Your Bridge to Atenas
 

Barroeta Fiestas
 

 Off of the road west to Jaco, before climbing into Alto Desmonte, there is a narrow road veering left toward the south. This is the entrance to Barroeta, a teeny-tiny village perched near the edge of the larger Rio Grande canyon. The thing about Barroeta is, if you head down that road, chances are good you are heading to Barroeta, since that is all that is on that road, which used to be bouncy, curvy, and steep in places.

This is my friend Walter Hernandez, and Walter has had a small house on the way to Barroeta since I have known him, where he spends weekends. Many years ago I was invited with a group of friends to a party there, they were going to kill a pig for chicharrones, and there would be contrabando (moonshine from fermented cane) if we wanted it.

We all had a blast, of course, by the end of that day I think I knew most everybody who actually lived in Barroeta and a couple who had grown there and moved away into  Atenas.

Walter and some other souls decided that such fiestas would be a good idea to raise money to fix that crummy road in, and that they did. The first year they held a cabalgata ( a bunch of guys riding horses through the country) and beer tents and food tents, with music all day and dancing into the night. On Sunday they auctioned calves and pigs and roosters, many of which were then returned to the community to be auctioned once again. 

The party was popular. They hoped it would continue to be popular.

And that's the way it has turned out: in the last few years, Barroeta has overflowed its capacity in the evening, even the cow pasture ran out of room to park, and the partiers arrived from not only Atenas but from San Jose and from Party Central, Jaco. The city girls show up in groups, sporting cowboy boots and hats, ready to dance the night away, by the feeble light of a string or two of light bulbs under the ample open roof next to the corral, or in the dirt next to the beer tent.

During the day, families arrived with all the kids, to sample the lomo relleno, picadillo, tender beans, corn on the cob, tongue in sauce, carne en salsa, olla de carne, tripe soup, tamales, arroz con leche, chicharrones, vigorones, and other folk delicacies. The lomo sold briskly, and was often in short supply, as the kitchens couldn't keep up.

Kids being kids, the youngsters had a ball playing the freeform games like tag that needs no equipment, so laughs and screams from both adults and kids punctuated the non-stop music all the day. Balloons were to be had, and sno-cones, and next year I'm going to suggest they hire a talented clown from San Jose, appropriately called Chepe, whom I had met in Puriscal last year.

This cane press, called a trapiche, is placed dead center of the food zone because, of course, the open shed used to serve food really is and has always been, the village cane press, providing the raw material for tapa dulce as well as party beverages. The geared cylinder has a square drive above the top beam: to that was fastened the maybe 10 foot hardwood fulcrum attached to young men or a yoked oxen, and walked in a circle while someone fed the cane to the press.

Barroeta most days reminds you of Dogpatch, so quiet and calm you can hear the breeze blow, and a person even thinks in a whisper, to not spoil it. Barroeta de fiesta is noisy, dusty, exhausting, and great fun. The road is improving year after year, and the steep climbs are the first in receiving concrete pavement. And people still come to have fun year after year, making Barroeta fiestas win/win. I think you'll enjoy them, too. Come early to get good parking.

In February: to be announced.

Here's a short  movie

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 3-14-08