UPDATE: Puerto Viejo

Hey everyone! Thanks for stopping by our field notes blog. Myself, Ali, and Edek have all been in Costa Rica now for five days, but it feels like much longer. We spent the first night in San Jose at a hostel. The family who owned the hostel were amazingly accommodating and they, along with other friends we made, had great advice for us and our trip.

After a shaky, wild four hour bus drive, we managed to arrive here on the Caribbean coast at Puerto Viejo. The town is pocket-sized, littered with small bars, cafes, restaurants, and shops. We found the company that is leasing us our house in Cocles, and a man named Kendall drove us there. Casa Rameen is so much more beautiful than any of us had anticipated.

The past few days we have been going out to get footage of the beautiful environment here and have been making connections with locals. We spent a lot of time working out technical aspects of the documenting process and uploaded some of the footage to my laptop. Let me just say, the HD setting of this camera is gorgeous! Alyssa arrived last night as well, so our team is now consisting of four members here in Cocles.

Teryn and Laura are still working diligently from San Fran and Chicago, and Laura was able to set up a relationship with us and ATEC and Dr. Don. ATEC focus on adventure tours that promote conservation, and Dr. Don is a Canadian practitioner and professor who is bringing a group here to go out on these nature tours. We met with ATEC in Puerto Viejo and were able to set up a meeting with Dr. Don on Sunday. Monday and Wednesday we will be accompanying and documenting his group on their nature tours.

Last night at the bar we were able to meet some genuine locals with phenomenal stories. Edek was chatting up everyone (he is the captain of interpersonal skills). We are hopeful that we can feature these interesting individuals for some key highlights for the documentary that will discuss globalization and localization.

Things are progressing quite eloquently, and it seems that we are making the right connections and finding the right stories here. We will update soon!