Aserri - Feria de Tamal

Today I went with some friends to the yearly fair of Tamal. Tamal is the typical Christmas food in Costa Rica and I've heard that in December it will be sold everywhere. Originally it's a food of the indígenas that they prepared for longer journeys. They made a dough out of corn flour and potatoes, added a bit of meat and cooked it in banana leafs. Today they they add also things that the immigrants brought with them like rice, peas, paprika and many other things.

Also they had a masquerade for the fair with many known personalities =)

Guatuso - Maleku indígenas

Today I had another excursion with one of my courses from uni. We went to the reserva indígena Guatuso to get to know the tribe of the Maleku Indígenas. It's the smallest of the eight tribes that live today in Costa Rica. They have to fight a lot for there land and to keep there traditions alive. The fact that 99% of the tribe are catholics or protestants and only 1% still practice there original nature religion shows how big the influence of no-indígenas here is.

They are known for the arts and crafts that they produce and sell. 

For us they made a little presentation of one of there original rituals with typical musical instruments and clothes. Compared with the other excursion to the Bribri Indígenas  (that I did before) this one was a lot more touristic. However the people very really nice and were happy about all the questions we had. The more interest there is for their culture the easier it is for them to conserve it.

Geography Costa Rica

I think it's time to give you a little impression of what I'm doing at uni. Especially my "Geography of Costa Rica" course is very interesting. This small country is a dream for any geographer. There are four tectonic plates that meet in this region of the world. So the earth's crust is very active here and therefore here occur all these phenomenas like earthquakes, tsunamis and vulcanism. Together with Chile and Japan, Costa Rica is one of the countries in the world with the most earthquakes. They occur every day, but normally you cannot feel them.

Other interesting part of the Geography of Costa Rica is the climate. The country of Costa Rica is orientated in the direction north-west to south-east with the Caribbean Sea on one side, a volcanic mountain chain along the middle and the Pacific sea on the other side.

In the majority of months strong winds come from the direction north-east. To cross the mountain chain they have to leave all there humidity behind. That's the reason why it basically rains all year around on the Caribbean side. These winds reach the pacific side as dry masses of air. This way they produce a dry season on the pacific side between January and April. During the rainy season in the pacific the winds come from south-west and bring strong rains and inundations to the pacific coast. However these winds from south-west are normally not strong enough to cross the mountain chain and produce a dry season on the Caribbean side. At least it rains a little bit less on the Caribbean side during the rainy season on the pacific side.

This diagram shows the amount of rain on the two sides of the country during the different months of the year. I like this diagram because it's easy to see that rain maximums on the two sides occur during seasons with less rain on the other side. Also it's very easy to see that it always rains a lot more on the Caribbean side. A consequence of all this is that there are many different climate zones and therefore many different vegetation and animals. The biodiversity is extremely high!