I spent my first week or so in Costa Rica between San Jose, Dominical, and Uvita. That was alright. San Jose is an overwhelming and misleading place to start a Costa Rican adventure. It feels a little dangerous in parts, and the screaming street vendors are a little off putting. That said, the people-watching is grade A. I was, and still am, in shock at how overweight the Costa Ricans are. I wasn't expecting that at all. On a different note, I did have one very memorable dry, makeshift karaoke night with three very awesome people in the TV room of my hostel there.
As for Dominical and Uvita, they would have been perfect if I loved the beach, surfing, and excessive heat and humidity. I only like these things. Sometimes. Plus, the tourist demographic there was comprised largely of North Americans. Nothing wrong with that, but after having spent so much time in Asia where we are few and far between, it took some getting used to. Especially since I happened to show up in the wake of a music festival called Envision which saturated the area with cannabis-hugging free spirits recovering from a weekend void of moderation. On the bright side, the communal kitchens in hostels here are a welcomed new amenity. I had almost forgotten how much I love cooking. Despite having a good time and meeting some cool folks, I didn't last more than three days at any of these places.
I've found that new destinations you travel through are similar to new people you meet along the way in that you usually know right away whether or not they're worth your time. I understand that every place and everybody has something to offer, but that thing doesn't have to be your cup of tea. There are too many people and places in the world to waste your time with the ones that make you uncomfortable. With people especially, since you meet so many when travelling long-term, you have to employ some sort of filter if you want to make the most of your time. You reach a point where asking, and being asked, about you travel itinerary and motives becomes painfully redundant. But there are those individuals that have that little somethin' somethin' that puts you at ease and brings out the best in you. These are the faces you remember. These are the people who make their mark. And you always know when you've found one because the conversation is effortless and engaging, even when talking about the same ol' stuff. For whatever reason, for me on this trip, the majority of these people have been western European. Just an observation.
Having had enough of the beach, I decided to head to the mountains. The highest one seemed like a good place to start. I've already told that story. A few people there obviously did not fit the profile of those I just described. That said, I loved it. The place itself and the experience I had easily made up for the people I encountered; and then some. I stayed for over a week before leaving. Or rather, before moving on.
From there, I wasn't exactly sure where to go. This is a situation I encounter about once a week. After the short, habitual internal debate -- in which some sort of logic usually prevails -- I decided to head down to Osa peninsula. I chose Puerto Jimenez because it was the first place to which I found a comprehensible bus schedule. Plus, I had a flyer for a "Jungle Hostel" there!
The drive down was my first experience on the vast network of unpaved roads in Costa Rica. It was reminiscent of a few of my Asian rides, sans unnecessarily loud, terrible music. Rocky, but enjoyable. Such are the finer things in life. Unfortunately it was dark when I arrived, and I had been unable to reach the hostel beforehand to arrange for transportation. I would have walked, but it was 4 km out of town in any direction. Fortunately, the token hostel scouts of the town were waiting at the bus stop. The least imposing one was an old, white-bearded, American guy hunched over a walking stick. I let him lead me to a place across the road. That would do for a night. As an added bonus, I woke up next to a nice French girl. She occupied the dorm bed beside mine.
I checked out and made the trek to the Celvante Jungle Hostel. It was hot and humid but I was on a mission. I think I was still riding the wave from Chirripo. When I got there, it was everything I had hoped for and more. The owners are two young American guys, nice as can be. The dorms are scattered throughout the jungle and have no more than two solid walls each. The communal area is homey and has a view of the jungle. There's a fire pit. They have instruments. The kitchen is big enough, and pancake mix and maple syrup are provided. The place has charm, and it has character.
The volunteers were extremely friendly, and the fellow travelers, as a whole, were in a league of their own. It felt like family. There were two cats, a dog, and a duck named Angela when I got there. Angela shit every third step so they had to ban her from the living space. By the time I left, six more ducks had been added to the family. A passing Texan named Gilbert, who was all teeth, bought them for the hostel as a parting gift. He was full ideas and wasn't afraid to share them. A real talker, this one. And a good dude.
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| Greg, Claus and Gilbert |
I stayed there for 11 nights. I read and wrote quite a bit. I helped out with the cooking. I went in to town a few times for groceries. I went to the beach once with a Finnish friend to go kayaking. We took advantage of the opportunity to play with some local kids on a slack line that was set up between two palm trees. I went on a short, guided jungle walk on a neighboring property. But I never once seriously considered visiting the one place that people travel there to see. Costa Rica's icon, Corcovado National Park. According to National Geographic, Corcovado is the "most biologically intense place on Earth," and it barely crossed my mind. I think I have to go back. I'm leaning that way for the last two weeks of my trip, but it'll depend on whether or not I can volunteer at the hostel, and on if something else tempts me more between now and then.
I ended up leaving because I was getting too comfortable. My time was already starting to wear thin and I had a short list of things I wanted to accomplish before I meet up with Shawn and Katie who are coming to Costa Rica for a week at the beginning of May. Plus, the hostel was overbooked and I thought I should give someone else the opportunity to experience it. My plan was to head in the general direction of Volcan Arenal and see what happened. There's another cloud forest up there that I couldn't pass up.
