Cabeceras

I realize I haven't posted in a while...and I plan on getting around to posting on some things that went on in the last few weeks, but first I want to talk about the lovely trip I took this weekend!

I had a wonderful taxi driver that made me laugh and took me to Cabeceras, Costa Rica to see the man that he called "Senor Hormigas". Cabeceras is about an hour away from San Luis, and as we approached this small farm town, Evelio explained that the root of the town's name is cabeza. The closest translation of the town's name would be like pillow, you know - the place you put your cabeza. It made sense to me, and I will forever think of this place as "The Pillow of Costa Rica".

First of all, it was freakin' beautiful:

Buck managed to find a little pulperia that also had a place for him to rest his cabeza:

(business in the front, Buck's room in the back)

I felt so happy to be able to help (even just a little) with the scientific process. We sought out fire ant mounds, but had a great time with some great weather. From morning to noon, the plan of the plots went from little squares, to big squares, back to little squares, then to triangles within squares, and to sqaures within triangles. I won't try to explain the methods, but it really was a lot to work out in our heads. All that matters is we got some mounds marked before lunch time.

Here is the view from plot #2:

(plants in the foreground will be bursting with ripe coffee berries in about a month)

And here is the little bugger that stung the hell out of Buck:

 

After lunch, I discovered that no taxi driver was willing to come pick me up from the middle of nowhere on the day that transporting bicyclists to and from Santa Elena could fill their time. So sadly, the trip was cut short around 2:00 as I quickly packed up all my things and made the bus to Santa Elena. However, once there, I still had to get down to San Luis. Luckily, it was a very nice day, and I walked down the Trocha without even once wishing I were traveling by car.

However, if I had been traveling by car, I totally would have gotten to the cheese factory in time. Instead, I approached the door at 4:03, not sure if it would be open or closed (things close pretty early on Sundays). To my delight, I saw people inside ordering the most delicious coffee and chocolate chip milkshakes you could ever imagine. My euphoria was abruptly interrupted when a door closed right in my face! I watched the employee flip the sign to "cerrado", and my heart sank a little. I'll have to wait until my next trip to Santa Elena to enjoy some of that heavenly beverage.

Anyway, it's getting late (9:48...HA!) so I'm scooting off to bed. I have to get up early tomorrow so I can get some writting in before the Earth Charter meeting with the kitchen staff. Work is going well, and I can't wait to see what the UGA Costa Rica employees think of our implementation of Earth Charter initiatives.

Adios!