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Abel Pacheco

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Abel Pacheco is the author of Paso de tropo, Una muchacha, and De la selva a la embajada.  His story “Deeper Than Skin” was originally published as Más abajo de la piel, and an excerpt appears in Costa Rica: A Traveler’s Literary Companion.  This excerpt includes twelve short vignettes about the characters, animals, and landscapes of Costa Rica, paying particular attention to issues of race and the changes brought to the country by fruit production.

Pacheco employs magical realism in his vignettes, from the young woman who leaves the tracks of a jaguar in the moonlight to the skinny man with the long, forked tongue who may have had something to do with the two men who died from snakebites.  From the mules to the railroad to the sea turtles, Pacheco brings forward many elements of life in Costa Rica.

Photo Credit: Pixabay / CC0 Public Domain
 Source: Ras, Barbara, ed. Costa Rica: A Traveler’s Literary Companion. San Francisco: Whereabouts, 1994.

Jan 21, 2015 | Categories: Costa Rica, Creative Culture, Travel | Comments Off on Abel Pacheco

Postcard From Nosara

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Staredown with a Howler.

A series of moments captured by New York data scientist and friend of the Harmony Hotel, Burton DeWilde, during a week spent in Nosara with his boyfriend Nick.

Jan 20, 2015 | Categories: Costa Rica, Harmony Hotel, Nature, Nosara | Comments Off on Postcard From Nosara

Guiones Surf Photo of the Week

BottomTurn

 

Whether the wave is large or small, positioning reveals intimate knowledge about any rider’s approach.  Graceful bottom turn around the critical section is the same on a playful longboard day at the beach or triple overhead Pipe.  Leaning hard on the inside rail to project down the line.

photo provided by Surfing Nosara

Jan 16, 2015 | Categories: Costa Rica, Creative Culture, Harmony Hotel, Nosara, Surfing | Comments Off on Guiones Surf Photo of the Week

Yolanda Oreamuno

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Yolanda Oreamuno’s work is collected in A lo largo del corto camino and La ruta de su evasión.  Her story “El espíritu de mi terra,” which appears in Costa Rica: A Traveler’s Literary Companion as “The Spirit of My Land,” was originally published in the influential literary journal Repertorio americano, in which Oreamuno began publishing work as a student.

Oreamuno has two stories published in Costa Rica: A Traveler’s Literary Companion.  The first, “The Lizard with the White Belly,” tells the story of a woman in need who goes to visit a hermit in a cave.  The hermit stretches out his hand:

A sorcerer’s hand, skinny and pale, with long nails like rivers on a brown land, with sinews straight like long seams, to give her the first thing he saw.  At first his very blue, very knowing eyes transported him to heaven, then he lowered them, gliding over the walls, over all the earth, over the moss, over the dry leaves, and there–a lizard.

This lizard, and what the woman does with it, changes her life.

Oreamuno’s second story in the collection, “The Spirit of My Land,” is filled with beautiful nature imagery, from the wind, a “thread traversing the earth,” to the sun, “fondly caressing the shape of things, to the trees, “moored eternally by their umbilical cord to the land’s womb.”  The story ends with a long passage about the “thousands of voices” of the cicadas, with their “cutting screech, unpleasant, but musical.”  The passage is so descriptive that the reader is left with the sound of the cicadas buzzing in her ears.

Photo Credit: Piccolo Namek / CC BY-SA 3.0
 Source: Ras, Barbara, ed. Costa Rica: A Traveler’s Literary Companion. San Francisco: Whereabouts, 1994.

Jan 14, 2015 | Categories: Costa Rica, Creative Culture | Comments Off on Yolanda Oreamuno

Postcard From Nosara

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Fungus and flowers spotted during a walk through the forest near Lagarta Lodge.

A series of moments captured by New York data scientist and friend of the Harmony Hotel, Burton DeWilde, during a week spent in Nosara with his boyfriend Nick.

Jan 13, 2015 | Categories: Costa Rica, Harmony Hotel, Nature, Nosara | Comments Off on Postcard From Nosara

Postcard From Nosara

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Hanging out for an afternoon nap at the Harmony.

A series of moments captured by New York data scientist and friend of the Harmony Hotel, Burton DeWilde, during a week spent in Nosara with his boyfriend Nick.

Jan 06, 2015 | Categories: Costa Rica, Harmony Hotel, Nosara | Comments Off on Postcard From Nosara

Guiones Surf Photo of the Week

High speed backhand top-turn aka “slash”.  The arc of spray “out the back” of the wave testifies to both the Surfer’s agility and the forces at play.  He has re-set his edge, ready to turn off the bottom again and traverse the next section of unfolding wave.

 

photo provided by Surfing Nosara

Dec 26, 2014 | Categories: Costa Rica, Creative Culture, Harmony Hotel, Nosara, Surfing | Comments Off on Guiones Surf Photo of the Week

Feliz Navidad

Costa Ricans have been celebrating Christmas traditions since 1601, when the governor Don Vasquez de Coronado organized festivities and declared it a national holiday.  With the rainy season ending, Costa Ricans enjoy cool temperatures and sunny days during this time of year, and the whole month of December is filled with celebrations and decorations, as well as happiness at receiving aquinaldo, a Christmas bonus from employers, required by law.  One of the central features of Christmas decoration is the Posada or La Portal, the Nativity scene and manger.  These are often decorated with beautiful tropical flowers.  Christmas wreathes, made of cypress branches, are decorated with ribbon and red coffee berries.

In addition to the anticipation of Niño dios, the Christ child, or the gift bringer, and attendance of midnight mass, Misa de Gallo, Costa Ricans enjoy chicken and pork tamales wrapped and cooked in plantain leaves, pupusas, empanadas, eggnog and rum punch, and apples and grapes that are imported for the holiday season.

Other festivals surround the Christmas holiday.  Festival de la Luz, the Festival of Lights, is a parade on the Saturday of the second week of December with lighted floats, marching bands, balloons, fireworks, and performing artists.  El Tope Nacional is a parade of more than 3,000 horses that takes place the day after Christmas.  And Fiestas de Zapote, which takes place from Christmas Day to the first Sunday of the New Year, is a market with food stands, cotton candy and churros, bars, rides and games for children, live music, and the Toros a la Tica, the bullfights.

Read more here, here, and here.  Feliz Navidad!
Photo Credit: Hans / CC0 Public Domain

Dec 24, 2014 | Categories: Costa Rica | Comments Off on Feliz Navidad