The first bathroom was tiled in beige with green decorative borders. The toilet and single sink were cream porcelain and a two-light sconce topped the frameless vanity mirror. The upper walls were spearmint, a hue acceptable for sticks of gum perhaps, but nauseating when coating anything larger. The emerald trashcan, countertop and towels all matched.
As the project manager for an interior designer, these are the sorts of things I notice.
Perhaps most remarkable about the bathroom at Hotel Le Bergerac was its size. Maybe 9 feet wide and 11 long, it wasn’t much smaller than my entire New York City studio. In my bathroom at home, I nearly have to step into the tub just to create space enough to shut the door. In my first Costa Rica bathroom I could have held a dance party. I suggested this to Jeffrey. Jeffrey is a big man. Jeffrey stands six foot six. And even Jeffrey agreed that despite the décor, the bathroom would be a perfect disco dive.
I am not usually one who pays attention to bathrooms. That would be my mother. With a bladder approximately the size of a button, she is somewhat of a connoisseur of lavatories, toilets, restrooms, water closets, bathrooms, powder rooms, washrooms, outhouses, cans, johns, commodes, latrines, heads, privies, and etcetera. Mom tracks all the bathrooms she passes, just in case an emergency trip to one of them becomes necessary.
Yet, so far, the hotel bathroom had been the most notable part of my trip. Jeffrey and I had arrived in San Jose late, and by the time we got in the cab, the sky was dark. The street lights did little to illuminate the city, their glowing pools of yellow not venturing far into the murky black. I didn’t blame them. Back on the plane, Jeffrey had given me a synopsis of his tour book’s assessment of the capital city: “Basically,” he had informed me, “Fodors says, ‘If you’re unlucky enough to be in San Jose, get out as quickly as you can.’”
I watched out the taxi window as we slipped past dark street after dark street. The city seemed to be stitched together of back roads and alleys.
“I understand why the tour book says to get out,” I said from the back of the cab.
Jeffrey shoved my leg, mortified. “Shhh,” he whispered, shooting a pointed look at the driver, who spoke decent English. “He lives here.”
I shrugged.
“We need to work on your diplomatic skills.”
I shrugged again.
The taxi turned down a surprisingly charming street, stopping in front of a building that reminded me of a Scottsdale mansion, complete with palm trees and adobe roofing. After an awkward moment silently debating whether or not we should tip the driver, and if so how much (we finally gave him five American dollars), we ducked into the reception and were ushered into our room, complete with its considerable bathroom.
I don’t remember if I even used the bathroom when we arrived that first night. I do remember breezing through the hotel binder and then falling asleep before Jeffrey had even finished snapping photos of the bistro table and metal frame chairs nestled in the veritable jungle out the back door.
We are saved by Skittles
Oct 05, 2008
The second bathroom was in Salon Delia, a tiny bar in Bananito Town where we waited for our transport to Selva Bananito Lodge. The bathroom smelled like a portable toilet, and had no sink. Just outside the door, cases of beer were stacked, unsupervised, from the cement floor to the ceiling.
“Never’d last the night in a New York bar,” I muttered to myself as I walked back to Jeffrey and the tour guide. But the beer wasn’t in much danger here – the only guests other than us were three men at the bar, more interested in the soccer game playing on TV than in drinking. The slot machine in the corner was unplugged, dusty, and all the tables – simple wooden squares – were pushed to the walls, leaving most the cement floor free. There was no glass in the windows to block the occasional breeze from ruffling the faded, threadbare curtains. Nascent raindrops weighted the balmy air.
I sipped a Coke and tried to keep my eyes from slipping closed. I had tried to nap on the four-hour drive from San Jose to the Caribbean coast, but every time I had finally fallen asleep, Jeffrey would knock his knee into mine and wake me up. To mix it up, sometimes he’d jab his elbow into my ribs.
“What?” he’d ask innocently each time I glared at him. “Bumpy road.”
We’d passed something important on that drive. Biggest natural reserve in Costa Rica, maybe? The guide had pointed it out, but I couldn’t remember what he’d said. Top ratings like that would interest my dad – makes the stories sound more impressive when they’re retold, I suppose – but not me. Plants are plants and bananas are bananas and no matter how gorgeous, they are no match for the rumbling lullaby of a warm, rocking van.
During one of my more lucid moments, the guide had pointed out the window to a plant with round leaves maybe 2 feet across. “We call those ‘Poor man’s umbrella,’” he said. I would keep my eyes open for the rest of the trip, but though we passed many poor people, I never saw a single one using one of those leaves in such a manner. Somewhat of a disappointment.
“Gooooooaaaaaallllllll,” Jeffrey whispered in mock enthusiasm, bringing me back to the bar. The three men and bartender were high–fiving each other.
“Who’s winning?” I asked.
“Red. I think.” Jeffrey liked sports even less than I did.
The arrival of our ride, a red four-wheeler steered by a man in a Yankees cap similar to my own, saved us from having to watch any more of the game.
“You’ll be taking this car,” our guide told us. “You need to cross a river to get to the lodge, and our van can’t do it.”
Jeffrey handed the rest of our small cash to the tour guide, driver and the guy that sat in the front seat chatting the whole time. (We weren’t sure what his position was, exactly, but didn’t want him to feel left out.)
