COSTA RICA, PURA VIDA: CURRENT NEWS & PICTURES from MY TIME THERE : REMEMBERING MY COSTA RICA DAYS 1991

COSTA RICA

1991 !

COSTA RICA 1991 !

ALSO SEE SLIDESHOW VIDEO @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlHI8V-QG5g

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. …

because God is love…”

1 John 4:7,8

"Queridos amigos, amémonos unos a otros, porque el amor viene de Dios. Todo el que ama ha nacido de Dios y conoce a Dios. ...
porque
Dios es amor ... "

1 Juan 4:7,8

SO THESE PICTURES ARE NOT in chronological order, but as you can see these photos are from the 1991 earthquake that hit near Limon, and we were out in the field doing needs assessment to determine how we could help (we represented the Christian Reformed Church World Relief Commission CRWRC, now known as World Renew

this guy went along as a translator, albeit most of us spoke Spanish fairly well

after several months of disaster relief I found a job teaching in a rainforest area in southern Costa Rica, the Drake Bay area. Lots of wildlife surrounded us: monkeys, toucans,sloths, sealife, butterflies, all kinds of insects & snakes, you name it...a real rainforest full of life, not yet destroyed by humans

BACK to disaster relief near Limon

as you can see, the earthquake
did extensive damage

at rio estrella, the bridge was
knocked out of commission

this was the cross-over to Panama which also got hit a little bit by the quake

back in the rainforest, here I am trying to play Tarzan, swinging on the vine

here are the two kids I taught: Brian & Adrian, 2nd & 3rd grade, the sons of Herb & Melanie who owned the tourist camp in Drake Bay . Nice kids. Herb was American, retired...maybe in his 70's at the time, and Melanie was a young Tica (female Costa Rican)

we took a lunch break at this shack

above: we briefly walked
into Panama and back

a scorpion

some of the green life that is in abundance throughout costa rica which gets plenty of rain

this is the cross at the top of the hill above san jose...I hiked there with Mirtha (adopted daughter of missionaries Tom & Melva Post)

tamra was one of the tourists who visited with a large group while I was there & when I returned to the USA she sent these photos of our trip. Thanks Tamra ! She's from Texas.

this photo by me seems like a "classic" now...just happened upon it at a little store
somewhere near Limon

riding horses @ Drake Bay

little Adrian doing his classwork.
He was SO smart

this was one of the ladies from the Tamra group...there were several sisters & their husbands...and the husbands went fishing for the day while we took them horseback riding & swimming up the river. On the right is one of the guides that Herb periodically hired to help out for the day

here are the kids again. I only taught two of them...the others were cousins or neighbors who had their own education location (I think, or maybe they didn't go to school)

here we are swimming up the
river with the Tamra group

back with the disaster relief group, this is the Tom Post family (he was a white American, not shown here, and started out as a peace corp volunteer in Belize where he met Melva when she was quite young...they married & later Tom became involved in the Christian Reformed Church & eventually became a director for the CRWRC and was in charge of Central America at the time (I think he's in Asia now as of 2014)

we took a tourist trip with the Post family to the volcano Arenal one day

long-distance view of the San Jose
cross to which we hiked

cow hogs the road in Panama

of course I had to drink
directly from a coconut, right ?

tom & melva's youngest daughter Rachel

as you can see, this tunnel was blocked by a landslide from the earthquake...we actually were stuck on the other side for several hours as we waited for a bulldozer to clear the way

here we are with a group of Ticos talking to them about what they
need most in terms of relief

this was a missionary-translator's home, which fell, partially, on top of their land rover. We actually "jacked" up the house and were able to pull the vehicle out, and it started !

this was a banana plantation
not far from Drake Bay...

it took us a while to get up this road, so soaked with water & mud...couple of locals helped out

rachel, so sweet...she must be
in her late 20's by now...wow !

the quake really tore up some of the roads...

other side of the tunnel

this may have been a sloth in
the tree if I recall correctly

we actually had to drive thru a few rivers such as this along the way...some got stuck

back near san jose ...Mirtha showed me around

the golden retrievers of tom & melva post

on the left you see Mirtha, the adopted daughter of Tom & Melva from Belize

lovely Mirtha, hope she is well today

saw lots of monkeys

notice the steps on the right...steps to nowhere..actually most of these houses in this area were built on stilts because of the rainy season...the earthquake knocked some of them off their stilts.

can you believe we made it thru this river ?

the three locals who helped pave the way with rocks

the earthquake even knocked this train off the track

we stayed at this place for a night...it was some sort of catholic organization...the mother nun was very kind to us

beautiful flowers everywhere in costa rica

these were girls who lived near the tourist camp in Drake Bay...Cythnia (top right) the other two were half-American

this lady shown here with one of the Tico's who helped us do needs assessment was from Grandville Michigan...she arrived with her husband shortly after me

here's Tom Post (left) with me at the Costa Rica-Panama border...he's a midwest Michigan boy like me...but spoke fluent spanish and had lived much of his adult life in central america

here's the sloth for sure...the other may have been one of the monkeys

here you can see the houses built on stilts

i was there ! the 1991 total solar eclipse happened when I was at Drake Bay...albeit these are NOT my photos...I bought them later at a market...they show what we saw... it was a remarkable moment ...actually the day started cloudy so we weren't even sure if we would be able to directly experience the moment apart from it getting dark, but just as the eclipse begin the clouds cleared ...and we could observe the moon slowly but surely cover the sun and the sky grow dark..we even saw fireflies light up for a while..all while we watched it happen (with safe glasses of course)

we had a GREAT time swimming up the river with the Tamra group..and then enjoying a little waterfall pool as well

on my way to costa rica I had a layover in Ecuador...and spent the night at this hotel..nice pool, met a dude who told me about his country and enjoyed a cerveza (beer)

to get to drake bay you take a taxi or bus or whatever wheeled-vehicle you take to get as close as you can to the area by road...then you have to take a boat (usually a motorized canoe of some sort) the rest of the way...(although there's also an airport for small planes now that is a bit closer)