact that they were from the countryside, or maybe it was because they thought I was a tourist, and they wanted to make a good impression of their country. But still, what it showed to me, was that certain values have no bounds, and one of them, which makes humankind so great, is kindness.

Journey into Nature Part 1: Is it fate?

I wanted to escape the city and go into the mountains. I found on wikitravel a “gorgeous waterfall and swimming hall” in the “small and cute” town of Barva, which is just north of Heredia. None of the local Gringos or Ticos who I asked about the waterfall had ever heard of such a place, but that didn’t stop me from journeying into the unknown.

While on the bus, I reached for my guide book and read that Barva is known for the Feria de la Mascarada, where performers dress up in lavish costumes and wear huge masks (some of which weight up to 20 kg) of demons, devils….and local celebrities. The festival was on the upcoming Wednesday…I was three days too early.

I imagined Barva as a quiet village set under the shadow of Barva Volcano. But this was no mountain village. The main square was filled with people, out with family and friends, and vendors, selling churros and chop suey. I left the bus and read the directions, “Facing the church, walk left, then take your first left. Follow that road for a quarter of a mile…to the left will be a trail going down to the river.” I took the first left and walked down the road…

...as I walked, I came across a flat white building with music blasting from inside. I peeked my head in. There was a girl dancing, dressed in traditional garb, a white, green, and red plaited dress, in front of a screen that showed pictures of Jerusalem and had lyrics about Jesus. Everyone was chanting with incredible fervor, besides a detached teenage girl sneaking peeks at her cell phone. An old woman saw me and motioned for me to enter so I did, and I stood there and watched. I thought about my time at the discoteca and how dancing and singing was such a big part of the culture here…and I made the connection to religion. I suppose certain things are engrained in society and they're all interconnected. I thought about a night in Heredia when I heard blasting salsa music coming from a large hall and when I looked inside, I was surprised to see not the young students from the university nearby, but a crowd of old men and women, dancing their heads off. You’d never see that in the States, I thought, it’s not an integral part of our culture, something we learn as a child, and continue until we’re elderly, like dancing to a bolero, or bolting out tunes at karaoke, or juggling a soccer ball with our feet.

I continued down the road. But I saw no trail, river, just houses, and cars speeding by me at dangerous speeds. So I retraced my steps and took the second left instead of the first. This time I passed a river, and thought I was going the right way…but never saw a trail. By this point, I had walked quite a bit, so I took a taxi back to the main square, ready to admit there was no waterfall (but now, I wonder if it could have been the other "left"...)

When I got to the town square, a van stopped in front of me and eight young men and women dressed in costumes and giant masks walked out. They began dancing in a circle, and I realized that the reason the square was so packed with people was because today, not the upcoming Wednesday, was the Feria de la Mascarada. I watched the performance with glee, thinking, sometimes the unexpected comes true.

Starting a New Life

August 17, 2011

I’ve finally moved into my own place: a two-bedroom apartment in a great neighborhood for a reasonable price. Only it’s unfurnished…which in Costa Rica means no stove, no fridge, no bed, no table, not even a chair.

To make things more difficult, I moved in on Mother’s Day, and Ticos really love their mothers. Nearly all shops close (the two days prior are so busy they’re like the Black Friday) and the locals spend time with their families. One of the few stores open is Walmart, which is really expensive here, so there was no way I was buying furniture there. But at least I could get a bottle of raid. When I moved into my apartment, the shower curtain was suspiciously closed; then when I opened it, low and behold – a cockroach had discovered a nice wet spot to reside. Throughout the apartment, there were bugs everywhere. My sister had told me a story before I left about how when she was in Costa Rica, she woke up to a tarantula descending towards her. I didn’t particularly want that experience.

I got a little lost on my way to Walmart and found myself wandering through a residential area I hadn’t been. I came across a soccer game and middle class families were watching the players move like acrobats in the rain. This was how I imagined Central America.

Back at the apartment, I took out the bottle of raid and sprayed every nook and cranny of the place. I removed the dead cockroach in the shower, killed the spider in the bedroom, and squashed the small, fly-like creatures, which were easy to kill, but were also intent on sticking to the most difficult to reach corners of the room. I discovered one spider in the laundry room that had built a web that was quite impressive. You could tell that that spider had labored over it, that it had lived there for a long time (in spider years).