“Really?” the driver asked with raised eyebrows, looking surprised that we had given him anything at all. Jeffrey and I glanced at each other and then climbed into the SUV, fastening our eyes forward.
Mr. Baseball (he had a real name, but I couldn’t remember what it was) pulled away from the bar and Jeffrey and I silently watched out the windows as the tiny town skated by. The few people who were outside watched us back, with no less interest. About five minutes into the drive, once the houses had thinned out, Mr. Baseball slowed the car, concentrating as he navigated a stony stream. The thin trickle of water polished the rocks it graced, persuading them to sparkle in the sunlight that was slowly breaking through the cloud cover.
“River,” I snorted. What a bunch of wimps these Costa Ricans were. Jeffrey and I – neighbors since I was five – had grown up on the side of California’s Mount Diablo, where raccoons visited our homes in the night, and the homeowners’ association occasionally had to issue wild boar warnings. I had crested the devil mountain as early as six. I had killed wayward rattlesnakes with a shovel’s edge. I was not phased by such a piddly “river.”
I, the arrogant American, was making premature assumptions, and, as my father always liked to say, we all know what assuming does...
We reached the river soon enough, but not before we met another car coming the other way. The driver, Sofia, unleashed a flurry of words in Spanish to Mr. Baseball, patting her rolled-down window, and then looked back at us.
“Espanol?”
We shook our heads.
“OK. Because of the recent rain, the river is too high to cross. The water came up to here” – again the patting – “when we drove through. So, we are going with Plan B. The guys will be bringing horses for you to cross on. OK? Here, you always have to have a Plan B.”
I grinned. Extra horseback riding! Jeffrey groaned. Mr. Baseball continued to bump us down the road until all signs of people disappeared and we were flanked on both sides by sky-climbing vegetation. We came to a stop in front of a wooden gate and as Mr. Baseball got out of the car to unchain the bike lock that held it together, I started laughing.
“Not what I was expecting,” Jeff said. He was chuckling as well. “When our trip voucher gave us the code to the gate just in case, I was thinking more along the lines of metal gate with electronic keypad.”
“Me too. More James Bond, less Davy Crockett.”
Once Mr. Baseball had closed the ultra-high-security gate behind us, he turned the corner and we saw the river, twin gasps escaping us. This was an honest-to-God waterway, a tumbling rush of brown flanked by lush grasses, the kind of river you forded in Oregon Trail and lost half of your wagon party to. The parallel tire tracks in the gravel – two thin lines unclaimed by greenery – faded into its swell. Mr. Baseball parked the car and stood leaning against his door, watching the other bank.
I offered Jeffrey some Skittles. He turned them down with a smirk and slid out of his seat, unpacking his camera. Taking pictures of the road and river only took up about five minutes, and he was soon back, kicking rocks to pass the time. When the inside of the car grew unbearable, I oozed out and inserted myself between three stalks on the side of the road, unsuccessfully attempting to find some respite from the sun.
The minutes passed. A young man in knee-high galoshes emerged from the greenery on the other side. He waded across to us, the white-capped ripples of the river riding up his body as he progressed, reaching to his waist. He smiled at Jeffrey and me and began speaking to Mr. Baseball. It seemed to escalate into an argument, with voices raised and arms insistently gesturing, but as I couldn’t understand anything, they could very well have been discussing the best way to filet trout. Once they had decided that salmon was better anyway, the young man turned and disappeared back the way he had come.
The minutes passed. My originally pink shirt was now more of a cerise. Jeffrey looked like he had just taken a shower fully clothed. Mr. Baseball stared impassively out to nothing.
“Can I have some Skittles?” Jeffrey asked.
I chuckled. “I bet you’re glad I brought them now.”
“I didn’t realize we were going to have to survive on them.”
I poured him out a small ration. Who knew how long we were going to be here? I had to conserve our supplied.
Mr. Baseball seemed to realize we were getting antsy. He ambled over to us and kneeled at our feet.
“Look,” he said. “Look.” He reached out and brushed the leaves of what appeared to be a mini fern. The tiny green feathers recoiled at his touch.
Apparently Jeffrey and I are easily distracted. We spent the next several minutes distressing all similar plants in the vicinity.
About an hour after we had arrived at the river’s edge, and a half hour after the young man had so quickly come and left, we heard an engine growl from among the undergrowth opposite. Shouts flew back and forth across the waterway, some directed off-course by the breezes flowing down the canal.
“Get in,” Mr. Baseball said suddenly. “Get in.” He shook his head and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like profanity. Once we were seated he gunned the gas and the car jumped forward. Quickly, I grabbed my bags off the floor and pulled my knees up to my chest, just in case. As understanding struck Jeffery, he did the same. The brown water slowly climbed toward our windows, but just as I was sure the car was going to start floating downstream, the flow reluctantly receded, leaving fingers of mud clutching the sides of the SUV.
“We’re not in Europe anymore, Toto,” Jeffrey said in his high-pitched nasal voice, which means he was making a joke.
Our next driver introduced himself as Alan and explained that he would be our guide for the next few days. Slightly shorter than me, Alan had curly black hair, a cherubic face and a childlike voice to match. He took the opportunity of the 15-minute drive to the reserve to tell us the history of Selva Bananito in his almost perfect English.
