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Yoga & Permaculture retreat @ Punta Mona
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Day 2 @ Punta Mona: January 19, 2020
During this beautifully-busy day, starting around 5:30AM, I revealed to some about my birthday and people around the community eventually became aware. Hugs & thoughtful blessings soon followed. Temporarily living here is the best present I could ask for this year, but I was pleasantly surprised to be showered with additional tokens, such as Christo’s generous offering of his tulsi bead necklace.
BY nightfall, I casually strolled into dinner after arriving late from taking a shower after class and enjoyed a quiet dinner alongside my new German yogi friend, Maria. Feeling refreshed in an elegantly-simple outfit, I felt satisfied with our first full day of events.
In the middle of a conversation after dinner, someone turned out the lights and I suspected the night was abruptly over. A moment later, a couple of volunteers whom I haven’t even met yet started to sing for my birthday.
Frank & Laerke approached me with a flaming bic lighter and I blew out the sweetly-improvised candle. They gifted me with a locally-made bar of chocolate containing 75% raw cacao! So appreciative of the generous gesture, I hugged all those around.
Not wasting any time, I opened the chocolate bar and divided it into smaller pieces. Ironically, a few of us at the table were just talking about craving some sweets - among other indulgences. How could I not share it? Pulsing with Carribean cacao vigour, we spiratically shared stories with outbursts of caffinated-laughter.
Right off the bat, I felt connected with the dozen or so people I’ll be spending the next thirty days with.
Puerto Viejo —> San Jose: February 16, 2020
It’s starting to hit me that this experience @ Punta Mona has truly come to an end. I’m saddened to be removed so quickly from the biggest support group I’ve ever lived with - albeit temporarily.
even though we spent an entire month together - isolated from the modern elements of civilization - our course feels like it breezed by.
Captivated by a rigorous class schedule and spontaneous activities scattered in between, there’s plenty of thrilling stories I’ve yet to record, such as:
hiking to a waterfall outside of Puerto Viejo with a local guide and returning to their home for a delicious meal featuring hand-picked rice harvested from their backyard!
taking a boat ride into town with Macy, Victor, Wes, Joelle, Keenan, Christo & the original motivator of the trip - Riva. After spending two weeks in the remote rain forest, we indulged ourselves with gelato, pizza, beers and locally-harvested chocolates (plus a rum tasting…)
eating three meals a day - always cooked fresh from locally harvested ingredients and exotic fruits I’ve never had before!
Enjoying a mud bath & sunbathing on the beach - the natural sediments exfoliating our skin
Sweating it out in my first rendition of a sweat lodge in a cloth covered hut
Playing hooky from an Ayurvedic class with some farm volunteers, cracking pine nuts & jokes and dancing with RIva to edm
Feeding Fina’s kefir reserves with water & sugar while she was away - creating my first kefir!
A moonlight skinny dip after an all-out dance party in the kitchen - before & after dinner
Staying up late to tend the fire adjacent to the stage where a dozen artists - mentored by Amanda Sage - painted psychedelic self-portraits
Hiking up & down the slippery jungle during an extended tour, drinking water out of spiky vines, speed-walking in a single file line through ant territory and balancing on logs through some muddy slopes