Too far afield (trip)

Today I got to take a day off from work to go on a field trip with some of the students from the English class where I sometimes help out. Most of the students are around my age, and they love to have native English speakers to chat with. Sometimes they ask me questions about what words mean, or how to translate a phrase (today's highlights: an in-depth analysis of the phrase "sold me down the river" and a long search for a synonym for the word "bowels"), but mostly they just like to talk about their families and friends and ask me about mine.


I got up around 5:30am to leave at 6:30 and meet the class at their school. Tuesday was their last day of class, after studying English together for over a year. We took a van to an ecological site about 10 minutes outside of Ciudad Quesada, where the first thing I noticed was a pond full of fish. Someone asked me what kind of fish they were, and told me the Spanish name for them was trucha. I guessed that they were trout, and luckily Google tells me that I am correct in that assumption. Glad that I did not spread misinformation about fish (fishinformation?) to the whole class.

I was told that there would be lunch on the field trip, but I was not aware that these fish were it. And that we had to catch them. So with a hunk of plantain hooked onto the end of a fishing line, I attempted to reel in some lunch. It took a few attempts to finally bring one up, but I caught a fish! And as soon as I brought the line up, it made a break for it and jumped onto the ground. As weird as it is, fishing for your lunch at 8am, it is definitely weirder to have to pick up a flapping fish off the ground, only to throw it into a sink and watch a surly Tico wearing rubber boots and machete in holster on his belt unceremoniously tear its head off. I now have the happy task of trying to scrub fish blood out of my white t-shirt.

Optimistic.

Reeling one in.

Looking like a fool with my fish on the ground.

Got him!

After a very exciting morning, we segued into a very tedious hike, where the surly Tico stopped us every few meters to tell us about a different leaf. We passed a mine cut into the rocks, and when he handed me a flashlight and told me to go inside, I followed orders. I was just starting to wonder whether or not there might be bats in the cave, when the beam of my flashlight fell on a spider the size of a small dog. At home, I'm not usually one to cower in fear over a spider, but when I saw this sucker, I'm pretty sure my life flashed before my eyes (this is the second time a bug has made me scream here; a cockroach hissed at me in the shower the other day) . I saw a few of its friends skittering along the walls as I ran out of the cave, dragging several confused and panicked people in my wake. After a few braver souls went in to check it out, I saw a bat fly over their heads and out of the cave. I was still more afraid of the spiders.

A much braver soul than I managed to snap this picture of the cave-dweller. I feel completely justified in my fear.

I was glad when we walked away from the Spider Caverns, but I don't think any of us were prepared for the six hour hike that followed. Luckily, it only rained a little, and we got to take in some beautiful views.

Along the way, I talked with Carlos, a 19-year-old student who told me he hopes to use his English to become a tour guide because he loves meeting people from other countries. "If someone knows English, I just want to talk to them," he said. Carlos told me several times that he was glad we came on the trip, "because without you it would be very boring." That alone made me glad I went. He had a lot of questions about different words, and kept reminding me to correct him if he pronounced something wrong. He said to me "I think you are a very nice person. Some people I meet, they seem very proud, just because they have money. Even if I had a lot of money, I would still be the same. I think you are that way, too." It made me feel somehow guilty that when he talked about people being proud just because they have money, I knew he meant Americans. Most of the Ticos I talk to haven't had the chance to travel around their own country, because they don't have the money. But it made me feel good that he doesn't see me as privileged, even though he knows I've been traveling. It was also amazing to me that he had only been studying English for a short time, but his words could be that heartfelt and nuanced. I hope my Spanish will one day be that good.

After the hike, we returned to the pond, where our fish were waiting for us, looking not that much different from the way we left them. Just frozen in a sort of surreal, crunchy tableau. There were lots of little bones, but it was definitely fresh. And there was yucca frita and arroz con leche (best foods ever).

Trucha tableau.

The rest of the afternoon, we hung around on the porch to stay out of the rain, playing card games and talking. I went home with severely muddy hiking boots, the aforementioned bloody t-shirt and the e-mail addresses of some new friends.