Giant Spiders and a Costa Reekin' Toilet

Whilst in Costa Rica we decided to spend a few weeks wwoofing at a farm in the Valle de El General - the country's lush tropical coffee and sugar cane heartland. We found a place run by two aging hippies called Mario and Rosie - or Glowingfeather and Honihawke to give them their "Rainbow Names." Always up for something a little different we overlooked the slightly kooky job description (featuring such reassuring nuggets as "the land will be your teacher," and invitations to participate in "heart song life dance playshops"), hopped on a bus from San Jose and sallied forth into the middle of nowhere.

Earth Rose Farm, our new home and workplace, is very beautiful (see pictures here) - 45 acres of green fields sloping down towards the river El General. Previously a coffee farm, mangoes, starfruit, pineapples, bananas, oranges, coconuts, avocados, guanabana and cacao all grow in abundance on the property and a few cattle graze in the upper pastures. Early in the morning mist rolls down the valley as the sun rises - a view best appreciated from the rancho some previous wwoofers had built at the highest point on the farm.

The farm is also extremely isolated. It sits at the top of several impossibly steep hills, and is accessible by vehicle only when it isn't raining. Costa Rican road planning does not adhere to the generally accepted methodology of winding around hills, preferring to go up and over them in as straight a line as possible. In addition, the roads around Earth Rose Farm are not roads in the traditional sense, consisting simply of tracks etched out of the earth by diggers and left to turn into steep, slippery mud slides at the slightest hint of precipitation. Add to this the fact that a small river has to be forded just to get onto the main access road to the farm, and you're in a pretty transport-unfriendly environment.

Sadly for us, getting on and off the farm was by far the smallest challenge we faced over the next few weeks. Peruse, if you will, these pictures of our rustic accommodation. On our introductory tour of the farm we were proudly introduced to the outdoor solar shower. This was actually pretty good (if you got there before the hot water ran out or before it got dark and the frogs came in to join you) and it was quite a zen experience showering under a blue sky in the shade of a palm tree and some bougainvillea. The toilet, however, was not so pleasant. I say toilet - it was in fact a small wooden platform screened by palm branches, inside which was a rudimentary wooden frame suspending a toilet seat over a plastic bucket, and a second bucket full of sawdust. When the first bucket was full, one of us would need to lift it gingerly out of the hut and carry it to the nearby pile of hay half-heartedly contained by a square structure made out of sticks. The bucket was then hoisted up over the stick enclosure and emptied out, before its not-even-slightly-composted-yet former contents were covered over with more hay. Given that 5 or 6 wwoofers were sharing this toilet, it needed emptying pretty frequently and the sights and smells and splashes which accompanied this process can only be described as nauseating.

Our sleeping quarters were another wwoofer construction - a 6 bed dorm room with a concrete base topped by a wooden frame and tin roof. The whole thing was encased in a fine metal mesh which we were assured did a great job of keeping all the creepy crawlies out. It soon transpired that the creepy crawlies were not in fact kept out by the mesh or indeed by anything else, and we received nightly visits from colossal spiders, giant scorpions, huge barb-tailed grasshoppers and all manner of creatures inbetween. Those who are not faint of heart can see a small selection of our non-human roommates here. You can also admire one of them in this little video:



At least, we thought, we could look forward to getting stuck into all the farm work that was going on (pictures here). Unfortunately, by the end of our first day it had become clear that our hosts at Earth Rose Farm were far from farmers, and in fact to call it Earth Rose "Farm" at all was something of a misnomer. For starters, Rosie and Maji (first names and surnames being far too parochial for ole' Glowingfeather he hopped over to Hawaii and changed his name to plain old "Maji") were a couple of retired Americans from Florida who, having no experience of farming or animal husbandry whatsoever, decided to buy a farm in Costa Rica on the basis of a vision Maji had when he "died" during heart surgery. Unfortunately, according to Maji said heart surgery had rendered him totally incapable of anything more strenous than lifting a cup of tea, and Rosie's only ventures outside of the farm house were to pick the odd carrot from the vegetable garden or get into the car and drive into town. Undeterred by lack of experience and physical ability they took over their land from an aging farmer who, in keeping with the best use of the land, had previously grown coffee and raised cattle. Maji and Rosie didn't like the sound of raising cattle to be killed and coffee cultivation was far too much effort, so they decided to, well, to be honest, after 5 years it still wasn't entirely clear what they were doing. Rosie, very sweet in her own way, had no interest in the farm whatsoever beyond her occasional jaunts to plant a few seeds, feed the chickens that lived behind the house or admire her small crop of cabbages.

