Triplog: Costa Rica (Part 2)

I am writing now from La Fortuna, several hours inland by car from our previous location on the western coast. To get here, we traveled over major (paved, two-lane) highways and smaller (packed dirt, one- and two-lane) roads. We frequently had to cross what one local called “oh my God” bridges: narrow, single-lane water crossings with no side rails. Traffic lights are very rare, “stop,” “caution,” and “yield” signs are frequent.

In Guanacasta we did our first major tourist thing, which was a package that the tour company called the “Mega Combo.” After a two hour drive to Rincon de la Vieja we took a treacherous trail on horseback down to a secluded hot spring. One of our number found the experience a bit too exciting and left his horse behind. He quickly discovered that the journey on foot was far more treacherous and had to meet up with a tractor along the way.

The forest and the springs were beautiful, although I chose to forego the mud bath. After an hour, though, we were ready to move on to the next mega destination, a quarter-mile long water slide. Which was a blast. Everyone went twice.

Next up, ziplining. There were eleven platforms suspended in trees high above the floor with great views of the forest canopy. We saw a few monkeys, but not much else, unfortunately. We were each outfitted with a climbing harness, rope and pulley, and a safety rope. At each platform a guide would attach our safety rope to a secondary airplane cable and then we would do a pull-up so that the could hook us to our pulley on the primary cable. One hand rests on the line attached to the harness, one on the zip line behind the pulley. Cross your legs, lean back, and use your back hand (with a thick leather glove) to slow your descent. Very fun, great views, and easy to do. Despite what the picture implies, we were actually quite high off the ground.

Ziplining really is a blast, and with any luck we might do a bit more of it before this trip is done. And that wraps up the “Mega Combo.” It was super typical! (As they say on the signs for their markets here).

Tuesday was an in day at the hotel: pool, kayaks, cooking class, and the like. In the evening we rented a car and headed down to Playa Grande to sit around for several hours waiting for wormsign turtles.

The huge leatherback turtles (measuring 1-1.5m in length) return to the beaches on which they were hatched in order to lay their eggs. In the early 90s a thousand turtles a year would come to Playa Grande to make their nests, now that number is far lower. We were not allowed to bring lights, cameras, or cell phones and had to keep quiet. When a turtle was spotted we were led to the beach and allowed to stand within half a meter of the huge mother turtle as she slowly dug her nest with her back legs and then dropped over sixty eggs into it, before burying them in the sand. We were not allowed to stay to watch the turtle return to the water (nor were we allowed to take any pictures, and I almost got a “ticket” for bringing my camera along). Still, it was a pretty neat experience. I can only hope when I bring *my* children to Costa Rica some day there will still be turtles left to visit.

Next time: Germans! Rafting! Volcanoes! Mosquitos!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Triplog: Costa Rica (Part 1)

Although this is the dry season in Guanacaste province, which is in the north of the country, we were delayed getting from Liberia airport to our hotel due to recent flooding that had damaged a bridge. While enjoying daredevil driving, I had a chance to acclimate from the snowstorm I had just left in Boston to the hot and humid Central American weather.

The primary artery from the airport to the coast is a two lane road. Much of the country is like this, with critical infrastructure in need of repair and major transportation arteries seriously undersized. While Costa Rica, a highly progressive and environmentally-friendly nation, hopes to become carbon-neutral within the next 20 years, problems of infrastructure threaten to hamper those goals. Idling cars do not make reducing emissions any easier.

That said, Costa Rica’s energy generation is nearly 99% renewable, with a substantial majority of it coming from hydroelectric and geothermal sources — dams and volcanoes, to put it simply. Now, dams aren’t always entirely environmentally friendly, but geothermal energy has a pretty good track record, and CR even exports electricity to Panama and other neighboring countries.

Speaking of neighbors, we learned that the country has a bit of an immigration problem. Nicaraguan laborers from the north come to CR en masse during harvest season. Nicaraguan mango pickers work long days in the groves, looking up into trees and using a blade and basket assembly on a pole to pick ripe mangoes and pack them into crates. One basket usually holds 30-40 mangoes (depending on size) and they are paid about 200 colones (40 cents) per basket.

