farm

Return to the Osa (With a New Job, New Documentary, and New Photos)

Return to the Osa (With a New Job, New Documentary, and New Photos)

With 2019 fully under way, I am returning to my blog to update everyone on what has been happening in my life. The last post I made was about arriving in Uganda for my assignment with Photographers Without Borders (PWB). Though that experience deserves a post in itself, and will hopefully receive one, for now I am content with saying that it was eye-opening, challenging, and absolutely an incredible experience. I will write a full description of my time there, as well as my experience with PWB soon, assuming my life remains somewhat calm for the foreseeable future.

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Costa Rican Castration Party - Part One // WARNING, GRAPHIC

Costa Rican Castration Party - Part One // WARNING, GRAPHIC

Located along the road from Puerto Jimenez to Carate is the sprawling Finca Bijagual (pronounced Bee-Ha-Gwahl). Both a tourist destination, offering guest cabins, a restaurant, and horseback riding, Bijagual is also a functioning cattle farm. Bijagual is owned by the always pleasant Don Trino. A towering and elderly Tico, he is bespectacled and always clad in a Hawaiian style button down. Instead of floral patterns, his shirts feature images of cowboys roping steers, fisherman battling marlin, or scenes of Daffy Duck and Goofy sipping cocktails on a beach. He can always be found hanging in the restaurant, an open-air pavilion located just adjacent to the road. The Bijagual restaurant also serves as a venue for the occasional dance party, events that draw attendees from all the nearby villages. Beer and cacique guarro (Costa Rican-made sugar cane liquor) flow freely while partiers couple up to dance the merengue, salsa, and bachata. These events go late into the night, and almost always go on without incident. The same, however, cannot be said for one Bijagual party that occurs but once a year. Coinciding with the birthday of Don Trino’s son, this event is the annual castrating of the bulls.

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