Maji was slightly more interested, ostensibly in turning the farm into some kind of collective where other couples and families moved in, built themselves houses and presumably did some actual work around the place. After 4 years his dream had failed to become reality, something that could possibly be attributed to his laziness and inability to plan or manage anything on the farm. We were asked to start work on numerous ill-conceived projects during our stay, but perhaps the best example was the grand kitchen project. One day Maji announced that he wanted to build a new kitchen at the wwoofer dorm. The next morning, the perfectly serviceable shelter we had been using was torn down, leaving piles of jagged, rusty corrugated tin roofing sheets, wooden posts and 6ft deep holes strewn around outside our bedroom and making any attempt to enter or leave after it got dark around 6pm something of a risky undertaking. Only once half our accommodation block had been replaced by the obstacle course of death did it occur to our esteemed leader that he didn't know how to build a kitchen. Nor did he have any materials or access to diggers, cement mixers, anyone with construction experience of in fact any of the things you might want to get your hands on before you start demolishing things. In an effort to redeem himself, he instructed the wwoofers to chop down a few trees with a chainsaw and drag them up the hill to the kitchen site using the two knackered old horses he had and a bit of old rope. After nearly killing both horses and several wwoofers with our efforts, we presented the decimated tree trunks to Maji for inspection, only for him to decide they were probably too heavy for us to lift into place and calling a halt to the entire project.

Of course, another reason Maji was finding it difficult to recruit people for his Costa Rican eco-paradise could be the fact he is an irritating egomaniac with a penchant for spouting horrendous freeform poetry or new agey pseudo-science at anyone within earshot. These character defects could possibly be forgiven if he genuinely believed he was nurturing the spirit of the earth and helping to save the planet, but in reality his hippiness takes 6 months off each year when he and Rosie pack up their tie-dyed t-shirts, fly home to their bungalow in Venice Beach and go back to steak dinners, driving an SUV and watching the Boston Red Sox on their wide-screen telly. But worse than this, during the time they were in Costa Rica they made no allowances for the fact they were in another country and a completely different culture. They employed a local worker named Carlos, a brilliant guy who we all loved working with, but they couldn't communicate with him because they had decided they were incapable of learning Spanish. Instead, they relied on the wwoofers' translation skills and the age old tactic of saying everything slowly, loudly and adding an "o" to the end of their words. Instead of making friends with their neighbours and fellow farmers (who we met anyway and who would have been happy to help Rosie and Maji given their years of experience) they patronised them, made fun of their "Costa Rican ways" and spent all their time either on the internet, watching DVDs or lording it up in town with other US ex-pats.

Thankfully, it wasn't all bad news down at the farm. Every day we picked, squeezed and drank the juice of the most incredible oranges I have ever tasted, and there was no shortage of equally amazing tropical fruit for the taking. Because it rarely got below 30 degrees in the middle of the day, work started at day break when the farm was at its most magical, and every afternoon afforded plenty of time for lazing in hammocks drinking smoothies in the shade of the banana trees. We also met some fantastic people who you can see here: Christina the intrepid back-country ranger, Brian the sculptor and chainsaw-master, Sarah, all round ray of sunshine and up-and-coming farmer, Darien, horse-rider extraordinaire, Juaqin the brave escapee and Kimberly, the creator of the best banana and chocolate smoothie I have ever tasted. Somehow we managed to have a pretty excellent time in spite of everything and Rich and I left Earth Rose Farm happy to be going but glad we came.