I decided after my first ride from the top of the mountain in Monteverde to my host family in the San Luis valley that I could never walk UP La Trocha -- the steep, steep mountain rise pass. It takes aa fit, fit person a good hour to walk up.
BUT, I did decide I could walk down. So this last Wedneday was my day for adventure.
I finally had my chance to meet with the Quakers here on Wednesday. That's how I started my day. At 9 am they meet on Wednesday with the entire student body, teachers, and members of the meeting. As I sat in silence and looked out the large windows the cloud forest trees were moved by the wind. I sank into the silence, and into a deep sense of HOME that I did not know I had been missing. It was the home of a community meeting for worship, breathing the spirit together.
Following the meeting I was immediately befriended (makes sense with Friends!), and many connections and invitations ensued.
The Quakers came to this area 50 years ago to farm and find a peace not available in Georgia where a compulsory registration for the draft persisted. And, among other things on Wednesday like a lecture about peacemaking in community, a poetry slam at The Common Cup Cafe, and a "group sing," I also learned that there was an open Scrabble game on Friday afternoons that had been going on since 1951, and a Contra Dance on Saturday.
But I decided to keep my promise to myself and descend La Trocha. It was a clear and sunny day, and around the first turn I two Morpho butterflies crossed my path. Yes, this was the right way!
A Friend encouraged me to find a walking stick to support the stress on my knees in the 3 km downhill climb. Found one, and also found that "baby steps" were much easier on my knees. I took my time.
On the turns the vista opened. One can see down the mountains to the coast, across the Gulf of Nicoya and on to the Nicoya Peninsula. Glorious. There is a lookout to climb where I ate my lunch and hung on for dear life. The wind sweeps strongly through this mountain pass!
At the bottom of the valley I could clearly see "my house," and the family farm highter up, and still higher la catarata, a huge waterfall that is part of the source of the San Luis River. It is also part of my family's property. It seems clear that living in such a beautiful, and challenging place, shapes the spirit and culture -- of those at the top, and those at the bottom.
And it was also cleara that the green, green mountains as my back were very different that the dry, dry "winter" mountains below that had been cleared for pasture. Here many make their living with cattle for milk or meat. But the cost to the forests and watersources is graphic and sobering.
As I descended further I got hotter and very sweaty. Part of geting home, a one and a half hour hike, was plain old work. And a chance to ponder the significance of this paved divide.
The community below, San Luis, is very proud of the fact that they paved La Trocha themselves. Yes, that means they raised the money, and hauled the paving materials up the side of the mountain, and laid it down by hand. Makes me very aware of how I take safe paved roads for granted.
I am in between the culture of Monteverde -- tourists, Quakers, green, counter-cultural, artistic, educated, glad to have a job here folks -- and San Luis -- extended families, small farms, chickens, cows and horses, small coffee fields, schools and a tiny clinic. And at every turn a smiling face, probably of a relative. There is time for long coffees, long walks, and long hours preparing meals for all who happen to be in the house.
This week it is much easier for me to descend and be at home in San Luis that to own my identity as tourist and foreigner. However that green, artistic, educated, counter cultural community is the one I return to soon.
What will I take up La Trocha with me as I soon leave this new sense of home, language and culture?
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