The Monkey Farm

As you're travelling, many things catch your attention and sound like amazing experiences. Most of them turn out incredible, positive, lifetime memories. Some leave you wanting. Some are outright miserable. The Monkey Farm was somewhere in between the latter two.

After such an inspiring experience at our first workaway, we had high hopes for The Monkey Farm. It lured us with a permaculture farm which produced food for the volunteers, many animals to tend to, and an animal rescue center which would take care of orphaned monkeys, armadillos, dogs, cats, or any other critter that needed a home. Sounds great, yeah?

What we arrived to was a dried up piece of property in Playas del Coco, Costa Rica with a sagging old cabin called the "volunteer quarters" and some goats, ducks, and chickens meandering about in the dust.

It wasn't that we couldn't handle getting our hands dirty on the farm and sleeping in some rustic accommodations. It's more that we expected something closer to what was advertised - more of the finished product rather than the work in progress.

It wasn't all bad though. We did get to befriend the pirate-ninja-monkey you see here. This is Peanut. She was rescued by The Monkey Farm from what would have been certain death. But look at her now! She makes this face when you blow raspberries other tummy:

Look at this smiling baby!

We also got to experience the births of Dora and Diego, the new goats you see here. We also milked their momma, Buttercup, because they were struggling to nurse the first few days.

Twins, Dora and Diego

There is something about digging through old fruit and vegetables intended for the pigs for your dinner, and cleaning the pig pen by hand that tends to leave one with a sour taste in the their mouth (and a pain in the stomach...parasites, NOOOOO!!!). But between connecting with the animals and other volunteers, and some of the beautiful scenery, I'd say we came out of this one only a few notches below average.

"Sometimes you just have to wanna go for a ride!"

Just a guy and his monkey

We gave a tour to students at a local school. Fell in love with this little cutie right away, and the feeling appears to be mutual.

Saramandaia

Sorry it's been so long since we've last checked in! We've got some catching up to do with tell you our stories. This is the first of several we've got in a back log.

After we left the Caribbean coast in February, Justin and I actually went our separate ways. I traveled for three days with a friend from my TEFL class, my girl Zakera, and Justin went to our first Workaway gig in Ciudad Colon.

The farm, called Saramandaia, is located about 45 minutes outside the capitol in a lovely little mountain suburb with more public outdoors space than many full blown cities in the states. A great community where ex pats live side by side with locals, it was a great place to spend our next two weeks.

Justin arrived on a pleasant day, soaking in the scenery. As he introduced himself to the hosts, he commented on the spectacular view. He was quickly invited out onto the balcony for a cup of coffee and conversation to enjoy said view. The American ex-pat owners, Dick and Sharon, were the best hosts we could have hoped for. They were welcoming, intelligent, fascinating, hard-working folks, the kind you really want to work for (not to mention, Sharon bakes and cooks the most amazing food ever and never let us go hungry).

Saramandaia, named for a Brazilian soap opera that was popular in the '70s, is tucked into a hillside overlooking a valley in the hilly outskirts of San Jose. There are four homes on the finca (Spanish for farm), three of which are used as rentals, mostly for home-births. We learned so much about home births in these two weeks we couldn't possibly list it here and keep your interest. We'll just say that we were convinced that when the time comes, we will be having our little ones in a kiddie pool in our living room. Yup, traveling has transformed us into hippies, what can we say?!

The work we did was basic. We cleaned the rentals to prepare them for the next tenants, did sanding and refinishing on some furniture (Crystal looooved this part, as it reminded her of furniture restore projects she'd left at home), Crystal painted a new sign for the finca. We were basically gophers for two weeks, and happy to be so.

The real take-away from this experience was the knowledge and friendship we gained from Dick and Sharon. From home-births to home-schooling (un-schooling, actually), the commercial applications of Krypton to assimilating into Latin American culture, the conversations were always interesting and thoughtful. And after initially feeling that our relationship with them was simply that of host and volunteer, we realized quickly that we'd found new friends.

We've already returned to Saramandaia once (although out of circumstance - we left the iPad charger there - it felt like meeting up with old friends), and certainly plan to do so again before we leave.

Thank you Dick and Sharon. We'll be keeping en eye out for friends in Seattle interested in a home exchange ; )

Dick, Crystal, and Sharon

The sign Crystal painted, inspired by the painting behind us in the first two photos.

painting (by another workawayer) that inspired the new sign for the finca

Doobie, the lovely, lazy kitty-cat