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For ten years, I haven’t been to the sea. I want to see it so badly that this morning I begged my mother until I made her break down in tears. I remember the sea, despite how long it’s been and how small I was then. I can almost make out its rhythmic motion, its sound, as if it were chewing sand, its far boats in their rise and fall over the rumps of waves.
So begins Uriel Quesada’s “We Have Brought You the Sea,” the story of a speaker whose dying wish is to see the ocean one last time. When the trip to the sea proves impossible, family members must find a way to bring the sea to the speaker.
Uriel Quesada is the author of Ese día de los temblores, in which this story is originally published as “Te hemos traido el mar.” He is also the winner of an essay contest for his work on Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Green House. “We Have Brought You the Sea” is translated by the editor of Costa Rica: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, Barbara Ras.
Photo Credit: World Wide Gifts / CC BY-SA 2.0
Source: Ras, Barbara, ed. Costa Rica: A Traveler’s Literary Companion. San Francisco: Whereabouts, 1994.
Feb 04, 2015 | Categories: Costa Rica, Creative Culture, Nature, Travel | Comments Off on Uriel Quesada
Howling offshore winds create lumps of chop coming up the wave face, effectively acting like speed bumps and moguls. Getting a light, short board into this position on such a day is no easy task. Perfectly poised, he’s about to reconcile all forces at play as wind and wave compete for transitory dominion.
photo provided by Surfing Nosara
Jan 30, 2015 | Categories: Costa Rica, Creative Culture, Harmony Hotel, Nosara, Surfing | Comments Off on Guiones Surf Photo of the Week
Architect: Marcos Acayaba
Project: Acayaba House, 1997
Jan 29, 2015 | Categories: Creative Culture | Comments Off on Hideouts
Julieta Pinto is the author of many books, including Tierra de espejismos, La estación que sigue al verano, and Los marginados, the latter two of which received the Premio Nacional Aquileo J. Echeverría. Her translated work appears in When New Flowers Bloomed, alongside Carmen Naranjo.
“The Blue Fish” is a story of a child’s fascination with the world around him, from a plane taking off into the sky to the rivers and beaches of Costa Rica. He is particularly fascinated with a blue fish that he observes in the ocean:
The blue was the same as the color of the butterflies that flitted across the pastures of the Meseta Central. The sunlight reflected on it so brilliantly as it moved through the water that it looked like an engraving on blue foil. The fish seemed to know this and displayed its beauty with gentle motions. Sometimes a wave would carry it away, and just when the boy was losing hope of seeing it again, it would reappear with a flash of blue.
Even though, when in a plane high in the sky, looking down at the mountains below makes the boy “feel drunk with the strength and power a man feels on conquering nature,” the blue fish eludes the boy’s grasp and proves impossible to catch.
Photo Credit: Nick Harris / CC BY-ND 2.0
Source: Ras, Barbara, ed. Costa Rica: A Traveler’s Literary Companion. San Francisco: Whereabouts, 1994.
Jan 28, 2015 | Categories: Costa Rica, Creative Culture, Nature, Travel | Comments Off on Julieta Pinto
A turtle hatchling makes its way to the sea at Playa Ostional.
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 27, 2015 | Categories: Costa Rica, Harmony Hotel, Nature, Nosara | Comments Off on Postcard From Nosara
Of Mere Being
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze distance.
A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.
You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.
The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
~Wallace Stevens, 1954
Jan 26, 2015 | Categories: Costa Rica, Creative Culture | Comments Off on The Palm at the End of the Mind
We often reference “The Glide” throughout our lore and experiences of having board under feet, on the magic carpet ride. Others too, for no apparent practical reason, celebrate the transcendent joy of riding waves. When performed with grace, the act becomes sublime.
Jan 23, 2015 | Categories: Costa Rica, Creative Culture, Harmony Hotel, Nosara, Surfing | Comments Off on Guiones Surf Photo of the Week
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