“The lodge is built on a family farm owned by the Steins. The land was originally bought by Rudi Stein in 1974 for logging and farming. However, only one-third is used for farming and in 1994 the Stein family declared the rest a private biological reserve. The lodge is alternate source of income, but it doesn’t bring in very much. Not as much as the protected wood would have. The place is now run by Rudi’s children, Jorgen and Sofia. You met her on the way in, I think.
“We try to be as self-sufficient as possible. We produce our own milk and we grow our own organic fruit here. The bananas are some of the best I’ve ever tasted, although I get a bit tired of them sometimes. We tried to sell the bananas for a while, but there were problems. Like with transport, after rainy days we couldn’t cross the river. You saw what that was like. So we don’t do that as a business now.
“We don’t have electricity in the cabins, but the water is solar-heated, don’t worry. But maybe don’t use too much because then it will be cold. The cabins themselves are made of second-class wood. That’s the throwaway wood loggers don’t want. Did you know about 20% of a tree is second-class?
“We’ve held lunch until you arrived, so we can put your stuff away in your cabin and then you can explore after we eat. There’s only one other guest right now, a woman from Luxembourg, so we’ve put you in one of the premium cabins. It’s got the best view. See? Those are bananas. You probably saw a lot on your drive here. See?”
Alan didn’t leave much space for us to insert our own comments, so I contented myself with leaning out the window and letting the breeze dry my forehead and neck. I looked at the banana plants Alan had pointed out. We had seen many on our way in, most wrapped in blue plastic to protect them from snakes and other creepy crawly things. These bunches were naked, their giant scarlet flowers plunging toward the ground under the weight of the fruit. The bananas themselves, in even rows, reached like fingers toward the sky in defiance of gravity.
“I hope you didn’t mind the delay at the river,” Alan said. This time he seemed to pause for a reply.
“Not at all,” Jeffrey obliged him. “We figure it’s part of the experience.”
“Oh good. Sometimes people will get mad, but what can we do? I can’t control the rain. Speaking of rain, the riverbed near the lodge has some water in it from the recent storm. We’re going to try to cross, but I told the farm manager to listen for my honk, in case we get stuck. He’ll come save us with his tractor. But we should be fine. Don’t worry.”
Alan was right for a while, anyway. We made it about 7/8 across the rocky bed before the back tires started spinning. “It’s OK, lunch is waiting,” Alan said as consolation before going on foot to go find the errant farm manager, who apparently was not listening very hard for our honks.
Once the tractor delivered us safely to the other side, it was only a few minutes to the camp. Alan helped us carry our luggage to our cabin, saying, “We have only three rules here. Don’t wear your shoes inside because it can get very muddy. Don’t flush anything down the toilet – put it in the garbage can nearby, and only use the biodegradable soap we have provided. Ok? Ok. I’ll see you in a few minutes for lunch.”
At lunch Alan encouraged us to explore the grounds, and by dinner we had a few questions for him. Jeffrey and I had taken advantage of our free time to wander down to the pond we had seen from the dining lodge. As he had taken pictures, I had pointed out the ripples progressing steadily across the water toward us.
“What is that?” I asked.
“What is what?”
“That. It’s a thing.”
“It’s a fish.”
“No, it’s a thing. It looks like…doesn’t it look like an alligator?”
Jeffrey peered across the pond. “Yes. Yes, it does.”
“It’s coming this way. Do you think it really is an alligator?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “but I’m not staying to find out.” He turned up the trail, walked briskly back to our cabin and refused to leave again until dinner. “I am going to stay here, in my nice little hammock, and I am going to enjoy the view.” It took him several tries to actually settle into the hammock – he landed on the floor once – but apparently even my jokes about his coordination were preferable compared to what might be “out there waiting to eat us.”
At dinner I asked Alan about what we had seen.
“Yes, it’s an alligator. Well, a caiman actually. There are two of them.”
Oh, of course. That was better. “Have you had any problems with them?”
“No. You probably shouldn’t go down and stick your hand in the water though.”
“Yeah,” Jeffrey said, “I think maybe we’re going to stay out of that general vicinity.”
We make Bertie's acquaintance
Oct 06, 2008
Our third bathroom didn’t belong to us. It belonged to Bertie, at least at night. During the day he begrudgingly left the room to us, thank goodness, as we desperately needed the shower stall. I took three showers that first full day, one in the morning, one after the horseback ride, and one after tree-climbing. Each time, before I had even exited the bathroom, I was already dripping with sweat.
“I’m eternally disgusting,” I complained to Jeffrey.
“Yes, you are. In so many ways.”
I had walked into that one.
Like our skin, our clothes never dried either. After my second (or third) shower, I came out to find Jeffrey swinging his shirt around his head like a helicopter.
“That’ll work,” I said.
“I’m putting it on the spin cycle.”
Jeffrey was a good sport, braving outdoor activities and perpetually damp attire for me. I had contacted him in September to suggest the trip. The phone call had gone somewhat like this:
“Hell-o?” Even though we have been friends for 20 years, he always sounds surprised when answering the phone, as if he can’t fathom why I would be calling him.
“Jeff?”
“Yeeesss?” Again, the baffled hesitancy.
“I am going to kill my boss.”
“OK.” That, of course, doesn’t confuse him.