Mirroring the American immigration problem, dueling forcers are at work: the need for cheap, abundant labor to perform jobs that the general population is not willing or able to perform for the wages offered, and concern about rising crime and the cost of social services, both problems that can be pinned, justified or not, on the migrant community. There are differences, though. For one, Ticos and Nicas share a language and similar cultural traditions. Less than a quarter century ago Nicaragua was a more prosperous land than its neighbor to the South, but years of war and internal strife led Nicaragua to its present economic situation.

When we asked a guide about his feelings on the immigration wave, he said that while others may think badly of he Nicaraguan community, he is a supporter of their plight, has Nicaraguan friends, and has a Nicaraguan flag hanging in his house. So far we have not encountered any Nicaraguan xenophobes, but then we haven’t exactly been looking.

All around our hotel are condominium units built or under construction for rich American (and sometimes European) ex-pats. The top industry in Costa Rica is tourism, bringing in $1.7 billion annually and making the nation the most visited in the region. Next up is high technology, thanks to a concerted push in the last decade to bring in outside technology investment through major tax incentives. Intel is here, and a tour guide told us with evident pride that it was Costa Rican scientists who developed and a Costa Rican fab that is producing Intel’s newest Penryn processor. Fitting, as the Penryn uses a new low-power, high-performance design.

The third major industry in CR is agriculture. Fruit, cattle, and sugarcane are major crops.

I’ve run out of internet time (frittered away fact checking!), so next time I’ll talk bout our first adventure tour (the “Mega Combo” package!) and post some pictures. Until then.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

★★★★☆
Review

Big Dead Place

Nicholas Johnson has a lot of ice time under his belt. He spent five summers and two winters at McMurdo base on Antarctica, mostly working Waste Management (a fairly complicated job in a place where everything that comes in needs to be taken out again). Thus his bug’s-eye view of the workings of the United States Antarctic Project (USAP) are not colored by bureaucratic doublespeak or corporate banality. It becomes abundantly clear very early that Johnson is his own man, and a very cynical one at that.

Big Dead Place offers a fascinating overview of the workings of McMurdo and South Pole stations, the United States’ two primary outposts in the Antarctic. While the program is operated under the auspices of the National Science Foundation and its mission is general thought to be the pursuit of scientific progress, one quickly learns that there are other, stranger forces at work. For one thing, for every one researcher on base, there are about five support staff. They run the facilities (electricity, heating, plumbing), machine shops, supply yards, logistics, cafeteria, waste disposal, janitorial services, housing, human resources, and on and on. While Antarctica is often portrayed as a land of harsh mystery, marvelous wonder, and funny penguins, the day-to-day truth is far more asinine. McMurdo and Pole are just like any other job, except that the weather rarely tops 0 degrees Fahrenheit and six months of the year see no sunlight at all.

Continue reading “Big Dead Place”

Costa Rica planning and advice

I’d like to solicit some help on what to do while in Costa Rica. I’m woefully ignorant of the country and region, although I hope that will change once I get there. We’ll be arriving in the city of Liberia in the province of Guanacaste on the 15th, and leaving from San José eight days later. For the first half of our trip we’ll be staying at the Villa Sol hotel, which offers its own tours and such, and I’m not sure where we’re going for the second half, but I think it is someplace less “all-inclusive.” I tend to favor cultural explorations (but not museums) and fun outdoorsy stuff, my family generally favors more laid back excursions. The hotel has kayaks, so that’s definitely going to happen.

Other then that, I have no idea what we should be doing. I’ve been told there is white water rafting, canopy tours, zip lining, hiking, rain forest explorations, volcanoes…sounds awesome. Since apparently everyone I’ve known has been to CR at some point or another, input welcomed and appreciated.

Currently…

Making latkes with my new food processor, and serving them with homemade apple sauce, cause I rock as a host. Buying a “shell” (i.e. waterproof pants) at EMS. Seeing Bat Boy at Emerson with Shaina (one of us liked it). Watching Scrubs on Hulu (neat!). Preparing to wake up early and hike the Whites. Going to sleep in order to accomplish previous.

