Leafcutters and Us, On the March

About every other morning, we walk the half mile to our little finca. We carry water for drinking as even this little hike is strenuous. Besides the very steep up and downs, a stretch of the road has been recently cobbled with stones – not gravel – ranging in size from golf ball to small boulder. The largest have been dragged to the side by passers-by (and us) who had to stop here and there along the way when this job was first done.

For this event Pecos tucks his jeans in tall rubber boots and wears his cotton hat. He ties his machete to his belt and a bandana around his neck. He carries his walking stick. Our bottle of water gets clipped to his belt and a large folding knife is dropped in his pocket. He is prepared for anything. I wear short boots, shorts and straw hat and carry my botanical guide, a treasured gift from my daughter. We look like lost, mismatched tourists.

Halfway we come to the one-room house of the very old man who everyone in the village calls Tio Jesus. This structure is planked unevenly and horizontally and the boards stop a foot or so from the rusty tin roof. There are no windows or window openings. The small front porch holds a homemade bench and a sharpening stone for his machete. Tall banana trees provide overhead shade and a gurgling creek is just steps from the house. As we approach, Jesus is waiting near the road. His faithful dog has notified him that someone was coming. Our conversation is always the same: he talks nonstop for 10 minutes and we smile and nod and insert “si, si” here and there.

As we round the bend a parade of leafcutter ants is on the march across the road. These industrious ants have decided to take down an entire plant, shrub or tree somewhere in the jungle patch to our left and are hauling it home, which is somewhere up a steep dirt cow-path to our right. The ants select their target, climb up it, and then systematically jigsaw-cut each leaf into squares for carrying home. Each insect in the narrow line holds an inch-square piece of foliage upright over its head, much like a little broad sail, and keeps pace with the rest of the procession. The move is brisk. We watch for several minutes – this parade has no end – and then continue on our way.

Orange spikes of wild ginger flowers, five feet high, are staggered in the jungly growth at the side of the road. Red and yellow firecracker flowers hover over a little ditch. Plants I’ve previously known as seasonal or contained grow high here and bloom freely, unchecked by cold weather or indoor constraints. I read that Costa Rica has more than 10,000 plant species and that new varieties and their medicinal uses are still being discovered. The government has launched a major project to catalog this rich diversity of botanica. Our remote mountain area has new flowers appearing each day. Pecos waits patiently or walks slowly ahead as I oooh and aaah my way along the road, trying not to trip as I search through my plant book for the many unrecognizables seen along the way.

When we reach our finca, we can see that a tall buttercup tree has burst into full yellow bloom overnight. Another tree is deciduous in this Costa Rican summer and its bare branches are covered with bright orange flowers. We can smell the fruit from our few wild orange trees. The banana trees are now waist-high, having grown a foot and a half in the past eight weeks. Marcos has cleared a wide path to our bed of pineapple plants, first cutting the way through with his machete and then a weed eater.

When we first arrived a month ago, we hiked all of our finca with him. For that excursion we all wore tall boots and carried machetes. Marcos led the way, hacking plants, cottony spider webs and vines as necessary for us to pass. Hardwood amarillon trees swayed overhead and a few hawks circled. This former pasture was bumpy with occasional deep foot holes and a few animal dens in the chest-high grass. Marcos explained that boundary corners are marked not by surveyor posts or stones but by planting cana de india – a vibrant, red-hued plant that everyone recognizes for its purpose.

We searched for our spring and Marcos cleared around it. He also cut away arm-thick vines and monstrous houseplants for us to crawl through to get to the year-round creek. We stood in this dim tunnel of foliage and water and wondered what living creatures were near our feet or overhead. Later, I casually mentioned to The Kid how we hiked around through the dense grass and walked a bit in the creek, knowing he’d be impressed that we weren’t acting like city slickers. He responded, “Do you realize there could have been venomous snakes near the water or in the tall grass? I wouldn’t have done that until it was cleared.” We quickly decided that until the entire finca is mowed, to have Marcos create eight-foot walking paths through the property. Now on our morning excursions we stick to these areas.

A bulldozer was already doing some work near the village last week. This was fortunate for us as it saved the expense of bringing one in from a great distance. After nearly a full day of excavation and slightly re-routing part of a seasonal creek on our land, the new lane and plantelle are ready. This raised building spot is located near the center of our few hectares and faces a beautiful vista of the Talamanca Mountains. We stand on the lone boulder near one edge of the site, listen to the birds chirping our presence, and imagine future fruit trees and gardens.

On our return, Jesus is waiting in front of his house again. He holds out two strange, cacti-like fruits the length of footballs and points upward to the tree on which some hang from branches and a few others pop out from the trunk. Jesus gives us a rapid-fire dialogue again, presumably telling us what these are and how to prepare them. Later I read that these trees are known as soursop or guanabana. The leaves are medicinal, taken as tea for diabetes and flu and rubbed on the skin to repel insects; the seeds are toxic and are used to stun fish. The fruit is slightly acidic but also sweet and delicious. We add a soursop tree to our lengthy list of desirables for the finca. 