My most sincere apologies for failing to post. I'll stop making excuses soon, but my internet here is very poor. I think something is wrong with my computer, because it doesn't pick up the signal at the majority of cafes, nor at much of the institute. I have to position myself right next to the router, while no one else seems to have any difficulties. Oh well.
Anyway, I'm going to try to get caught up on the happenings since my last post, which was....eek January 27th.
Of utmost importance, of course, was my 21st birthday on the 31st. I was excited that I didn't have Tropical Ecology class that day, which meant I wouldn't be out in the field, which meant I could look "cute" at school for my birthday and wear my (in no way appropriate for the terrain) strappy sandals. I was doubly excited that the class schedule read, "Tour of the cheese factory," which the whole group knows is my favorite place to go around here. It's right next to the institute, and they make the BEST ice cream. What I didn't know about the factory was that they pride themselves in their waste management system. The whey that is left from the milk after the cheese is made, is sent through underground pipes to a nearby pig farm to feed the pigs, which meant we would also be touring the pig farm, which meant I was going to have to walk through a pig farm (as well as a giant iodine pool) in my now exponentially more inappropriate footwear. PATI TO THE RESCUE! At the last minute, she found a pair of rubber boots at the institute! Crisis (and orange feet) averted.
As an aside, this wasn't the first time I spent my birthday touring a waste management facility. I spent my 18th birthday touring a municipal waste water treatment facility in high school. Always a party.
After school, we all went home and had dinner and met later at the Tree House restaurant to celebrate my birthday with dessert and drinks. The Tree House is a super touristy restaurant with a tree growing in the middle of it. The food is expensive, and from what I've heard, you're paying for the ambiance, but the drinks were good, and the waitstaff made sure I celebrated the "Pura Vida" way with a double shot of tequila next to a single shot of vodka. Signifying the big 2-1.
Since it was a Monday, it was a pretty quiet night, and a relaxing way to kick off the week. Although, it in no way compared to the relaxing experience of the following weekend. Saturday (Feb. 6th) we went to Las Juntas, which is down the mountain and significantly hotter. We took a tour of an ecomuseum of an old mine. It was an entirely outdoor museum with a pretty intense uphill hike.
Ahdi and I panting our way to the top.
After the hike, though, we went to the nearby thermal pools and spent the whole evening there. It was incredible.
Since then we've been pretty busy with school work. It's time to get in proposals for research projects for various classes. I've decided for Tropical Ecology to do a study of coffee pollination at the local coffee farms with Ahdi, and for Environmental Sustainability, my friend Allison and I are making a documentary on the sustainability of the cheese factory/pig farm.
Brief history lesson on the cheese factory: The factory was founded as a cooperative by the Quakers, and while giant milk trucks make deliveries throughout the day from the region's dairy farms, the Quaker farmers can still be seen in the mornings making deliveries of 40L milk cans by horse or oxen. The factory is now a corporation, but it has a very interesting set up. If a dairy farmer wants to sell his or her milk to the factory, he/she needs to buy stock in the company, and if people (other than dairy farmers) want to buy stock in the company, they need to live in Monteverde or have a connection to the Quaker community.