Patterns and ruts

Winter is upon us for real, now that the first snow is on the ground. I find I follow a fairly predictable pattern in winter. At least for me, the darkness, cold, and dreary weather exacerbates latent depression. I’ve been unhappy lately, and in such times I find that it is important, although sometimes difficult, to just step back and think logically about what is making you unhappy and what you can do to fix it.

Today was a really good day. Not for any specific reason, it was just good. I got up early, I opened my window shade, I did some cleaning, I emailed and IMed a few people I haven’t talked to lately, I got a neat present from home, I did some design work and came up with something I’m fairly proud of, I went for a run for the first time in weather below freezing, and actually did pretty well. I listened to a lot of Springsteen. I had barbecue with Igor and Kevin. I played Rock Band with them plus Kelli, and found out that drumming is awesome.

We often drift into patterns, and do things simply because they’re what we have been doing, and don’t do thinks simply because there is so much inertia holding us in place. Sometimes you can break the pattern with something simple and small and find everything else shifts because of it. This was one of those days, and it reminds me that I don’t have to be unhappy if I don’t want to be.

I think the easiest mistake in the world is to — at the moment you recognize the flashbacks, as they come — throw up your hands and say, “I know this story.” The whole point of this movie is to tell you that you don’t, and never did: it’s a story that plays out in faces. It could be boring to hear or see the same stories we already know, so you have to come in at a different angle: not the horrors and the acts, but the faces and the feelings behind the horrors and the acts. That’s the story here.

— Recap of Razor by Jacob Clifton on Television Without Pity

Welcome to AgBlog Molten, the 7th iteration of this blog. I started working on this just about a year ago, and finally it is done. I’m really happy with it. Lots of improvements in things like legibility and page size, archive view, commenting, and the like. Its based on a solid framework (K2), but still looks pretty unique. All of the different post types are featured on the same footing. What remains is to go through and edit and re-categorize *2339* old posts. So please be patient. The first 100 or so are done, though, so I’m on track to finish around 2012.

★★★☆☆
Review

Battlestar Galactica: Razor

This review contains spoilers for Battlestar Galactica through episode 3×04 and for Razor.

Are we supposed to see Cain as a flawed but sympathetic human being? Because I can’t. Major Shaw? Yes, a sympathetic character — young, inexperienced, dead mom, led astray by a powerful force. But not Cain. The transition was too sudden, the decisions too rash and single-minded, the act of CIC brutality too disturbing, and the justifications too feeble for me to see her as a sympathetic character. I choose to ignore the coda and disbelieve the notion that Adama could have taken her place. But I could see Kara in Shaw’s place. Wasn’t she, after all, a surrogate Shaw to Cain in the time prior to Shaw appearing whole cloth in Razor?

Look back at Resurrection Ship. Look at how Cain was then: her strength, her will, her intelligence, her sensibility. She was measured. She was cold. Very often, she was right. Look at Kara’s eulogy. Do you feel like maybe Shaw should have delivered it?

So we get Shaw, and we get Kara, and they fight with each other, because they’re so similar, and we get Lee, and okay, he’s not a bad commander, and we get the rest of the people, and they’re all props, and we get flashbacks, and it’s all filler. It is all things we already know. There is nothing, nothing new here. Why bring it all back, why go to all the trouble, without making something new? If you’re doing a story about Shaw, do a story about Shaw, whoever the frack she is. But don’t do a rehash of Cain.

My opinion of Battlestar Galactica: Razor? Mediocre. A missed opportunity. There was so much potential here. I’d have loved to see a four hour mini-series called Battlestar Pegasus. Instead we get more of the same, ever since they left New Caprica, ever since the show lost its way.

Riding a bicycle in Boston is something akin to combat. Cyclists routinely rank the city America’s worst. Stung by national criticism and hoping to take a bite out of traffic and air pollution, Mayor Thomas M. Menino is vowing to change that.

— "Pedal Pushing" by Matt Viser in the Boston Globe