“I am going to strangle him soon, I can tell, unless I go on vacation. I don’t want to go by myself, because that sucks, and none of my friends have any money, and I briefly considered going with a singles group, but I don’t need that sort of pressure, so I need you to come with me. You like vacation. I want to go for a week because that’s all the time off I’ll be able to get, I want to go somewhere I haven’t been, and I want to go in the next month or so. OK? Want to come?”
“OK.”
“OK?”
“OK.”
“Cool. Where do you want to go?”
“Wherever.”
“When do you want to go?”
“Whenever.”
Jeffrey is surprisingly amenable when it comes to vacations.
“OK, I’ll look into it and call you back.”
“OK.”
“Bye.”
I decided on Costa Rica because I needed someplace as unlike New York as possible. The regal cities of Europe, usually so alluring to me, had no draw this time. I couldn’t contemplate any more cement and brick and steel. I didn’t want to sit – I’d had enough of that at my desk – I wanted to move. I didn’t want nightlife, I wanted nocturnal life. Greenery and dirt and quiet and crystal water and sweat and jeans and sunburns and darkness and candles and adrenaline. Everything New York wasn’t. No alarm clocks or deadlines or Gucci or bitter wind or grayness or swearing or emails or upper class or trends. Nothing New York was. The second phone call had gone something like this:
“Hell-o?”
“Jeff?”
“Yeeesss?”
“How about Costa Rica?”
“OK.”
“OK?”
“OK.”
“Cool. I’ll send you the website for this adventure tour agency I found.”
That first full day at Selva Bananito Lodge was a test for him. To put it nicely, Jeffrey’s not the most coordinated person. At 13, he was already over six feet tall, yet, sadly, completely inept with a basketball. The years since apparently hadn’t been enough for him to acclimate himself to his gigantic size.
Jeffrey started well. Sitting astride his horse after only two attempts, he dwarfed the animal, making it look like a plastic carousal decoration. Once on, though, he stayed decently in control of the beast, keeping a good distance behind mine, a stallion whose Spanish name translated to Warrior. I had learned how to ride well years ago in Girl Scouts and hated the nose-to-butt meanders that most trail rides turned out to be. But there were only four of us – Alan, the German tourist Gitta, who was keen on taking close-up photos of just about everything, Jeffrey and me – so I hoped we would get to let loose a bit more on the way to the swimming hole.
“Can we gallop?” I asked Alan.
“Sure,” Alan said.
Jeffrey groaned. But the boy handled himself well. No worries there.
After lunch was another matter.
“See that tree over there?” Alan had asked at the end of the midday meal. “That tree is 30 meters high. We’ll meet in about twenty minutes at the base, and if you want, you can climb it.”
“Awesome,” I said.
“No, thanks,” Gitta said. “I’ll just take pictures.”
“I think I’ll just take pictures, too,” Jeffrey said.
“No, you’re doing it.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. Come on.”
“We’ll see.” “We’ll see” is Jeffrey’s smug way of saying, “You’re crazy, there’s no way in hell,” but I wasn’t having it.
“No, you’re doing it.”
“We’ll see.”
“Just try.”
“We’ll see.”
“Just try.” I wasn’t above whining like the little sister I’m sure he saw me as. “Please.”
“Fine, I’ll try.”
He tried. He donned the yellow safety helmet that was three sizes too small for his head and perched wobbly on top, like an idea light bulb. He allowed himself to be fitted with a harness. He even listened to Alan’s instructions. But as I shimmied up the trunk (although that’s misleading, since you don’t really ever touch the tree), he couldn’t get off the ground. Alan repeated his instructions and I, in my newfound tree-climbing wisdom, shouted out encouragement from on high. But this time, Jeffrey wasn’t having it.
“Nope,” he said after several fruitless tries, “it’s not happening.” He stood and shrugged himself out of the harness as I leaned back in the ropes and tried to simultaneously keep from touching the ant nest near my head and nonchalantly tug my shorts back into a less revealing position.
Happily, when we returned to our cabin after both of these excursions, Bertie the Bathroom Bat was nowhere to be found, and we were able to take our showers in peace. When we returned from dinner, we were less lucky. Before Jeffrey or I had the chance to brush our teeth, Bertie flew into the bathroom and settled on the second ceiling beam from the right.
“Did you see that?” I asked Jeffrey. “A bat flew in there.”
“Yep.”
“Let’s go look.”
“Nope. Not going in there." Jeffrey is mortally afraid of birds and their ilk. I considered pointing out that birds and bats had evolved along completely different lineages, but figured it wouldn’t matter.
I grabbed the flashlight from the corner where the lantern and tea lights sat.
“What are you doing?” Jeff screeched.
“I want to see.”
“Don’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“You’ll make him angry.”
“I will not.” I directed the beam to the ceiling. Bertie didn’t budge. “Give me your camera.”
“You come get it.”
I sighed dramatically. “You big wuss.” I picked his camera off his bed and turned it on. The flash from the photo seemed to disturb Jeffrey more than it did Bertie.
“Huh,” I said, surprised. “He’s not moving.” I cocked my head to the side and tried to figure out my next move. “I have to go to the bathroom and he’s right over the toilet. I don’t want to get pooped on.”
“I say, let him be.”
“But I have to go to the bathroom.”
I couldn’t see Jeff very well in the dim light, but I think he shrugged at me. Unhelpful.
