6
Location: Cabecar and Amubri Reserves
This morning – we mixed things up. A 5:30 am wake up call meant that we all took advantage of our coach’s comfy seats and napped the entirety of the 3-hour drive from San Jose. Eventually, we pulled up at a local restaurant for breakfast and got a taste of the cultural diversity in that region. Gail then took us on a tour of the restaurant, and we marveled at the beautiful paintings and photos hung around. We also discovered a variety of fruits, avocados the size of someone’s head, and some of us tried tamales for the first time. Following a longer drive, Hugo dropped us off, and we got into the back of a pickup to begin the trail to the Cabecar’s “headquarters.” This involved a bumpy and enjoyable ride across the river and left us scrambling to get a photo of the picturesque fog covered mountains. Once we arrived, we learned about how the Cabecar tribe get many different paints from plants such as turmeric which can only be picked during a full, half or new moon. We were told how some women walk for hours from their houses to get to where we were, and we were lucky enough to be able to buy some of their artisanal crafts. Next, Hugo took us on a road that followed the ocean and led us to get on a small boat to arrive at the Amburi tribe. There we were greeted with a (very very complicated) lesson in bribri, the spiritual language specific to this tribe. After a delicious serving of rice and beans – a classic, and some breadfruit, a few of our members were greeted with some surprises finding spiders or lizards in our rooms. Some handled it better than others. All being very excited for the action-packed day tomorrow (no spoilers) we climbed into our bug net covered beds and will hopefully fall asleep to the sound of cicadas tonight.