As a Costa Rica professional photographer, encountering new experiences is the norm, not the exception. My tour group never knows what is around the next corner.
During one of our Costa Rica Photo Tours, my group drove to a photography location in the beautiful and pristine Osa Peninsula which National Geographic has called "the most biologically diverse place" on earth. To get there we drove through the tiny village of Ojochal near where I live.
One of my groups discovered that moving day for some Costa Ricans can be rather unique. As my group and I were passing through the village we saw an incredible sight. But before I tell you the story let me tell you a bit about the man who was moving.
The fellow who was moving was one of my neighbours, Senor Wilson (real Spanish name, don't you think?), who has brought my wife and me flowering plants since we moved in. It was really funny the first day that he stood at the top of the driveway with plants in hand. He was so polite that he would not come down to the house without our invitation even though he was there to give us a present.
We were not sure what he wanted and after a "conversation" with him speaking Spanish and us speaking mostly English, I realized that he wanted to give us the flowering plants. I guess it was a sort of a house-warming gift from "the neighbours." You need to appreciate that the fellow did not own a car. He lived at least a hour away up the mountain and had carried the plants the whole way.
With the passage of time, Senor Wilson has given me flowering plants many times. Often he stands there waiting to see where I will plant it. I would probably do the same thing if I lugged it down a mountain for an hour. However, there are so many things to do that planting this gift is never one of my priorities. Certainly, I never thought that I would be tested on my ability to choose a location and plant something when I moved to Costa Rica from Canada.
A couple of days after Senor Wilson gave me plants one time, he came to the house with still another plant and visited while his two boys swam in the river by the house. Of course, he asked me where I planted the others that he had brought the last time he came.
Oops! They were still in the pots on the terrace (these pots are certainly not decorative in any way as they are old aluminum kettles with drainage holes stabbed in the bottom of the pot with a machete). When Senor Wilson saw that his previous gifts were still in the pots, he decided he needed to plant the gifts he had given me since I apparently did not know how to do it. I hope you are getting an idea about what kind of fellow my neighbor is.
Now, back to my photography tour group and the day they met Wilson. As we were driving along, we saw a man walking a horse. It was neighbor Wilson. What a sight! The poor horse was carrying two huge, not big--huge, white bags filled with clothes and household items. To add insult to injury, Wilson had propped a broom between the bags so that its blue bristle appeared between the horse's ears. It looked just like the critter was wearing a bristle blue tiara! Not a very macho horse, I must say.
Wilson was holding the horse's bridle in one hand and a birdcage in the other. A sight to behold. A man, a horse, a crown, and a birdcage. Moving day!
We greeted each other with the usual "hola" and started to chat as the cameras were brought out and the clicking began. Just joking around, I asked Wilson if he were moving and to my surprise he said he was. Turns out the crowned steed was the moving van or shall we say Senor Wilson's "4 X 4."
He explained that he and his wife (who is a tiny little thing that looks about 14) were going to house-sit one of the B&Bs whose owner went back to Germany for the rainy season. He also said that it would be easier for his wife and 3 kids to live there because it was closer to the pueblo as the B&B is almost in the pueblo where the children would go to school.
The birdcage was quite interesting. It seemed to me that on one of the previous trips someone could have brought the cage down to the new digs.
Carting flowering plants and birdcages is all in Wilson's job description. He told me and the group that the little bird was very young (parrot or parakeet, I don't know), that it just loved to talk and knew many words. As though he understood, the bird started showing off, chattering away while we are talking about it. I would tell you what it said but my command of bird Spanish remains very poor to this day. Sorry.
You can imagine that my group was very excited about taking pictures of a crowned horse, chattering bird, and Costa Rica family walking down a mountain, worldly possessions carried by their trusty steed. Moving day in Costa Rica. One never knows what one will see or experience on my photo tour of Costa Rica.
About the Author:
Frank Scott writes from sunny Costa Rica where he is a professional Costa Rica Photographer offering unique photography tours. Some of his work can be seen in Costa Rica Vacations, a very popular travel guide to this unique country.
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