I reached in and unrolled some toilet paper, wadded it into a ball, and flung it at Bertie. I can’t say much for my baseball skills – it didn’t even come close. I tried several times. Nothing. Eventually I decided to just keep my head bowed and hope for the best. As I stood in the doorway, about to leave, another bat breezed in inches above my head. I screamed and ran out into the main room.
“Heh, heh,” Jeffrey laughed his signature laugh. “Serves you right.”
The next morning when we went to put on our sneakers, we found them full of guano.
“He did it on purpose,” Jeffrey accused. “ ‘You think you can shine your lights and take your pictures, well, I’m going to get a buddy and we’re going to sleep over your shoes.’ ”
At breakfast, we told Alan and Gitta about our nighttime guest.
“The CDs hanging from the ceiling in your cabin are supposed to keep them out, but sometimes they don’t work,” Alan explained. “Did you know that when bats fall, they can’t walk on the ground? Except vampire bats. They get stuck if they don’t have a perch to fly from. They just die.”
Suddenly, I felt horrible. What if I had succeeded in knocking Bertie down? I could have killed him with my toilet paper shenanigans.
“It’s his bathroom,” Jeffrey said, nodding at me in understanding. “We’re just guests. We’ll leave him alone.”
We get left behind
Oct 07, 2008
I’m blaming the day on my shoes. Watersocks, to be specific. Neither Alan nor the intern, both outfitted in knee-high battle-ready galoshes, were thrilled about my choice to wear rubber slippers with cotton socks on the hike up the creek to the waterfall rappel, but as I saw it, I didn’t really have a choice – I still had five days left of vacation, and I couldn’t afford to ruin my sneakers.
“Are you sure?” Alan asked before we took off, glancing skeptically at my feet.
“Yep.”
Costa Rica’s rainforests are regions of vivid color, untarnished by artificial lights and sounds. Sunbeams bound from leaf to flower and then kiss the ground, still replete in their purity, unfiltered by smog. Even though shortly into the hike I already had mud splatters on my calves and sweat running down my spine, I felt as though I was in a place breathtakingly clean. No screeching brakes, no honks shredding the air, no soggy newspapers, no discarded cigarette butts, no dull gray, no flashing neon, just emerald, silver, sapphire, ruby, amethyst, and pearl. Just the love songs of birds, the humming of insects, the velvet of sunshine, the giggling of streams, the secrets whispered between the breeze and the leaves. It’s like putting on glasses and seeing the world in all its clarity, depth and richness for the first time. Or maybe it’s like taking them off. I couldn’t decide which way to point my camera. It didn’t matter. None of the photos I took could honestly recreate the scenery on a tiny digital screen.
Although part of the reason Jeffrey and I were consistently lagging behind our Costa Ricans guides and the surprisingly sprightly German was because we kept stopping to take pictures, the ultimate cause was my shoes. The fact that we were uncoordinated, out of shape and easily distracted had absolutely nothing to do with it.
“What is wrong with these people?” Jeffrey asked, when we turned a corner and found no trace of anyone in front of us. “What did they eat for breakfast?”
“The same rice and beans as us.” After only a few days, we already knew gallo pinto was a Costa Rican staple.
“It appears walking the mile around the apartment complex, with no significant variation in elevation, is not the correct endurance training one needs for a trip to Costa Rica.” Jeffrey muttered. “That hovering ability would come in real handy right now.”
Occasionally Alan took pity on us and hovered at the back of the pack, waiting for the Americans to catch up. He took these moments to point out his favorite flora and fauna.
“We call these leaf-cutter ants,” he said, pointing down at a line of industrious insects, each carrying a flutter of green three times as big as itself. “The natives used to follow these ants’ traces to create trails. The ants always find the easiest path. Some of those trails are roads or highways now.”
Further up, he stopped at a mound on the side of the path and started banging on it with his walking stick. Fun, I thought, and I started hammering alongside him, to help.
“This is the nest of some bullet ants,” he said, as he continued to bash at the hardened crust. “Do you know why we call them bullet ants?”
“No,” I said, pounding with my stick. “Why?”
“Because when they bite you, it feels like you’ve been shot with a bullet.” Alan giggled.
I stopped abruptly, but couldn’t keep my voice from screeching. “Then why are we disturbing them?”
“Heh, heh,” Jeffrey snickered from behind me.
Alan was undaunted. He had already moved on to his next show-and-tell. “This we call a walking tree.” The palm he pointed to looked like it was resting on several thin stilts, about chest high. “It grows new roots on one side, while the roots on the other side shrivel up and die. It that way, it can move up to a meter a year to get more sunlight.”
Alan watched as Jeffrey took several photos in rapid succession, moving around the palm for different light. I almost expected him to tell the tree to “work the camera.”
“By now, you’re pretty much out in the middle of nowhere,” Alan said.
“I think we started out pretty much in the middle of nowhere,” I responded. Especially for a New Yorker, for whom Yorkville is considered the middle of nowhere.
Several hours after we had started out, we finally reached the waterfall. By that point, I counted two holes in the fabric of each shoe. I hadn’t worn my watersocks in a number of years and they were disintegrating. Although they hadn’t been very practical on the hike – I could feel every stick and root and stone through the soles – the shoes did grip the rocky face of the waterfall as I lowered myself down.
