Cosy Cabin: Familiar Flora & Feeding the Fire!

I am starting this post with another ‘timestamp’; writing this on the 17^th March sat at our house at the foothills of Arenal, the volcano which sits on the South East side of Lake Arenal (the volcano was here first and the lake a later addition but that’s a story for another time). We’ve been travelling around Lake Arenal for about 2 weeks now. Today I’m writing about our trip into the mountains leading to the Central Valley which took place back on the 30^th January and takes us into the beginning of February. It’s useful for me at least to see how the recording of things which have already passed is starting to catch up with the present: it’s a constant stretch reaching backwards and I’m looking forward to the time when I’m writing each week about what we’ve just done.

When we set off from Finca Las Koalas the first thing to make sure was that we had appropriate transport. Sophia had given us the details for a taxi driver with a 4×4 but as he was unavailable our only option was Uber. We called for a car and straight away sent a message to the driver to confirm that he was in a 4×4: fortunately he replied that he was.

When our driver arrived and I greeted him by the name shown on the Uber app he quickly corrected me – that was his name, but everyone called him ‘Coco’. He started to tell the story of how when his mother was pregnant with him she explained to his cousin that the baby inside was about the size of a coconut and forever after he was known as Coco. Our driver loved a good story and the conversation flowed freely as he told us about his grandfather and his connection to England. As we continued along the way I asked him if driving was his full time occupation; he replied no, he was also a policeman! That was a real surprise. It’s common over here for people to have a number of jobs, much more so than back in the UK. However, a policeman really seemed to fall into a different category of jobs that we would expect someone to do full time. It attaches more to identity than some other jobs. A few weeks later it would also suddenly dawn on us that here in Costa Rica Uber is still technically illegal! It’s mostly just a case of legislation not catching up with technology but when discussing this with one of our drivers in San Jose I was suddenly reminded of Coco, our policeman-Uber-driver! As the journey continued the plot thickened: after telling us how he worked 3 days a week for the police (often working nights) he revealed that he was also un fontanero – a plumber! Then for the finishing touch our uber-driving-policeman-plumber leant over to tell me somewhat conspiratorially that what he was really interested in was cryptomoneras – cryptocurrency! We’ve had a lot of great drivers on or travels here but Coco really did set the bar. I could probably go on writing up more of our journey with him but then I’d never get onto our actual time up in the mountains.

After a thoroughly entertaining trip we arrived at around 3pm. Whenever we had mentioned that we were heading up into the mountains near San Gerardo de Dota we were warned about how cold it was up there. We were pleasantly surprised to find it a little fresher but nevertheless warm and sunny. Reassured because we had suspected that cold by Costa Rican standards would mean little by English measures! We were greeted by not only our host Roberto but also by the family who lived nearby and looked after the cabin – Jadel, Mabel and their 2 daughters Abril & Alicia. Zia and Rosa were happy to find a couple of other children and began to tentatively play with them in spite of the language barrier.

The first thing that comes to mind now when I remember arriving there was the huge change in the vegetation – it was suddenly looking much more familiar and European for want of a better description. As I looked around I was seeing ‘familiar faces’ with Ox-Eye Daisy, Yarrow and Bittercress growing around the house. There were no palm trees. No coconuts! There was leaf litter on the ground beneath the trees around our cabin as you would find in an English woods. To be honest it all felt a bit surreal. It was as if we had left Costa Rica entirely and in a very short space of time, travelled back home. This should really be highlighted as a testament to the huge diversity of this country: it’s possible to find yourself in a completely different climate and landscape here by changing your altitude by a few hundred metres. This is also why the region is so biodiverse as there is this immense density of microclimates, each supporting a different range of plants, insects, mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians.

We were left to get ourselves settled in but before going Jadel asked if we needed him to get the fire going for us. I told him it was fine; it really wasn’t that cold here and if we did need a fire I was pretty good at building one. In hindsight, we maybe should have accepted his offer! Once the sun went down it suddenly became very cold. We got the fire lit as there were still some embers in there. From what I remember this first night actually went pretty well and by the end we had a fire that was perhaps even a little too warm. It’s a challenge to convey exactly how odd this all felt. We had spent a lot of the first few weeks here in Costa Rica finding ways to keep cool; swimming in the sea, playing in rivers, sitting in the shade, cold drinks and refreshing fruit. Now we were having to keep warm and not just pop on a cardigan or an extra layer but light a roaring fire and sit right by it.

