An American Dream in Monte Verde, Costa Rica

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One Type of American Dream:  New Experiences

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We drove to Monte Verde to make a dream come true:  to experience a cloud forest, a completely different type of forest than a rain forest.

Up in the mountains, we felt tiny stings on our bare arms.  It was the tiny, cold droplets of the clouds that drifted over the mountaintops.  This moisture collects on leaves and runs off to the roots, creating a unique eco-climate.

Look closely in the center of this fig tree, you'll see the silhouette of my head.

We took a canopy tour.  You're now looking down 50 to 100 feet at the tops of trees growing below.

My brother, in the blue jacket, said to the guide of the canopy tour, "We're all plant nerds, so please go slow."

A plant that looks very weird to my eye.

More strange plants.

We really are plant nerds!

San Jose, Costa Rica

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The American Dream of Time with Family

Family is the most important thing to Costa Ricans, I think it's safe to say.  We saw people sitting out on their porches, just hanging out in each other's company.  Costa Rica is one of the happiest countries in the world.

My family took a day trip to San Jose, under my son's adopted family's wing, to explore the capital of Costa Rica.  Sculptures of birds accented the parks and pedestrian malls.  We had ice cream, a nice cap to a warm day.  

My son and his girlfriend Indira with a bird sculpture.

Will's adopted mom, Marta.

A theater.

The whole family (except me, thank God).

Another bird.

Indira's sister Sheyla and her boyfriend Abraham.  He turned out to be a real caballero (gentleman).

Heredians Love Their American Dream

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The American Dream in Heredia

My son's adopted city, Heredia, is twenty minutes from San Jose.  I felt lost mostly, since, as a foreigner, every street looked the same to me.  Small shops line every street, and Heredians love to shop apparently, playing out their "Americas" dream.

Heredia is a delightful city.  Its high elevation means great weather.  The Parque Central in Heredia has an historic fort, an art museum, a beautiful fountain and a lovely historic church.

The fort.

My son and adopted family on the steps of the art museum.

The fountain at sunset.

 La Inmaculada Concepcion, a majestic church built in 1796.

Interior of the church - side entrance.

Rear door.

The altar decorated for Christmas.

Delightful Indigenous Folks We Met

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Indigenous Peoples, aka Native Americans in Central America

We hired a guide, Jackie, and explored territory near Cahuita where the indigenous BriBri peoples live out their lives in simplicity, tending cocoa plants for cash, raising chickens, living in palm-thatched huts as their ancestors did.  Jackie taught us some BriBri words, and I only remember "Evishkena," which is "hello."

A BriBri chief talked about ancient spiritual practices.

A puppy owned by an indigenous family greeted my sister the traditional way.

Lying in the hammock is "Abuelo," or "Grandfather," a 111-year-old BriBri man.  He asked Jackie, our guide, sitting on the floor next to him, to send him someone to teach him English.  The walls of his hand-made thatched hut come only to the waist.  The house is open to the wind and rain, but the temperature is always moderate.

Abuelo was only reachable via this handmade bridge.

A BriBri woman, Abuelo's daughter, ground up the cocoa on this concave rock.

After the roasted cocoa is ground up, she makes little round balls of it, wraps them individually in cellophane, and sells them to the people that guides like Jackie bring to them.  It was the most delicious chocolate I ever tasted.

Be Careful Which American Dream You Choose

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The American Dream -- In Search of More Stuff

The simplicity in which the BriBri lived their lives was stunning.  A child we saw had one toy -- Elmo on a string that dangled from the palm-thatched rafters.  Do children really need much more than that?  Do we?  I'm surrounded by stuff that I have to take care of.  I want to resist the urge to keep up with friends and relatives and be content with what I have.

As we drove to the BriBri village, we passed just a few yards from a river that forms the boundary line between Costa Rica and Panama.  This is by far the farthest south I've ever been.

On the way home from the BriBri, Jackie took us to a waterfall for a swim.  The water was the perfect temperature.  I got out when some fish started nibbling on me.

Cahuita and Exotic Flora and Fauna

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The American Dream of Retirement

Cahuita is on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, a country where Americans have flocked in recent years for an affordable American dream of retirement.  It was an interesting town.  Its main street was four blocks long, lined with restaurants that had no walls.  No need for walls, the weather is pleasant year-round.  Most of the eateries had concrete floors, but we had a delicious traditional Costa Rican lunch at one with a dirt floor.  A family made a living there serving guests at one table perched unevenly among tree roots and at one bar with six stools in front of it.  

Fauna and Flora of the Americas

The atmosphere of Cahuita was exotic to me.  One dead tree on Main Street played daily host to a dozen vultures.

The vulture tree

I had my first experience with howler monkeys.  Pre-dawn, these tiny creatures howl like giant vampires lusting to sink their teeth into human flesh.  I learned from the proprietor of our hotel that the monkeys resent human intrusion into their territory and take every opportunity to poop on cars or on people's beach towels left outdoors over railings.

Like the fauna, the flora was exotic.

I don't know its name, but I love it.

The Caribbean coast near Cahuita is the site of national forest that stretches to the horizon.

Our hotel proprietor, Marie-Claude, had a pet parrot that she worried about.  He was only half-wild -- he spent nights in the hotel in his cage with his food box.  He flew around freely during the day but couldn't be relied on to fend for himself in the wild.  He could say hello in English, French, Spanish and Dutch.  When we laughed at his antics, he laughed back at us, which made us laugh harder, and him harder, on and on...

Unleash the Genius of the American People

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I appreciated the opportunity to see how others in the Americas live, as you'll see below.  We are wildly blessed in the United States, and I think it's because of the Judeo-Christian values the country was founded on, which most of our people have tried to live out.  God's respect for the individual as portrayed in the Bible is the source of our Constitutional freedoms, which unleashed the genius of the American people.  We need country-wide to practice those same values of work, generosity to those in need, and worship of Creator God to unleash our genius again.

The Caribbean from within the national park in Cahuita, Costa Rica. We saw white-faced and howler monkeys, an alligator, a boat-billed heron, raccoons and a black bird with yellow feet and bill that might have been a toucan.  Also some lovely butterflies.  We looked diligently for sloths but for some reason they never caught our eye.

Somebody parked a trailer and left it too long in Cahuita.

Typical Cahuita houses.  Colorful, minimal.