The reserve’s intern had rappelled first, to show us how to do it. No problem, I thought. To see her, one wouldn’t think it was any harder than walking down stairs backward. When I finally started my descent, however, I realized I had greatly underestimated the slipperiness factor, not to mention the poor-view factor, and the gallons-of-freezing-water-angrily-rushing-at-my-head factor. The hardest part was the start, when I had to convince my body that it was OK to lean back into nothingness. The curve of the rock made locating the next foothold difficult. I tried to trust my body, sneaking one foot down and then the other, hoping they’d find something to support them. Alan had told us to stay to the left of the rushing water, where visibility would be better, but, as is always the case in nature, the water had found the quickest, easiest way down the cliff and gravity wanted my body to follow. I kept swinging in and out of the flood, heading in whenever gravity won, heading back out whenever my muscles triumphed. More thrilled than scared, and more giddy than anything else, I hit the pool at the bottom and immediately wanted to try again. I hadn’t looked as Lara-Croft-cool as I had wanted to, I was sure. But there was no climbing back up the hill, and anyway, it was Jeffrey’s turn.
I should have known this was going to be an issue when I saw how many tries on average it took him to sit in his hammock. I should have known this was going to be an issue when arranging the mosquito netting around his bed had proved to be as challenging as the hammock. He started out well enough, but one slip sent him into the water stream and he couldn’t get back out.
“Lean back,” Gitta shouted. “Like Spiderman!”
But spiders don’t like water slamming into their faces, and Jeffrey didn’t either. He shook his head and stopped trying to position himself against the cliff, just sat in the harness, hanging in mid air and bumping repeatedly, and rather violently, into the rock wall.
Alan lowered him safely into the pool.
“Fun, right?” I asked Jeffrey when he had waded over to me. He snorted.
The hike back to the lodge was much like the hike out, only we were more tired and the holes in my shoes had increased to five. Again, we straggled at the back of the pack. At one point, we completely lost sight of everyone else.
“Oh look,” Jeffrey said, “They’ve left us behind.”
“If we run out of food, we could go back and kill that turtle we saw.”
“See, I was thinking of killing and eating you. And using your bag to float down the river.”
I knew he was still a bit peeved about the waterfall fiasco. I tried to distract him. “I know, let’s play a game. Let’s name all the cocktails we can think of.”
Jeffrey groaned. “That’s not helping.”
We were in hysterics most the way back, losing control every time one of us slipped, cracking jokes at our own expense. Jeffrey spent most of the two-hour hike in his high-pitched nasal voice, firing off an arsenal of wisecracks.
“I’m calling in the DEA. Government employee down! Evac to Hotel Cariblue’s swim-up bar needed immediately! Vital: one giant pina colada. And a vat of ice, stat!”
Four new holes in my shoes later, we were back at the cabin. Each of us took a quick shower and then sank into our beds. The last thing I heard Jeffrey say before I fell asleep was, “At dinner, if I hear laughing coming from the staff area downstairs, I’ll know what it’s about.”
We make a deal
Oct 08, 2008
The next morning was not one for ultra exertion. A post-breakfast jaunt to meet Pedro the Wild Boar, a smelly, mud-covered, spiny, black thing with tiny eyes and then a horseback ride to the zip line course. Jeffrey was all for an activity that required nothing more than sitting in a harness and letting gravity do its work, but he was a bit more hesitant about the rappel from the canopy platform. Something about gravity being able to do too much work, I think. Once on the ground again, though, I wasn’t the only one who wanted to try again.
“I think,” Jeffrey said, “if we had done this before the waterfall rappel, I would have had a much easier – or if not, at least a much more relaxed – time.”
We transferred to Cariblue after lunch, not via DEA helicopter, but via taxi … and then via a van … and then via a car. While Jeffrey checked us in, I sprawled out at a desk littered with flyers for tours. Jeffrey finished before I did, but patiently waited as I went through all the brochures, sorting them into piles of Ugh, Already Done, Want To Do But Won’t Get Jeffrey To Do, Cool, and Possibly Ridiculously Awesome.
Lying in the hammock on the porch of our hotel room, while he unpacked his clothes, I tried to sell Jeffrey on some of the outings I had seen.
“They had ATVs. We could ride ATVs.”
“Nope.”
“But how great would that be? It could only be better if they were bumper ATVs.”
“Nope.”
“What about horseback riding on the beach?”
“I’ve had enough horses, thank you.”
“Swimming with dolphins? I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“Dolphins creep me out.”
“Snorkeling? That’s relaxing.”
“Nope.”
“Why not? You said you liked snorkeling.”
“You can go.”
“I’m not going alone. Come on. You don’t want to look back on this and feel like you missed out on something.”
Jeffrey put down the shirt he was folding and looked at me. “These are my days of vacation. Those last few days, those were your days of vacation. On my vacation days, I am going to sit on the beach and do nothing except, occasionally, turn over. If I am feeling adventurous, I might switch it up and go to the pool. I plan to drink. I might read. That is all. That’s it. Nothing else.”
I glared at him. “Will you play pool?” I had spotted a table near the hotel restaurant.
“Yes. If I can have a drink while I do it, I will play pool.”
I pondered that for a bit. “Will you walk into that little town tomorrow to check it out?”
“Yes, I will do that. I want to buy some coffee for my coworkers anyway.”
“What if we find tide pools on the way to the town? Will you go take a look?” I’m a big fan of poking things and seeing what they do. I do it to my sister all the time. Tide pools are usually a good place to find things to poke.
