In the little over two weeks that I have been here, I have
learned that Costa Rica knows how to throw a fiesta! For the last week and a
half, the whole city of San Ramón has been intensely celebrating our patron
saint, San Ramón. The central park is filled with food vendors selling four-foot
long churros, tamales wrapped in banana
leaves, arroz con pollo, freshly made tortillas, pineapples filled with
fruit and ice cream, and other very exotic sounding foods.
There are also free
concerts every night, and they have been ramping up each night of the week.
Last night the entire sidewalk, dance floor, street, and church steps were filled
with people and we all danced the salsa, bachata, and merengue. We (the gringo exchange students) mainly dance
with each other with the occasional unsuspecting local who we wrangled into our
group and made them teach us their moves. They loved us, and would laugh very good-naturedly
at our attempts to salsa smoothly.
Last weekend was the parade of carretas, where the ranchers brought their best steer to pull small
painted carts (carretas) through the streets.
Many of these cows were HUGE, but they were very docile and some were even led
by what looked like eight year olds. There was much yipping, yelling, and boot stamping.
A few nights later, we watching caballeros
perform intricate trotting routines with their gorgeous horses. It was very
much like a horse dance in the street, and when their hooves would slip a bit
on the pavement, they would spray sparks out behind them. There was even more
yipping and yelling during that night.
Yesterday was the most anticipated event of all the
festivities. I say this because the fireworks started going off at 6:00 am. The
ENTIRE town plus more packed into the streets and park to watch as groups of
people carried litters with statue of saints on them. The saints were
completely surrounded by flower arrangements, and were followed by possessions
of bands, dancers, singers and supporters. The people carrying the saints could
not resist the music either, and all the way down the road, you could see these
saint statues bobbing up and down and spinning in circles along with the beat.
All the festivities end on tonight (Monday the 1st)
with a giant concert/town dance and a raffle for a free car. Now we wait for Independence
Day on September 15th, and the whole thing starts over again!
Classes: This week, we have also had two class field trips.
One was for tropical ecology, where we went to INBIO, a research/ reserve/zoo facility.
It was beautiful, and we were able to see many beautiful Costa Rican animals
that I hope to actually see in the wild…minus the fer de lance pit viper) Our
next trip was with my plant taxonomy class, and we drove to Cerro de la Muerte.
It is called the mountain of death because of how cold it gets, not cold enough
to frost, but cold enough to kill travelers before the time of cars. There was
no jungle up there, and we sat in the rocks keying out the stems and leaves of
the plants that were drastically different from those a few hundred feet lower
in elevation.
Pura Vida!
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