Tronadora: All Change Please!

From Santa Elena we arranged to get a lift to our next stop in Tronadora with our new friend Alvaro. Once again, bags packed, apartment searched for any belongings left behind, we set off. It was about a 45 minute drive along some twisty trails to get there. We had a good conversation with Alvaro picking up from previous chats – I recall explaining to him our desire to be able to tap into local food systems more easily, knowing that the places we were going to probably had great food which was hiding in informal food networks.

The place we were staying in was right down by the side of the lake, part of a fairly new looking gated community; a little cluster of octagonal houses. It was a nice house and yet again we had chosen to stay there on the basis of some of the amenities. There was a shared pool and we’d made another promise to the girls that we could stay somewhere with a pool. This was partly because we weren’t sure if they would be able to swim in Lake Arenal, having received mixed reports from people we had asked. A few people had shrugged off our question suggesting that it was fine to swim in there but when we’d asked Alvaro on the journey he said that in a number of places the edges drop away suddenly & dramatically and he didn’t recommend it for children. The second amenity that we’d been drawn to was a nice big oven! Rachael was looking forward to another opportunity to try and make some cakes and I had decided to try my hand at some bread. When we arrived we got straight into doing our usual check and assessment of the domestic infrastructure. Everything looked great and we even had the luxury of a dishwasher for the first (and only) time during our stay in Costa Rica. Sadly, as we rifled through the well-stocked cupboards we discovered that there was everything except for a baking tray! So we found ourselves with a good working oven and seemingly everything else that you could want in a kitchen except for what we needed to make bread or cakes.

Undeterred by circumstance we decided to improvise. I had already set my mind upon the fact that I would make bread and refused to change tack. I’m not sure why it hadn’t occurred to me until this point but I’d managed to get hold of some dried yeast when we were in Santa Elena and so I was determined to have fresh bread. I’d looked up the incredibly useful ‘mug bread’ recipe by James Morton which I had used before at home and requires no measuring other than a standard size mug. It’s a great recipe and I would completely recommend it to anyone who needs to make bread but finds themselves without scales, measuring jug, etc. In one of the cupboards I found a good sized casserole dish which I thought would work like a dutch oven so I mixed up the dough, let it prove for a couple of hours and when the time came, heated up the oven.

I was really pleasantly surprised with the result! Out came a near-perfect loaf of bread which was all but gone within a couple of hours. This was another of those wonderful turning points for us and from that point onwards we would have delicious fresh bread in almost everywhere we stayed.

We were only in Tronadora for 3 days making it our shortest stay yet and the time passed very quickly. It was really hot and our plan was really to have a few days of quiet cooking, going to the pool and exploring a little. However, our plan was going to change a little at this point…

Whilst there we also decided to get in touch with Sophia from Las Koalas to check some details for our upcoming stay there. However, before we had arranged to go and look after the farm she had previously asked an old friend of hers if she would be able to look after the farm. In the period between us getting in touch to say that we would be able to stay there her friend had also been in touch and so understandably she had agreed that her friend would come and look after the place. However, her friend was only going to be able to look after the farm for 2 of the 3 months that she needed to be travelling and so if we were interested then we could still spend the third month there. Of course we agreed because we were all really excited at the opportunity! However, this did mean that we were going to have to come up with a new plan and to come up with one very quickly.

When we first decided that we would come to Latin America we had been in touch with our friend Joe in Barichara, Colombia and it was always part of our plan to come and visit him. Before the beginning of the pandemic it was a podcast we’d heard Joe speak on which was an early seed for what later grew into our plans to travel to this side of the planet. Throughout the pandemic we continued to spend time investing in and gaining inspiration from the digital community that was forming through Earth Regenerators and numerous video calls in which we took part. With our plans to stay on the farm in need of a little modification we felt that it was the perfect opportunity to change direction and make our visit to Colombia. As a result, the few (intended to be relaxing) days that we had booked in Tronadora became a rather stressful scramble to piece together a new plan. We had to do the usual juggling act of looking at flights, checking dates and then cross-checking those with availability and cost of accommodation. To be frank, it was a huge effort to pull this off in just a few days. When I think back on it now, if we were back in our regular lives in England then we would have spent weeks even planning a two month trip to Colombia and researching all of our options and where we were going to stay. In this instance we had the whole thing booked up within 72 hours! Looking back it was probably a blessing that all of this happened somewhere we intended to do little more than relax because every now and then between bouts of stressful searching and weighing up options against our budget we were able to escape to the pool, play with the girls surrounded by the beautiful scenery around Lake Arenal. If you’re going to try and cram months of planning into a few days then that’s probably the best setting in which to try it!

We managed to find some flights from San Jose to Bogotá as the first step, leaving just at the end of our 3 month stay in Costa Rica. Next up we looked for accommodation in Bogotá. We had already been forewarned by Joe that it would be extremely difficult to find anywhere in Barichara at the beginning of April because it would be so busy for Semana Santa. We had a quick look but he was right and practically everything had been booked up. However, this did work to our advantage in the end. During Semana Santa pretty much everybody leaves Bogotá to go to places in the countryside (places like Barichara) and as a result we seemed to have a huge choice of places available. Rachael came across one which stood out for a couple of reasons. When flicking through the pictures there was a picture of a children’s room full of toys – the owners had 2 children aged 5 & 9. Flicking on a few more pictures there was a picture of a kitten. Reading through the description we discovered that they had a young kitten who needed to be looked after by whoever stayed there. If we were to stay in Bogotá through Semana Santa then it would mean that we would be there for Zia’s 9^th Birthday and Zia is absolutely mad about cats! The next day we booked the apartment.

The real challenge was getting everything to come into place. We needed to book the accommodation in Bogotá as well as somewhere in Barichara whilst also finding flights that would work with both and keep us within budget. If any of those 3 pieces fell out of place then we would be in trouble. Fortunately, after much stressing, doubting, giving up and picking up the challenge again we managed to pull it off.

All of this going on really eclipsed any other element of our stay in Tronadora. It became the main event and whenever we look back on our time there this will be the vast majority of what we remember. Nevertheless, we did have a great time there and it is a beautiful place that I would gladly return to. In the mornings I set off for the local shops which were about a half hour walk from where we were staying in search of more flour to feed my new bread-baking habit. The main part of Tronadora is a quiet and friendly little cluster of houses and shops off of the main road which passes through it. One evening we all took a walk up there and stopped at the park under a beautiful big tree. I wandered along to the shops to buy a couple of ice-lollies for the girls and I was lucky enough to find the full range of the Fiesta fruit wines which I’d previously discovered when we were staying in San Rafael de Escazu.

I’ll finish up this post by blurring the edges a little between past and present. I’m currently writing this post of our tumultuous three days in Tronadora whilst sat in our house in Barichara. We’ve been here for 5 days now and it’s a truly beautiful place. We have a gorgeous house with a completely open kitchen that leads out onto our garden and the stunning countryside that surrounds us. So far it is a very friendly place. We arrived here after spending 2 wonderful weeks in Bogotá. So as I sit here typing up this post, looking out onto the dramatic scenery up here in the Andes and casting back in my memory to those few days of panic I feel very good about the decisions that we made under pressure.