RSSCosta Rica Moving Day
Mar 08
Uncategorized adventure Travel, Costa Rica, costa rica photography, ecotourism, environment, family travel, Living In Costa Rica, Nature, photography, photography tour, tourism, travel No Comments
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I am a professional photographer in Costa Rica. The experiences on my tours are many since I never know what my group and I will happen upon. Let me tell you about one of these surprising events.
One of the pleasures of living in Costa Rica is that I can conduct Costa Rica Photo Tours for folks who want to visit and photograph exotic locations. Indeed, one of the destinations on the tour is the beautiful Osa Peninsula, the “most biologically intense place” on earth according to the National Geographic Society. We drive to this location through the little village of Ojochal, which is very close to my home.
Some Costa Ricans in rural communities have an unusual method of moving. As one of my groups was passing through the village some folks started pointing to something ahead of us. It was a fellow moving. But, before telling you this story, let me give you a little background on this gentleman.
Our only neighbours when we moved to Costa Rica were Ticos (that is what the Costa Ricans call themselves) and one of them by the very Spanish name of Wilson came calling with a house warming gift of some flowering plants. It was very comical to see him standing at our driveway waiting to be invited in onto the property so that he could give us this gift. He was too polite to come to our door without an invitation.
We were not sure what he wanted and after a “conversation” with him speaking Spanish and us speaking mostly English, I realized that he wanted to give us the flowering plants. I guess it was a sort of a house-warming gift from “the neighbours.” You need to appreciate that the fellow did not own a car. He lived at least a hour away up the mountain and had carried the plants the whole way.
Over the years, Senor Wilson has given me flowering plants many times, always expecting me to plant them somewhere. Well, it does not always happen that the planting occurs quickly enough so sometimes the plants may not be in very good shape by the time they are planted. In any event, I certainly never expected to be tested on my planting abilities when I moved to Costa Rica from Canada.
A couple of days after Senor Wilson gave me plants one time, he came to the house with still another plant and visited while his two boys swam in the river by the house. Of course, he asked me where I planted the others that he had brought the last time he came.
Unfortunately, the flowering plants were still on my terrace in aluminium kettles with drainage holes stabbed in the bottom of the pot with a machete. When good neighbor Wilson saw that his previous gift had not been planted, he politely asked in his quiet way if I would mind if he planted all of them for me. Quite a fellow, my neighbor and friend, Wilson.
Now that you have some idea about the kind of fellow my friend and neighbor Wilson is like, I want to return to my photography tour group driving along the dusty road near my house. Suddenly, we came upon a man walking alongside his horse. The animal was carrying two white bags, two huge white bags, filled with clothes and household items. Between the bags, Wilson or his wife had wedged a blue broom that extended over the animal’s head, giving us the impression that the horse was wearing a bristle blue tiara. I wonder if the horse was enjoying his royal status or quietly suffering the indignity of wearing a broom crown.
Wilson, standing by the horse, was holding a bridle in one hand and a birdcage in the other. A man, his birdcage, a horse, his crown. Quite a sight! It was moving day in Costa Rica.
Wilson and I start to chat as the group hurriedly grabbed their cameras. I greeted him with “Hola, que tal?” (how are you?) and jokingly asked he was moving. Well, to my surprise, that was exactly correct. The horse was his moving van or, as my group called it, Wilson’s 4 X 4.
He explained that he, his wife (a tiny lady who looks 14), and the 3 kids would be taking care of a B&B while the owner returned to Germany during Costa Rica’s rainy season. They were very pleased about this arrangement because living in the pueblo brought the kids closer to the school, saving them from walking two miles down and back from their mountain home.
I thought that it was rather interesting that he was carrying the birdcage. I would have thought that on one of the previous trips down to their new digs one of the children would have wanted to carry the cage.
I guess carrying flowering plants and birdcages come under the same heading. Wilson explained that the bird was young (parrot or parakeet, can’t really tell) and that it was very talkative. As if to show off, the feathered pet suddenly started chattering. Unfortunately, I had not yet mastered Spanish well enough to understand bird Spanish so I could not figure out what he was saying. But, it did not matter to the bird.
Everybody’s cameras were clicking away because this was certainly something not seen every day. A moving van of a horse wearing a blue tiara, a chattering bird showing off for company, and a family of five walking down a mountain, worldly possessions in hand, on moving day in Costa Rica. My photo tours are filled with surprises even for me.
Frank Scott writes from sunny Costa Rica where he is a professional Costa Rica Photographer offering unique photography tours. Some of his work can be seen in Costa Rica Vacations, a very popular travel guide to this unique country.
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