“If we find tide pools, we can spend some time there.”
I was feeling lucky. “Will you swim out to that tiny island we saw just off the beach?”
Jeffrey snorted and I knew he was about to break my streak. “Nope. But you can try. Maybe, if I’m feeling nice, I’ll call for help when you start drowning.”
Hmm. “Fine, deal.”
We vegetate
Oct 09, 2008
On the sixth day, we rested, as agreed.
Billiards score – Jeffrey: 1, Stephanie: 2.
We find perfection
Oct 10, 2008
Bathroom Number Four deserves a capitalized name. Bathroom Number Four (not really the fourth, but the ones in between hadn’t been worth mentioning) came very close to realizing my ideal bathroom. Bathroom Number Four, our own at Pacuare Lodge, gets top marks.
Fashioned of almost full-length screen windows, the bathroom seemed barely an indoor space. Slate tiles and a cobblestone shower floor maintained the natural feel. A low partition wall sectioned off the toilet, and a teak bench with white towels waited near the shower. The shower itself stood in the corner, outlined by a forest green curtain. During the day, hummingbirds flitted among the Birds of Paradise planted outside for privacy, while at night, candles raised seductive shadows, further romanticizing the room.
Unfortunately, I was with Jeffrey.
We had rafted down to the lodge that morning, paired with a newlywed couple from Westchester, stopping once to explore a swimming hole, where I tried (unsuccessfully) to catch fish with my hands. The rapids upriver of the lodge were easy-going, and the rest of the night was as well. We escaped the rain in the upstairs bar of the lodge and then lingered at dinner with the other guests until bedtime. I took a shower before going to bed, knowing I’d take another in the morning, just so I’d have a reason to hang out longer in the bathroom.
We laugh in death's face
Oct 11, 2008
I grabbed the front seat in the raft before anyone else had the chance. If I was going to tumble down a river, I wanted a first-class view.
“Maybe someone else wants to sit in the front,” Jeffrey suggested hopefully.
“They don’t.” I waved behind me. Phil and Priscilla of Florida, who were celebrating their 15th anniversary, were standing far back from the water, while the Spaniard was trying to keep his girlfriend from hyperventilating.
Jeffrey took his seat beside me with a sigh.
“Are there piranhas?” Phil asked and he and Priscilla moved forward and tentatively let the water wash over their feet at the edge of the river.
“Well,” our guide said, squinting, “not piranhas exactly. Their cousins. But don’t worry, they don’t bite.”
“Oh, good,” Phil said. “They’re the nice piranhas.” But he let the guide lead him through knee-deep water to a middle seat.
We were supposed to sit on the bulbous edge of the raft, for freedom-of-movement purposes? For safety? I didn’t know, but it seemed precarious. Apparently, Priscilla agreed with me, maybe too much, because she spent the entire journey squatting on the floor. When I twisted to look at her, the top of her helmet, about level with my waist, covered her eyes. She’d flip it back with a shake of her head and grin at me. Other boats of tourists swept past us as we drifted to the river’s center from the drop-in point. They would raise their paddles, their hands, their cameras in greeting. From a safety standpoint, a populous river boded well. From a potential-embarrassment standpoint, less so. Though it was October, I made an early New Year’s resolution: Do not fall out of the boat. I gritted my teeth and grabbed the anchoring rope that snaked along the sides of the raft, determined to follow through.
Rafting, I found, is like long, drawn on sentences punctuated by brief moments of terror. At least in Costa Rica, those sentences are full of descriptive words. Between the drops and twists where the water smashed against sunken rocks, as the river pulled us relentlessly but calmly downward, we had ample time to gaze about ourselves. Along the left bank, a chocolate horse paused in his drink long enough to raise his head and stare curiously at us. Also on the left, a waterfall so high it seemed to start as a trickle, but finished as a torrent, carving a path for itself out of the charcoal cliff face. Lush greenery on all sides, tangled up in itself, letting slip the calls of birds hidden inside.
How our guide picked out a path through the rocks was beyond me. He followed a line invisible to the rest of us, adjusting the direction of his paddle, leaning his body to the left and the right. He was, just as much as the seats and the safety rope, a part of the boat. That he could deftly manipulate a giant blue whoopee cushion propelled by six clueless, uncoordinated people amazed me, though I decided it was best not to think too hard about it. However, even Superman has his kryptonite – about halfway through the trip our guide underestimated his watery opponent, and we ended up lodged between – and I know it’s corny, but I just have to say it – a rock and a hard place. Literally.
I shoved the rock face near me, thinking back to elementary school when I convinced myself I had super powers (flight and telepathy, among others).
“I will push,” I thought now, adding super strength to my mental resume, “and I will free the boat and save the day and all will celebrate my name.” In actuality, I think my efforts were futile. The guide, who had gotten out of the boat and found his footing nearby, gradually hauled us around, straining the tendons in his neck. He couldn’t back us out of the channel because of the current, so he pushed us forward through too-shallow water, scraping the bottom of the raft over a steeply sloping rock. The tail of the boat climbed as its nose dipped lower and lower.
Somebody had made the mistake earlier in the day – while we were floating in lazy circles, waiting for our partner boat to catch up – of asking if anyone had ever died on the trip down the Pacuare River.
