Elevating the Explorations: Las Alturas

Last Monday morning, we rolled out of Las Cruces and drove an hour to Las Alturas, the first stop in our week-long tour of internet-less, limited-electricity-having, off-the-beaten-path living. You clever Spanish speakers out there might recognize that translation to be "The Heights," and indeed we ascended up in altitude along a grass road to around 1500 meters (4,920 feet).

A somewhat short, briefly bumpy ride down the mountain brings you to a small town with a few features that you swiftly spot. First and foremost, you notice the houses on the left side of the road are popping pastels that look quite livable (in your ethnocentric Western bias), whereas the houses on the right side of the road are overwhelmingly wooden, small, and darker. Well, what's going down with this "other side of the tracks"-esque divide?

Ngöbe houses

 Glad you asked! The divide is between the non-indigenous Costa Ricans living in the larger houses, and the indigenous, migratory Ngöbe group. Despite the stark geographic divide in living conditions, these groups do share one thing: their limited access to health care. There's no EBAIS for this town of about 200 people, but once a month a clinic is set up at the consultario...

...And with the regular doctors away, our group took over the clinic for this month's health post! In small groups, we took patients' vitals and shadowed one of our professors, also a physician, as he checked out the patients. Many Ngöbe people came in, often a mother carrying a few children carrying a few illnesses. At the clinic, we also ran a educational hand washing activity for (adorable) children from the school. Who doesn't love a good coloring book with a splash of rhyming Spanish phrases about hand washing! (Actually, the hope is for the kids to do their persistent, pestering kid thang and nag the parents about the habits so that this behavior change floods the household).

One afternoon we explored the environment around us via hike! Sporting the essential tropical hiking gear (rubber boots, jungle pants, field shirt, rain jacket), we sauntered off into the rhythmic rain. The soft, casual drizzle morphed into heavy plops against my water-resistant hood. But, that reliable post-lunch rain is never unforgivingly unrelenting, and a bit of the way up, the rain let up but our vigor did not. After moseying around mosses, dabbling through a dwarf forest and braving bamboo plants for 500 meters of ascent, we reached our cruising altitude and final destination: a lovely vista of misty grey skies! #Jungleproblems but the plants along the way and time in the forest was worth the blood (from blisters), sweat (or was that rain? Or both. Definitely both), and (figurative) tears.

What a view!