We’d had a lovely cosy evening and so when we got up in the morning it was another shock. It was absolutely freezing! The beds were really well equipped with very warm sheets and so I think we’d all slept through very well but once you stepped out it was like stepping outside on a cold morning. By about 6am I was back on duty with getting the fire on so that the place was a little warmer as everyone else woke up.

Without running through every little instance it’s fair to say that our 5 days up in the mountains were mostly taken up with keeping a fire on the go. I’d gone up there thinking that it would be a great opportunity to get some writing done but I really did spend nearly every free moment tending to the fire. For me, with a background and training in thermal efficiency of buildings it was glaringly obvious the problems in the cabin. I think it’s fair to say that for the most part it’s not a major consideration for people building houses. Generally the temperature is very comfortable and most houses need neither heating nor cooling. The construction is probably mainly focussed on being able to shed heavy rainfall and to provide decent shade from the sun. This allows for most houses to have a low pitched roof with a good overhang to keep a shady perimeter all around. Our cabin up in the mountains was not a typical Costa Rican structure but it was also not well adapted to the environment.

It had an amazing view courtesy of a long stretch of large windows, side to side nearly all around the building. This made for a stunning vista up in the treetops but they were all large single glazed panels and so it also made for a massive source of heat loss once the sun went down. The walls of the building were 2” thick timber panels. The roof was probably similar. Either way there was no insulation anywhere in the building and the gaps between wall panels, windows, and so on were visible with light showing through. I don’t mean to be overly critical of the construction but for me these were obvious things that stood out and made the building hard to heat – if a building loses heat faster than the heat source (a small fire in our case) can provide it then you have a cold building. Consequently it made it harder for us to keep warm.

So that was the backdrop in terms of our daily activities. We found ourselves spending more of the morning in bed enjoying the warmth of the sheets. By about 10am the sun would land on the front porch and in spite of the high altitude we were still very close to the equator and so when it did shine the warmth was wonderful. By afternoon the fire went on and then had to be kept going until bedtime.

There were lots of incredibly beautiful things about our stay here as well. Hummingbirds were plentiful and we even had one that had built its nest right above our front veranda. There were lots of birds in the area and many of them were completely new to us. The woods all around were really wonderful and there were lots of trails that went through them. The girls loved being able to take themselves off on their own to explore these trails. The woods were really quite magical. At night the stargazing was truly fantastic and one benefit of our huge wrap-around windows was that a multitude of moths were drawn to the light inside each evening and we were able to go around and view them all from the inside! It was like a living version of those glass frames which pinned moths are often housed in.

Jadel and Mabel were on hand if we needed anything and they let us know that we could catch one of the trout from the little lake that they had up there. We arranged a time to do that but when it came around and we went down to the little store-house next to the lake the fishing rod was there but no hooks were to be found. We searched all around which was a good opportunity for Zia to play with their girls and practice some more of her Spanish. In the end, we didn’t manage to find a hook but Jadel came by and managed to fabricate one out of something else. It took a few attempts but using uchuva (a little yellow fruit in the tomato family) as bait we finally caught one. We had a delicious fresh trout for our dinner. The wonderful thing with this kind of relationship with your food over and above it being fresh and local is that there was a real keenness from Zia to eat it as well, perhaps helped along by the fact that Alicia had said that it was her favourite food plus Zia’s fascination with all things Japanese making fish and rice a perfect meal.

The other challenge that we faced up in the mountains was being cut off. We had anticipated this and for once we went and did a decent shop before going so we were well stocked with food. I think that we’d hoped that we might be able to walk to a few more places or even pick up an uber or taxi but there was very little available. It was a wonderful place to be but really had been built around having a vehicle with you. We did arrange one day to go out to a little nearby pizza place which Sophia at Las Koalas had recommended to us in nearby San Gerardo de Dota. To do this we arranged a lift via Jadel with his friend Ricardo who was a tourist guide up in the area. He picked us up in his 4×4 and we set off for lunch. We had a wonderful lunch and one of the best pizzas we’d had with a lot of hummingbirds and other birds visiting the garden just next to where we ate. It was a little odd and uncomfortable though as we’d got our lift out there with Ricardo who then had to wait around for us while we sat down to have lunch.

There are probably a couple of things that we would do differently if we returned: we’d take more clothes and I think we’d either consider renting a car for a few days or else we would just take plenty of food and be prepared for nice walks in the daytime and cosy meals by the fire each evening. As our stay in the mountains came to an end I think that we were glad to have seen just how incredibly different pretty much everything was up there. Nevertheless, we were all really looking forward to the next part of our journey when we would be heading back down towards the city to enjoy some of the ease and accessibility that comes from being in an urban environment.