Machetes, Materia, Manigordos, oh my!

So basically my host father is a Monteverde celebrity. He knows everybody. And everybody knows him. Every single person has a “Hola Cris, Pura Vida!” for him as we drive past on the 4-wheeler. So it came as no surprise that Cristobál just happens to be bff’s with the host grandfather of one of my compañeros, Jake. This host grandfather just happens to be Maximo, the owner of Rancho San Giraldo, which just happens to be a perfect little finca in the middle of the Cloud Forest Reserve. Last weekend I jumped in the back of a pickup and went with Jake, his host mom, and his 3 host siblings out to Rancho San Giraldo. Jose Pablo is 11, Fiorella is 9, and Catalina is 7. They have been attending the Quaker School since kindergarten, so all of our conversations were in some pretty hilarious Spanglish. Not shy at all, they immediately started calling Jake and I novios, farting, and treating me like part of the family. It was great. Maximo met us at the trailhead with his own 4-wheeler and, to my delight, 3 horses! Chipopo, Materia, and Paloma took Jake, myself, and his sisters all the way to the ranch. I was already pretty much obsessed with how my life was going at this point…and then we arrived at the ranch.
 

Once upon a time, Maximo and all of his brothers all had their own little fincas in the San Giraldo Valley. Since that day, all of his brothers have sold their land to the conservationists, and their plots have grown up in to some beautiful recovering rainforest. However, Maximo said “like hell” to the conservationists, and kept his land. Mostly Maximo lives there on his own, but occasionally groups of hikers pass through, and he can play host to up to 30 people, like Eladio.

Myself, Maximo, and Catalina with Rancho San Giraldo in the background

Never have I ever been so sad not to have a camera (thanks to Jake for the pictures!). Mountains of perfect trees surround his 100-some hectare finca. It’s rolling pastures host his 5 cows and 3 horses. He also has a garden with several potato-like plants, pineapple, sugar cane, some miscellaneous citrus fruits, and a chicken coop (which will be filled with chickens in the coming months…Maximo and his dog, Q, got hungry and ate all the other ones). There was a wood-burning stove in the kitchen, which always had a pot of gallo pinto on it. The living room was a giant porch with walls up to my hip, and then completely open until the ceiling.  Large rolled plastic sheets hung from the edges of the roof, and could be dropped down to form “windows” when it rained. Although there were two large bunk pressed up against the living room wall, and two more bedrooms with bunks and regular beds, Maximo told me that many groups simply rolled out the massive foam mats he kept on a top bunk, and slept in the open-air living room in a big pile. I can only imagine how much fun our group would have had!

Soon after lunch we donned our swimsuits and hiked out to a “pool” in the river that ran through the finca (did I mention that Maximo built his own hydroelectric pump and uses the pure spring water for drinking, bathing, clothes washing, and his own electricity?). However, this pool wasn’t really a pool so much as it was an area of the river where the current slowed slightly and the rocks weren’t too sharp. Much to my shock, Maximo happily threw himself off the edge of the trail and into the river. I swear, the man might be about 68, but he lives like he’s 17.  We spent a good half and hour jumping in to the river and letting the current carry us downstream, and then climbing back up again. Although the kids were wearing lifejackets, my lifeguarding face was on. Everyone got thoroughly chilled, and then we headed back to the farm, following Maximo and his ever-swinging machete.

After dinner, while Jake and I were playing some mystery card game with his siblings, Maximo pulled a stool up to the table.

“Do you two drink?” Maximo asked us in his mumbly old man Spanish. We looked at each other and slowly nodded. He raised his eyebrows, “Do you want to sleep well tonight?” Both of us nodded emphatically. Maximo smiled, pulled out a bottle of Rum, and three Dixie cups. He then proceeded to pour the three biggest traigos that I’ve ever seen in my life. Instead of registering the look on my face as shock at the magnitude of the shots, Maximo jumped up (“oh, naranjas!”), grabbed an orange from the bag we had picked that afternoon, and put a slice next to each Dixie cup. He cheers-ed Jake and I, and swallowed the entire thing in one gulp. Jake and I looked at each other, and back at our Dixie cups apprehensively.

We took our medicine, sucked every drop of juice out of those oranges, and after a few more rounds of cards, slept like babies!

The next morning we packed up our stuff after breakfast, and headed out. Catalina and I rode Paloma, Jose Pablo took “his” horse Chipopo, and Jake grabbed Materia. Riding with that little peanut made me think of all the times I rode in a saddle with you, Auntie Jean. I have met so many people that are afraid of horses because of some scarring experience when they were little, and I always feel so bad for them. I think too bad they never had someone like my Aunt Jean! I don’t think I could ever thank you enough for giving me such positive experiences with horses from a young age.

After an hour or so Materia was getting real feisty, the path was clear, so Jake gave Materia a little more rein. That was the only signal the little horse needed to take off! They went flying down the path and disappeared. Not 15 seconds later I heard a “oh SHIT!” coming from up the trail. I immediately pictured Jake thrown from his horse, dangling in a tree by his backpack strap (pretty sure that worst-case-scenario imagery came from you Mother dear…)
I nudged Paloma into a trot and called for Jake. No response. Obviously that sent the Joan-imagination in me into overdrive. Just as I was about to call out again, Jake and Materia came around the corner at a gallop, fully intact. But before I could breathe a sigh of relief, Materia put on the brakes and Jake…well Jake didn’t. He went over Materia’s head and on to the ground. Not fazed in the slightest, Jake brushed himself off, “I saw a jaguar! I saw one I swear!” Materia shook her head at him and trotted away. I barely understood Jake’s story (he was speaking Spanglish, for the benefit of his siblings) but apparently he and Materia had been going along at a nice clip, when all of a sudden a jaguar crossed their path! This was the point at which Jake had yelled. Then Materia had wheeled around and took off back towards our group. After calming down Catalina, who was then convinced that we were all going to get eaten by the jaguar, we began started again. Jake took off at a jog, hoping to catch up with Materia. Luckily for him, Maximo had taken his 4-wheeler on some unknown back road, and was waiting just up the trail with Materia. Maximo was convinced that it couldn’t have been a jaguar—there isn’t enough preserved land at Rancho an Giraldo to make up one male jaguar’s territory—and told us it was probably a manigordo. Catalina scrambled down from Paloma and situated herself on the 4-wheeler, convinced that she was safer on a machine, and we all continued our walk out of the woods.

When I got dropped off at my house my host family just laughed. I imagine I was a pretty comical sight covered in mud and bug spray! My host mom passed me a towel and teasingly made a face, which I’m pretty sure is “get yourself in the shower pronto” in any language.  After a life changing shower, I told my family all about the jaguar/manigordo. They seemed skeptical, but that may have been because of my translation skills…