When I killed the spiders, they all put up a fight – crawling away, flailing their little legs – except for the spider that made the intricate web. That spider let go after a single spray of Raid, as if it knew this day would come. Although I killed every other insect in the place to the point where my apartment reeked of bug spray, and I obliterated all the other webs, I didn’t tear down that spider’s web. I couldn’t destroy its home.

Religious Pilgrimage

Every August 2nd, Ticos (Costa Ricans), Nicos (Nicaraguans), and citizens of other nations in the region walk from their hometown to La Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles in the ancient capital of Cartago. Old men, women, and small children alike make the journey, some from miles away, and for weeks on end. When they finally reach the basilica, many complete the last two hundred meters on their knees.

They make this journey to see a statuette less than a meter tall. La Negrita, or “The Black Virgin”, is a representation of the Virgin Mary. The story goes that it was found at the basilica in Cartago by a native woman on August 2nd, 1635, and when she tried to take it, it miraculously reappeared…twice. Although La Negrita may be small, it is incredibly holy to Ticos, who have declared her the “patron Virgin”.

Needles to say, I wanted to see what all the fuss was all about.

With a day off work on August 2nd for the holiday, I made plans to go to Cartago immediately. The only problem was I couldn’t find anyone to go with me - everyone who I met here had either already taken the journey, or had no intention of going. Well, it wouldn’t be the only time I traveled solo.

But then it got more complicated. Monse told me that the pilgrims were completing their walk on August 1st. I had to work that day and would have to go at night. Pickpocketing is a bit of a problem in Costa Rica and it is ill advised to go out at alone at night. Even worse, I would have to take a bus through San Jose, which is not only more dangerous than Heredia, but it is a city in which I had never been – plus I would have to walk through the city center to get the bus to Cartago. (There are no “bus stations” here really, you just have to find the street where the bus you want goes – oh and there aren’t addresses here either. Seriously. I currently live at “one hundred and fifty meters from the so-and-so high school” and it’s not uncommon to have addresses where something occurred, like a famous person was born or died, or even near buildings that no longer exist. Addresses are geared toward the locals. But we’re getting off topic.)

I decided to be prudent and go in the morning on August 2nd to see the mass instead. So I was up at 6:30 (a late day…I’m usually up at 5:45 for work) and bussed it out there (no, I wasn’t making the trek). Out the bus window, I got to see a few of the last pilgrims on the final leg of the journey. I took out my camera for the first time since I arrived here and snapped away.

When I reached La Basilica, an impressive structure, there were throngs of people praying with umbrellas. I made my way into the crowd of people who hymned away, watching the priests through a TV screen and gazing at La Negrita, enshrined in gold.

A police plane flew dangerously low and dropped something from the sky. I had no idea what was falling and I ducked under a stranger’s umbrella, shielding my face with my hands. But then I saw what it was that the plane had let fall from the sky – they were flowers.

I looked around to see if I could spot any other gringos. I didn’t see any but one thing’s for sure: I was the only Jew here. But having gone to a Jewish day school, I was familiar with the act of praying; although people of differing religions seem so opposed to each other, there is a certain connection they have, an understanding.

I spent forty minutes or so at the mass. I found a spot in the grass near a mom and three kids who were Nicos. When the prayers came to a (temporary) end, one of the children turned to me and put out his hand. I shook it. Strangers all around me offered me their hands. And they said two words. “La Paz.”

There are certain ideas that have no boundaries. No matter our nationality, religion, or race, we all share the human ideals. I thought back to when I was at Strawberry Fields in Central Park on the 70th Anniversary of John Lennon’s death and New Yorkers chanted “Give Peace a Chance!” We stood out in the December cold for hours to commemorate a symbol of peace. I remembered my time studying Hebrew in Israel, and thinking how “Shalom” was the only word in the language with three meanings – Hello, Goodbye, and Peace. And here, every person who had made the incredible journey to the basilica had come to pray for the same ideal. Peace is Costa Rican: there is no army, no war. But it’s more. Although countries may be divided, and their differences may be vast, peace has no boundaries.