“Once that I know of,” he replied. “A teenager fell out of the boat and was crushed between it and a boulder.”
We had all been silent. I was still silent now, but was screaming in my head as the raft continued to angle. “They are all going to fall on me,” I thought, as my head inched closer to the swirling water. I flashed back to my Girl Scout trip to Disneyland, when I was riding in the front of the log boat on Splash Mountain, on the crest, waiting for the plunge. “Hold me in tight,” I had told my mom. Kindly, she had waited until we were safely at the bottom to ask me, “So, who was holding me in?” But Mom wasn’t here now to act as a seatbelt. “Any minute now,” I thought, “Any minute now we’re going to tip and I am going to be crushed by a mass of bodies.”
I might have been a bit dramatic. The raft, quite anticlimactically, broke free of the boulder and coasted back into the heart of the river. The rest of the rapids didn’t hold any major surprises, and we congratulated ourselves on remaining raft-bound.
Near the end of the route, the guide suggested that anyone who wanted to could get out and swim alongside the raft.
“Really,” he said, when no one moved, “you can.”
Still, no one moved. I was tempted to stay in the boat as well, so as not to be odd man out, but then I mentally berated myself for being a sheep and tumbled over the side. I had wanted to swim this whole time and was not about to miss the opportunity now that it had presented itself.
“Take pictures,” I called to Jeffrey. It had been a long week, but he was still willing to take pictures on command – a true gentleman. Photographs are my proof – to others, but mainly to myself – that I have had a good time. Though a poor representation of a real experience or place, they act, I’ve found, as doorways to memories. As I dog-paddled behind the raft, letting the current pull me along, I knew Jeffrey’s $8 underwater camera wouldn’t do this vista justice. We had entered the mouth of a gorge, and rocks rose steeply on either side, squeezing the river. A thin light tumbled down through the flora carpeting the rock face and ricocheted off the small ripples in the water. Above us, rickety bridges swooped across the river like deserted spider webs, wooden planks missing and frayed ropes – former handrails – swinging listlessly in the breeze. Ahead, the landscape grew lighter by degrees, promising that once we got through the next few bends we would be bathed in dazzling gold. As we drifted closer to the light – and to shallower waters – Jeffrey hauled me back into the raft by my life vest. I lifted up my face, closed my eyes and held my breath as I waited for the sun’s full face to kiss my skin.
I smiled.
We return to real life
Oct 12, 2008
After a too-early flight, I am back in my own bathroom. The fluorescent bar over the medicine cabinet harshly lights the room with a slight buzzing. The bathroom, aside from the avocado toilet, is white, painted so by the previous owner. She painted everything – the walls, the door, the vanity, the tiles, the bathtub, the garbage can, the fixtures – an unwashable white that sets off the dust and grips onto stains. I have no window, but there is a small vent above the door that lets the steam escape and my neighbors’ conversations sneak in. The floor is icy cold under my bare feet and annoyances I had forgotten flood back – the lock that doesn’t live up to it’s name, the shower head that’s falling out of the wall, the knob that falls off in my hand every time I try to open the cabinet – but I look in the mirror and smile. For once, under the fluorescent glare, my skin looks not ashen, but amber, lightly bronzed thanks to Costa Rica’s sun.
Jess was terrific and patiently guided us to make what we feel will be a wonderful family adventure.
David Herr
3 weeks ago
Excellent service, great hotels and well organized excursions with expert guides! Highly recommended!
Shadi Dalili
1 month ago
We keep coming back to Adventure-Life for custom tailored, out of the ordinary, non-touristy trips and they deliver the best every time. The trip planners know how to put together just what we are looking for.
Judith P. NYC
2 months ago
We have been working with Adventure Life for 5 years now and it is very easy to plan out our trips. Our holidays include customization of activities and side trips along with the standard packages available on the Adventure Life website. Kevin, Jess, Mary Rose and their teams have many recommendations that have enhanced our travel.
Joe
2 months ago
We had a great experience- they were very helpful in trip planning and making sure we got to do all the activities and see the places we wanted. There were some things we couldn't do/see due to the time of year being the rainy/low season and they steered us away from those. We had never been to Costa Rica before and it gave us a good overview of this lovely country.
Jody Dice
4 months ago
Jess was terrific and patiently guided us to make what we feel will be a wonderful family adventure.
David Herr
3 weeks ago
Excellent service, great hotels and well organized excursions with expert guides! Highly recommended!
Shadi Dalili
1 month ago
We keep coming back to Adventure-Life for custom tailored, out of the ordinary, non-touristy trips and they deliver the best every time. The trip planners know how to put together just what we are looking for.
Judith P. NYC
2 months ago
We have been working with Adventure Life for 5 years now and it is very easy to plan out our trips. Our holidays include customization of activities and side trips along with the standard packages available on the Adventure Life website. Kevin, Jess, Mary Rose and their teams have many recommendations that have enhanced our travel.
Joe
2 months ago
We had a great experience- they were very helpful in trip planning and making sure we got to do all the activities and see the places we wanted. There were some things we couldn't do/see due to the time of year being the rainy/low season and they steered us away from those. We had never been to Costa Rica before and it gave us a good overview of this lovely country.
Jody Dice
4 months ago
Jess was terrific and patiently guided us to make what we feel will be a wonderful family adventure.
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