The night before I left, as I was talking to the most interesting person I've ever met, I learned that he was headed in the same direction as me in the morning, and had the same general points of interest in mind. I decided to tag along with him, as it was guaranteed entertainment. This guy Claus, 47, from Denmark, has seen and done everything. He travelled the world in a double decker bus, and was paid by sponsors all along to way to post their ads on the side. He spent five weeks on the Galapagos Islands because that's how long Darwin spent there. A guy he knew got killed by a dead kangaroo. A duck he had got shot by a kid with a bow and arrow. He has run 15 marathons, not including the 8 that were part of ironman competitions, and the 2 that he ran consecutively in a double ironman. And on, and on, and on. I couldn't believe this guy. He had a crazy story to relate to anything anyone said to him, each one brought to life by his quirky accent and untamed giggle. But don't take my word for it, check out his website.
When we left the hostel at 4:45 in the morning, he faced the jungle and at the top of his lungs, bellowed a ferocious Tarzan call while pounding his fists brutally onto his chest. Poor Angela and her new friends, who had been sleeping not ten feet away, probably saw God for a brief moment. As for the rest of the jungle hostel family, I doubt anyone slept through it. This lasted a good five seconds before he stopped, turned around and walked with me down the dirt road, grinning and looking refreshed. After a scripted moment of silence, he said, "that will give them something to talk about."
I ended up traveling around with Claus for the remainder of his time in Costa Rica. This was only about a week, but it was the most active week I've had in a long time. Our competitive natures made for some early mornings and long days. We hiked, and biked, and hiked, and traveled, and hiked, and walked, and ate ice cream, and hiked. It was a beautiful thing finding someone that had the same affinity for frozen treats as me. We easily averaged two a day.
Throughout the week, he kept saying "you're so ready for an ironman!" So many times, in fact, that I actually started to believe it. Not that I'm actually ready, but that I could be if I trained. He claimed to have let himself go in the past two years since his last ironman. I believed it since he was usually the one struggling to keep up with me. But I can't help but think that just knowing what he had accomplished made me push myself a little harder. In the end, we both had a certain respect for one another.
I couldn't have hoped for a better travel companion. His Spanish was as non-existent as my self discipline to get up in the morning. This built trust on both accounts. We mostly had similar interests, but we did our own thing when it felt right. Our mutual distaste for paying for taxis made for a lot of walking, but not nearly as much as it should have. We agreed that we would set out to walk any distance shorter than 30 km at any given point. But it seemed as if the careless attitude we shared, particularly when trying to make it anywhere, actually got us places as quickly as possible. Without fail, within 30 minutes of whenever we needed it, we had a bus or other random ride, regardless of the time of day and day of week.
The most notable instance of this was on our side trip to Tenorio National Park. I hinted at it in the Rio Celeste post, but I'll fill in the gaps. The fact that we even discovered the place was lucky enough. One night when we were in La Fortuna, I was searching online for a photo that might represent an idea that I had had. I typed "jungle volcano waterfall" into the Google Images search box, and a picture of the Rio Celeste waterfall showed up in the first few images. I clicked on it because it appeared surreal and was the closest thing to what I was searching for. I discovered that it was located in Costa Rica so I investigated a little further. Low and behold, it was less than 100 km from where we were. We were lounging around our hostel at the time after a good day of biking. It was almost dark. I showed him the picture and said, "Let's go here." He agreed, as much for the impromptu adventure of it as for the beauty of the place.
The next morning we were up at 5:30 to catch the bus to the only place near Tenorio National Park that we had figured out how to get to. From there, we walked a few minutes until we found a dirt road with a sign that said Parque National Tenorio - 22 km. We gave each other a high five as if to say, bring it on! Aside from a couple big trucks, there wasn't a whole lot of traffic. After about 20 minutes, we saw a poor excuse for a shack on the side of the road with a sign indicating that they had ice cream. It was about time of day -- almost 9:30 am. "Food tastes so much better when you deserve it," he said. I'm not exactly sure what it was we had done to deserve it, but I agreed with the statement.
We had been sitting for a few minutes with our tasty snacks when we noticed a truck approaching from down the road. I got up to throw a thumb out. The guy stopped and asked where we were going. I told him, he nodded, and we got in. About 500 yards down the road, he pulled into his driveway. Claus and I exchanged stupid grins. The man proceeded to tell us that a bus was on the way and that we could wait at his place. Before we could figure out why he had picked us up to tell us that, he introduced us to his 98 year-old father. This guy, who didn't look a day over 86, started cracking jokes at us in Spanish.
About 15 minutes later, the bus showed up. We said thanks and goodbye, then hopped on in. It was an old Bluebird school bus that had been painted white with blue trim.
Just what the doctor ordered. About a half hour later, the driver stopped for us and pointed up a steep dirt road. Claus and I looked at each other again, still grinning. 15 minutes up the road, as we were starting to realize how much steeper it was than it looked, a car drove by. Our reaction time was slow at that point so our thumbs went out a bit late. It didn't even slow down.
