La Zona Sur

One of the places on our Costa Rican must-see list has been la Zona Sur, the southern region of Costa Rica. Despite all the traveling we did during December and January when Megon’s family came to visit, it’s the one region we had yet to explore.

That’s until last week when we were invited to participate in an English conference led by Kyle Kaminski, a fellow Tico 21 TEFL volunteer. The conference was held last Friday in Ciudad Neily, which is Kyle’s site and one of the largest cities near the Panama border. We thought it would be great to mix a little education with adventure. Little did we know that the adventure would come first.

If all went as planned, we initially figured the trip would take all day: A 45-minute walk from our house to the main road, catch the hour an a half bus to San José, catch another seven hour bus to Ciudad Neily, meet Kyle at the station, catch another bus to his road and walk 20 minutes down a dirt road to his house. No problem, right?

Well, we hit a few snags along the way. About halfway up Route 32, the two-lane highway to San José that goes through the mountainous Braulio Carrillo National Park, our bus was stopped because of a landslide that covered the road about a kilometer up ahead. Landslides happen on Route 32 all the time, especially during heavy rainstorms like what we’ve had lately. Considering 80 percent of the national trade passes through this highway, bulldozers are sent to clear out these troublemakers fairly quickly. But this wasn’t just any landslide. This sucker was massive, or according to people on the bus, muy bravo (very aggressive). An article in La Nación, Costa Rica’s national newspaper, said it measured eight meters deep.

After waiting an hour or so in traffic, our bus driver grew so impatient he pulled off the most cowboy move I’ve ever seen in a bus driver. He drove ahead and into the left lane (no oncoming traffic obviously), then put the bus in reverse and proceeded to drive backwards down a windy mountain road with zero shoulder and semi-trucks lined up along the opposite lane. There was no room for error. Yikes! About two kilometers down the road he found an outcropping on the opposite shoulder that bowed out like a rainbow. At the edge of the shoulder was a cliff who-knows-how deep. But with a little help from passengers in the back the driver was able to turn the bus around and point us toward home.

We weren’t going back home, though. The bus took us on the alternative route to San José, which goes through the providence of Limón, heads south at Siquirres on the old road to San José, and winds up the mountains to Turrialba and Cartago. Normally this route takes 4-5 hours depending on traffic. But things got a little messy once we reached Pocorra, a tiny community along Route 32 whose residents were protesting government infringement on water rights by blocking a bridge on the highway. Good for them for exercising their right to free speech, but it wasn’t so good for the passengers who were cooked like Thanksgiving turkeys while the bus sat painfully still on that sunny, humid morning. Nine hours later, with the last San José bus to Ciudad Neily long gone, we reached the capital city and put ourselves down for the night in a hostel.

That next morning we took the earliest bus possible to Neily, ready to reunite with our friends from and get this conference started. The all-day conference also included all eight TEFL volunteers who live in southern part of Costa Rica and Costa Rican English teachers from around the region. Four of the volunteers were from Tico 23, the newest group. They swore in just a month ago, so this was their first Costa Rican teacher conference.

The conference included a workshop with Zona Sur volunteers who presented on a variety of topics such as writing stories, jazz chants, and using cheap materials to teach listening, speaking, writing and reading activities. Megon and I co-taught a workshop on classroom management, which “refers to all of the things a teacher does to organize students, space, time and materials so student learning can take place.” (Wong & Wong) All in all, the conference was a huge success. Kyle did a fantastic job organizing it all and we were honored to participate.  

We celebrated our successes the next day with a hike to some amazing waterfalls behind Kyle’s house. The trail started on a muddy oxcart road that opened up with a panoramic view of a palm oil plantation and dense mountainous jungle in the backdrop. After walking through the plantation, we followed a trail that crisscrossed a stream. At one point the trail ended and we had to walk upstream toward a deep pool where it looked like the creek ended. But on the other side of the pool were two big boulders and the creek flowed between them and into the pool. We had no choice but to wade through the pool and climb through the chute of flowing water and to the other side. As we waited for each person to go through we laughed and squirmed while little fish nibbled on our legs. Funny, yes, but it just perpetuated my little lifelong phobia of flesh-eating fish.

When we finally reached the waterfalls, all of us were in awe of their sheer beauty. They were by far the most amazing falls I’ve ever seen. The water was so warm we hung out for a few hours, swimming, diving, and climbing around, until it was time to head back to Kyle’s house. Unfortunately we had a bus to catch back to San José. That place was so amazing we could have stayed there all day.

I’m not sure if we’ll make it back to Zona Sur before our Close of Service in December. We would really like to explore Corcovado National Park with our good friend Barton who lives near the park. But with our busy life here in Sarapiquí, vamos a ver. We’ll see.