Pavones To: Finca Bellavista

I get to the Finca from Pavones by taking a bus from the Panama border. I didn’t leave Costa Rica, but they require you to go through the checkpoint regardless. In a panic I go for a smoke around the corner and try to shove all my weed in my underwear, glad that I wore underwear today.

I make it through the checkpoint and they don’t even search me. Phew. I’m still with Kim, as she’s on her way back to Jaco and we take the bus together. While waiting for the bus, we see a woman we know from Dominical, Alessandra, a Brazilian women who makes these amazing colourful bikinis!

When I was in Dominical I wanted to buy one off her, but I didn’t have the cash on me. This time I had just stocked up at the bank because I knew I would be in the desolate jungle, away from any bank or ATM. So I was “loaded.”

It turns out she’s taking the same bus with us back to Dominical, so I am stoked! I finally get to buy my cute reversible thong bikini. She makes them from elastic and they are super comfortable! Also great for surfing because they actually stay on in the swell.

We hop on the bus and Alessandra drops off a large plastic bag of bikinis at our seat and we rifle through them, trying the tops over our clothes. A guy next to me keeps looking over to see if he can get a free show. Many, many free shows given.

I finally found one I like and pay her just in time for my stop to the Treehouse Community Finca Bellavista, where I have come to volunteer for six weeks.

Jazzed with my new bikini, I venture towards the dirt road in search of ice cream. I’m looking for a guy named Chico who can give me a ride up the hill to the Finca. Within five minutes, I find him and I grab some frozen coconut dulce de leche balls from his wife for the road. I tell him to drop me about halfway and I hike the rest.

Waterfall -Photos by, Ruby Wray

The first days at the Finca were alright. We didn’t have to work that hard the first two days so I thought this was going to be a breeze. Turns out, since my last visit to the Finca before Pavones, their in-house dog Mowgli had passed away. I just saw Mowgli the other day, that’s crazy! But everyone was super bummed out from the moment I got there.

My new bunkmate, Liz, from Denver, Colorado is a cool chick. We each took our own room in the bunkhouse and apart from the lack of electricity and the occasional gigantic cockroach in the shower, it was almost comfy.

Turns out, weed is legal in Colorado, so guess who bonded instantly? Liz and I became like instant best friends and did everything together the first few days. We were cleaning the bunkhouse because it was gross, no one had cleaned it in months. Disgusting. We literally took all the bins on the porch and shoved them under the house so we would have a yoga corner next to our hammocks.

Liz gestures over to the patio, “Ruby, look!” I’m like what is it? The answer to my prayers! A glass pipe just sitting in an ashtray, blatantly on the patio ledge. Hallelujah! I was tweeking hard because I couldn’t find my papers once I got to the Finca and unless I wanted to get inventive, I wasn’t able to smoke my herb.

My first real day at the Finca, I started to feel ill and Liz too. We were trying to determine if it was the salad we ate, but later think it may have been the water in the bunkhouse. Either way, the food at the Finca is not as “Finca Fresh” as they claim. They are “supposedly” a sustainable community but they buy most of their food in town. It was basically a buffet of resort food at every meal, that Liz and I had to clean up. Every plate, fork and pot and pan. For all the guests, staff, everyone. I am basically a dishwasher.

Photos by, Ruby Wray -Finca Garden

If that wasn’t enough, we couldn’t really eat the food. Each time I ate, I had to run to the bathroom to be sick. I hadn’t been sick in Costa Rica, yet and had already been here for a week, so I thought it was very strange that, this place, a “supposedly” self-sustainable “pure vida” to be poison to my body. 

I took my probiotics, digestive enzymes and sage—all the supplements I brought with me to try to purify my intestines. I felt like I contracted a bacterial infection or parasite from this fucking jungle.

No one was very sympathetic to our condition, so work was as usual. The second day we did our first hike up with the guests to the treehouse. It’s roughly a good 90 degree incline up a slippery muddy hill for roughly 45 minutes each way. Add a torrential downpour to that and you would know how it felt to volunteer at the Finca.

Mind you, the rainforest is beautiful, but this place wasn’t what I had envisioned. Six years ago I was on StumbleUpon and came across Finca Bellavista’s website. I instantly felt drawn to go there and the video made it seem like a dream to live in a treehouse. The reality is it wasn’t the Eco-vegan-treehouse-hippie-haven that I thought it would be. 

I lasted for five days as a volunteer because of my promiscuous behaviour–more on that in the Vlog. Shortly after my stay at the treehouse I crashed a party my friends were playing at in a mansion near Dominical. It was a staff party for Matador Network, an online lifestyle and travel publication. I ended up meeting the editor and he said that six years ago he made that video for Finca Bellavista.

How funny that his video was the anchor that brought me to Costa Rica. It may not be the right place for me but it’s what brought me to be living in the jungle, the life I always longed for.