Posted by Rick Civelli | 07.12.2012 | Sea Turtle Camp News

Travels in the land of the Tico Part II

Buenas tardes from the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica,

We are writing you on this rainy afternoon in high spirits after our past few days and nights in Parismina. Yesterday was filled with personal explorations of island culture. We stated our day off by visiting a local, organic, sustainable family farm. Jason, the owner, has been working this piece of land most of his life. He moved back and started an eco-lodge about 5 years ago and has been working with his family to create a unique environment that reflects how many of the Ticos lived in the past. His farm is not connected to any of the amenities that the rest of the town has. He generates his own power via solar PV, uses well water and filters it clean for use by his family and guests that stay in his traditional housing. For his fence line, Jason uses wild pineapple as a natural barrier from the wind and salty sea air.

Enclosed within his property, he grows many of the native fruits and vegetables from this area. Pineapple, yucca, coconut, guava, papaya, bread fruit, vanilla, limes, cashews, banana, mangoes, plantains, habaneros, and avocados are just what we had the chance to see during our morning visit. The yard surrounding the lodge was filled with all sorts of bromeliads, epiphytes, and native flowers (which are exotic flowers to us in the States). During our walk around the farm we saw some awesome animals in the wild that we would typically only see in zoos. We saw a 2-toed sloth, black hawk, several parrots, a female emerald basilisk, Montezuma oropendula (Caribbean oriole) Toucans, and freshwater turtles.

In the afternoon, our group put on a program about sea turtles for the local kids. This gave our group a chance to get to know some more of the local children and for us to practice our conversational Spanish. Our young leaders worked so well with the kids and all of us made some new friends. As educators, we love to see our group connect with the local children and how they interact and share their experiences for the betterment of both groups. We know this connection will stay with our campers and might have an impact on their choice of studies in the years to come.

Good luck getting us off the island, we’ve found a new home.

Just kidding, we are excited about our upcoming trip to Monteverde and seeing the cloud forest.

Living on Tico Time,

Jayme B
Carolina P
And the Sea Turtle Campers of Costa Rica