Final La Ventana Trip Post: I won’t miss the dogs

Reflection on last full day in La Ventana

No mas basura 

As promised I wanted to talk about recycling here.  Signs spray painted on 45 gallon drums at the side of the road declare, “No mas basura”. Seems to translate to “No more garbage”.  While the city posts the signs, getting buy in seems to be a problem.

Some visitors, however, seem to buy in: At the complex where my friend Angela lives, she says there is recycling.  At the campground where Graham’s long-lost friends he met on the south trail stay for four months every year , they pay someone to take recycling into a centre.  The guy will also take compost.  At the youth hostel, Susie’z [sic] Hostel next door, they got the “green award” for sustainable initiatives.  They recycle. Not where we’re staying.

(A cool aside was that we learned that Graham’s friend, T from 100 Mile House is the person who draws all the art on the trail heads!

 SUCH a coincidence!)

Last week at the farmer’s market, I trudged like Santa Clause with my big black garbage bag of two weeks’ worth of plastic, paper, and glass picking up some from the side roads as I went to the once-a-week location.   I was met by one local, who gave me a tour of how the system worked, and five or six non-native volunteers who promptly asked permission to dump out my bag.  They quickly popped our items into their thick plastic 45-gallon bins — some painted quite prettily.

 

The recycling centre would not take any paper — they said they just burn it, but they took everything else.  And a truck was waiting filled with plastic crates that the volunteers placed the beverage bottles into almost filling the entire back of the truck as I got there at 9 am.  Recycling goes until 10, and the Farmer’s market is once a week until noon.

As we travelled on our bikes most everywhere we went (and also walked, of course, it was so heartbreaking to see all the plastic containers, bags, and strewn alcohol bottles and cans.  Such a mess!  So unnecessary.  We once saw a guy just throw his container out the window right in front of us.  

When I walked along the beach downwind to meet up with Graham working his kite to get his skills up, I didn’t see much plastic garbage along the shoreline like I once saw in Santa Monica —just the fish bones, as I previously mentioned, and the occasional bottle cap.  What I did see from time to time was shards of glass or broken bits of bottle bottoms.  Seems so dangerous for the kite surfers landing on the beach.

Another person I met from Texas claimed, “you can’t even just start [collecting plastic or glass] because there’s just more.”  Yet I came across him walking to the farmer’s market on another day, and he said he wanted to start a recycling program, and I recommended he did his walks with a garbage bag and pick up garbage every day.  My mom used to do that around Deer Lake.  I’m sure over time every little bit would help.

AND THE (MEXICAN) DOGS

They are  absolutely everywhere, and some families have four or five either inside their gate, or running to greet you or scare you on your bike.  I once got bit by a horse when I was horseback riding as a kid, and I don’t want to repeat an animal bite.  

This morning as we rode for our last ride up to the North trails, we took a dusty road parallel to the highway along people’s homes.  And the dogs among us!  They barked.  They chased. They scared the pants off me.  At one point I put both feet up on my bike bars, and was glad I had some momentum as they aggressively chased me.  Graham knows how to out bike a dog, but he’s had some bad encounters he can tell you about.

When we came back to our place, he said, “You’ll probably need to work on outrunning these animals because when you get home, it could be a bear!”

AND HOW WAS OUR TRIP?

I’ve been thinking about that for three weeks.  It’s been very very active, and with the awesome wifi in our room at Casa Arrecife, I could maintain my activities like 

-Google Translations with my chef for the day in Spanish

-Ukrainian study buddy

-Ukrainian language lessons

-pilates classes

-grant application for our Hornby Island dragon boat team

-zoom for my mom’s 90th birthday party my sister threw for her,

and chats with my grand niece and son

-a job interview with my other son for a music festival on Hornby this summer

-chats with friends through the Messenger app

-phone talks with my mom through Skype and FaceTime with my sis.

COMPARED TO OTHER PLACES I LIKE

While similar to Greece and Hawaii for its heat, beautiful vistas , and ocean activities 

 and creatures,  it may be the lifestyle of the locals that makes me aware of it being different from Europe and USA — even though Hawaii has an indigenous culture you can  notice.

Locals are busy with their families on the weekends and work and work on the weekdays.  As we guiltily ride past the construction workers on our bike trips, they always always always greet with an “Hola” or “Buen Dia” (the dialectally shortened form of “Buenas Dias!” I wonder what they actually are thinking.

It was fun to live amongst the cows though. 

 I kind of enjoyed running into them and onto their caca de vaca.  One day the garbage got into, and it wasn’t the dogs as one would expect, but the cows!

Another nice thing about La Ventana is there seems to be no bugs!  We had our screen door shut constantly out of training, but we only saw a gecko in the sink  and one by the door, some crickets outside and inside a washroom once  , and luckily no snakes.  Some people have seen snakes and cockroaches.  We got lucky!

I wonder if constantly being aware of the potential food poisoning changes my feeling of security of the place.  It’s so enticing to want to stop and eat the street food.  I’ve done it a few times, and it seems to have been ok.  The water, too, I’m aware could be dirty, have arsenic, or cause stomach issues.  We wash our fruit and veggies from the tap water, but I use the “bottled water” for tooth brushing, and I learned, for my tea — as it’s just too salty to drink as tea!   (Fine for rice, soup, and porridge — so far!)

I loved that I could practice speaking and listening to Spanish because we are in such a remote place where Spanish is the default.  Often when I’ve travelled, it’s easy to switch into English.  Not here, and I liked that.

It was weird to meet so many Canadians from our home town, across Canada, and like minded Americans.  Kind of like two-world living.  Living in a local neighbourhood, shopping at local stores, and having the local building owner available regularly to greet and tell, “The wifi’s out!” When the local power pole installers cut the power.

Today when we rode the north trails, we went out to a point      

where there were people living in their cars, vans, and tents waiting for the wind to pick up so they could launch their kites.  And as our bikes rode up the trails onto the point, we passed another lifestyle:  the rich, but likely not so famous.

 The houses were mas grande - huge!  With no power to them but solar panels. Solar power is an amazing source of energy, and I was quite pleased to see them.  Unfortunately, as we biked the trails, I saw the occasional Coca Cola bottle lying under a cactus bush.  What gives?! The people who ride these trails must certainly respect them?

I felt the discrepancy of lifestyles especially today.  Graham commented, “There’s discrepancy everywhere,” but I am actually again aware of my privilege here.

Like Hawaii, the lush greenery here is surprising with “not one day of rain” as Graham commented throughout the trip.  Hawaii is much more humid, and here it’s dry.  But the surprising little balls of red or orange fruit and flowers among the green cacti  of so many different varieties 

 

(Barrel Cactus on the trail and in the compound )

was fun to find and notice.

 

Again like Hawaii, it was nice to know the bananas, avocados and pineapples were locally grown and not flown overseas to be sold.  That makes me feel better about my carbon footprint of having come here.  It’s kind of nice knowing should something happen like 911 or a tsunami, eventually we could drive something to get home unlike from Hawaii or Greece.

Overall, it’s a nice life to live amongst the locals, be very active, cook our own food,  and have time to reflect, write, and read.  I’d come back, and I do love the other parts of my life and look forward to physically being with the people I love and not just remotely connecting.  The new connections of potential friends was a nice way to settle into this place around the middle of the trip when I usually get homesick.  Since Graham loves ice cream bars and November in La Ventana, I predict we will return. 

Thanks for visiting this travel blog.  These are my observations.  What are yours?