Five minutes later, we saw the same car pulled over on the side of the road. As we walked by, two Canadian girls and their guide appeared out of the woods. There was a particularly big tree worth seeing there, I guess. I casually struck up a conversation with them and before we knew it, we were all crammed in the car heading up the hill. They dropped us off right at the park entrance.
After another high five and a good chuckle, we decided to find a place to lose our things before exploring. We ended up at Cabinas Piuri. On the way there, we got our first glimpse of the river. The color was shocking even after having seen the photos. We stopped for a minute and laughed again at how less than 18 hours had passed between when I saw a random picture online and when we got there. The best part: we hadn't even really known the way.
I realise now that having him around inspired quite a bit of confidence in me. I think since he had such a whatever-happens-happens attitude, I trusted my gut every time without hesitation. So many times I thought, phew, I'm glad that worked out!, after having said, "it's this way," without knowing for sure. But it really didn't matter. Everything was an adventure with Claus. During all of our potentially long walks, before we got picked up, we would talk about how fun it might be to get stuck along the way. We'd have made the most of any situation. For an entire week, I felt particularly immune to adversity.
After a short rest, we headed out to explore the National Park. We had originally "planned" to do the complete hike the following day since we had anticipated arriving late afternoon. We stuck to that plan, and went out for a feeler hike to check the park entrance situation and wander around. But when we crossed the river on the way there, I got an itch. I thought it might be fun to scale up the river as far as I could. I proposed the idea and he shot it down. So I went alone. We made a plan to put a leaf on a stick in the ground any time the river crossed a trail. That way we would know if the other had been there.
After over two hours of climbing and wading around, a bit unexpectedly, I reached the waterfall. There were already some people there ignoring the signs that said "no bañarse." I was already in my skivvies at that point and mostly wet, so I dropped my day pack and joined them. Before I knew it, I heard Claus' Tarzan call from across the river. I looked at him and we both started laughing. The first thing he said was, "ha! I knew you'd be here!" We caught each other up on our respective adventures getting there as we made our way down the jungle trail.
The next day went according to plan. We spend all day hiking around the park, interpreting every "do not enter" sign as an open invitation to do something particularly exciting. At one point I said, "I keep expecting to see a snake." Not ten minutes later, we came across this pit viper.
The following day, we were on the road again. This time we had absolutely no idea how were going to get where we were going. Phase 1: Leave Tenorio. Phase 2: . Phase 3: Arrive at Monteverde. We uncharacteristically took our time in the morning, leaving Cabinas Piuri at around 8:30. About a kilometer down the road at the main park entrance, a truck was pulling out as we walked by. The truck bed was empty so I walked right up to him and told him we were going to Bijagua. He motioned for us to get in the back.
We got dropped off at a bus situation on the one street through town. There was a little supermarket right behind it so I asked a guy working there when the next bus south was and where in was headed. He said, "9:30. A Cañas." It was about 9 and Cañas was about three quarters of the way to where we were going. I reported back to Claus and we laughed again at the dumb luck we were having.
On a darker note, while we were waiting there, a puppy got hit by a car right in front of us. The guy slowed down a little but drove off. The little doggy looked right at me as it was yelping in pain so I went out to get it. It managed to get up and take a couple steps toward me before I got to it but clearly there was some serious damage to the hip and one of the hind legs. I just held it there on the bench until someone came to claim it, which was exactly when our bus arrived. Again, the timing was strange.
At Cañas, I believe we got off a stop too soon but we made our way to what felt like the center of town. The first bus stop we came across had a bunch of people waiting at it. I thought, that's a good sign. I asked no one in particular where it was going. A couple people replied, "Tilaran." I asked, "when?" and through the moans and grumbles I caught someone saying that it was late. Again, I translated back to Claus and we laughed and slapped hands. Tilaran just happened to be the next "big" town on the way to Monteverde. Five minutes later we were on the bus.
At Tiliran, it was the same story. We got off the bus, took our time, I went to the ATM, we had lunch, and then we inquired about transportation to Monteverde. One hour later, we were on a bus to our destination.
Monteverde was nice enough but super touristy. Claus and I used the two days that we had there to explore the two big nature reserves in the area. This allowed us avoid the main tourist traps and be more active and independent; a couple more things that we agreed upon. Both days we were the first ones at the park entrances. If at all possible, we didn't want to be bothered by tour groups while exploring the jungle. Santa Elena ended up being one of my favorite hikes of my trip. For most of it, it really felt like you were in the heart of the rainforest. And it was on that hike that Claus shared with me his most deeply perceptive token of wisdom. He said, "cloud forests are like women in bikinis, it's more exciting when you can't see everything."
That night, I cooked dinner at the hostel and we had a couple Carlsburgs because we thought it was funny. We reminisced of our crazy week then called it an early night. I ended up not being able to sleep so I stayed up until about 4 a.m. composing what is probably the most ludicrous thing I've ever written. Looking back, it's embarrassing how engaged and amused I was for those several hours. I'm still deciding on whether or not to share it here. All in favor?
About an hour after I finally passed out, Claus woke me up to say goodbye. He gave me one last high five and giggled his way out the door. It rang in my ear as I smiled myself back to sleep thinking, crazy guy.
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