I’ve always said I’m a “Dota person,” but that’s not entirely true… I have family there, and I’ve wanted to move there since I was five. Although I usually just grab a coffee at my relatives’ place, my most recent trip to Dota was a bit spur-of-the-moment. The reason for the trip was to drop off Benito—a tropical mockingbird chick that a friend had found in the AMPM parking lot and asked me to raise.
The plan was to leave him in Dota in a cage with the door left open, allowing him to come and go safely while he finished getting ready to fly—without seeing me, after I’d spent three weeks feeding and raising him. I hoped he would learn a bit more from other birds and that Santa María de Dota had a lower per-capita cat population than Curridabat.
Anyway, before heading back to Curridabat, we stopped for coffee at the Coopedota café. From the balcony, I spotted a young woman painting a utility pole with enviable focus and dedication—and, of course, I had to interrupt her.
Elisa is a visual artist from San Marcos de Tarrazú; she was illustrating the poles surrounding Coopedota with images related to the coffee industry. She is passionate about art in all its forms and says she has recently started learning how to tattoo. To learn more about Elisa, her work, projects, and workshops, follow @lapajara.pinta on Instagram.
/
