d: the hike out of corcovado was so excruciating (especially for roger), that i couldn't even gather myself to finish the beer i had so been looking forward to all day. truly an unforgetable day, but it hit us when we finished that we'd pretty much lost what wind we'd still had in our sails. after exiting the park, it was another 1/2 mile to the base of a hillside, on top of which sat our home for that night. this was the one night of the trip that we splurged in luxury-- our night at the lookout inn. the lookout inn is owned by a man named terry, who decided at some point that he'd spent enough time in the united states and headed down to costa rica to find himself a tican wife and open up this ecolodge. he's done a fanstastic job.
a: while he's done a fantastic job on the appearance of the place, it doesn't take more than five minutes with terry to understand why our fantastic guide roger told us terry treats his staff like dog mierda. it's not that terry is a bad guy by any stretch...just a classic example of how owning a business completely run in a foreign country by foreigners can be a challenge, particularly if you're unwilling to budge on your way being the right way. it would, in my opinion, behoove terry to have a little more cultural competence rather than assuming he's constantly in the right...might lead to a more productive and responsive staff. but what do i know about the hospitality industry...
d: we stayed the night in a 3-walled little hut on this steep hillside with a beautiful view that faced out through some forest to the ocean below. everything at that place was 3-walled. the showers were delightful in this setting; and pooping with a view, of course, is an experience we won't soon forget. but this place's main attraction has always been the food. for the first time in quite a while we were able to eat (like champions) food that had been gourmet-ly prepared. several courses at dinner really put a smile on our faces.
a: david forgets that after emerging starved and hypovolemic from corcovado, we were served up a heaping pot of fish soup, a big platter of tuna sashimi, and grilled john dori. while he ate three times his weight in various ocean creatures, i forced a smile at my plate of rice and summer squash and took solace in the fact that david was eating enough to comp the cost for both of us and probably six other people.
d: at breakfast the next morning, ashley came face to face with polly, the resident macaw.
a: ie, a large bird of prey suddenly swooped onto a counter within four inches of my face, started me down for a few seconds, then marched aggressively to my cup of tea, grasped my my spoon in its' death beak, and threw it on the floor. i was bitten on the ear lobe by a "pet" parrot when i was 3...meeting polly has only substantiated my conclusion that birds are evil.
d: polly has neurological problems, encouraged by terry's adult daughter who positively reinforces aggressive moves towards guests' breakfast plates by giving it exactly what it's looking for-- pineapple and tea. ashley wasn't amused. later that morning, polly decided to say hello to us by flying into our room (remember, only 3 walls) and chilling out. more special, polly. we took a bird break and spent some quality time completely alone wading in ocean water at the foot of our cliff that, again, was so warm that urine actually cooled us off. nobody was in sight on this unbelievable black sand tropical beach. needless to say, we considered staying a 2nd night but decided the money would be better spent elsewhere... that afternoon, we headed north for a stay at playa manuel antonio.
one of the medics with whom we worked in san jose has a ranger friend at this beautiful national beach park. a brief phone call was all it took to hook us up with a volunteer position for 5 nights that allowed us to stay for free within the park boundaries-- all we needed was our own bedding (ash chose pink ice-cream-cupcake princess sheets at a san jose mall; i got the far more manly blue dinosaur variety).
at the time the plans were made, we didn't appreciate how awesome this hook up was. turns out the park is very small and is only open between 8a-4p. for a few hours each day of fun work (clearing trails and picking up trash in the morning; manning a first-aid station in the afternoon), we got the opportunity to have the whole place to ourselves early morning and all evening/night. all for $3/day, including meals. it's a bit unfortunate that we did corcovado (the king of raw nature) first, because as beautiful as the scenery was at this park, there was something (as ash pointed out) sort of amusement parkesque about this place. some of the trails were actually paved and even had some man-made steps and handrails.
while i can appreciate that this park would be great for people not able to get into the unadulterated jungle, it made for a bit of a letdown for the two of us after having just had such a transcending experience, especially when we'd see so many tourists in one place (the loud and very disrespectful group of american dudes playing football on the beach were probably the low point), or hear that recently thousands (no exaggeration) of native squirrel monkeys have been dying after jumping onto live electric wires, or when we'd see white-faced capuccins stealing someone's lunch and drinking the Hi-C. very disheartening.
all that aside, however, my opinion is that one beach in particular at that park was the most beautiful that we laid eyes on throughout the whole trip. and after 4pm, we'd again find ourselves completely alone in this dream of a location... who needs clothes at a time like that? in addition, the park had what we'd consider to be the best view of any that we saw during our entire trip. as we climbed higher up this cliff, the whole view really just got to be ridiculous. we took some pictures that frankly look fake because it's hard to believe that anything could actually look like that...
we decided that the rangers who live in the park are officially immune to all gastrointestinal viruses, bacteria and parasites. the kitchen gets about a D- for food safety (fortunately we never saw rats, but we had to be very careful to close all doors tightly to keep the crabs and the racoons outside). we mostly survived, in part because of trip we took to a farmers' market in a nearby town to stock up on fresh goodies-- although ash briefly suffered from the trots that she probably got from rice that had been left out for approximately seventeen years without being covered or otherwise refrigerated.
a: i'm serious when i say i must have eaten my weight in b. cereus.
d: carlos was the head volunteer who'd been there for 9 months and works as the main cook. we're still not sure if it's a cultural thing, but he took serious offense when we told him we weren't hungry enough to eat 3/4 of our plates loaded with seventeen-year-old rice. after the first night when we didn't quite finish everything he'd served us, he pretty much stopped being pleasant around us and focused his attention to any other human with boobs. carlos is about 5'2" and obese, which isn't funny in and of itself, but it's funny to see those with boobs when he approaches with a hug/grope at the ready.
throughout the stay, we actively avoided the cereal because of the ants that had pervaded the bag. one morning, ramiro (whom ended up being our favorite ranger) asked me if putting a dry bowl of cereal into the microwave would explode. i told him i didn't think so without really considering the question. next thing we know, we find out that he'd zapped the whole bag in order to kill the ants and was proudly scarfing a nice breakfast. that's resourceful if you ask me.
we stepped out of the park on few evenings to check out the surrounding area and found ourselves hurrying back in after finding a tijuana-like atmosphere of white people in a foreign country with few goals that didn't involve getting f*kked up and being loud. especially after recently experiencing such a privately religious natural experience in corcovado, it was a scene that we were just not prepared for or in any way able to embrace. it was clear that the people who came to this part of the country were on vacation to party and merely dabble in nature, whereas we clearly were there to nature and merely dabble in party. we were very glad to have the park as a refuge every night and spend our quality time with the howlers and sloths. admittedly, however, on our last night that we had in the area, we snuck out to several beautiful locations high up on the cliffside to have some drinks overlooking the sunset... gorgeous. despite this awesome manuel antonio stint, we were ready for our last large swing of the trip: monteverde.
monteverde is a jungle at higher altitude, making it a cloud forest. i believe that the actual rainfall is much less than at the lower tropical locations, but there is so much moisture constantly in the air that the plants have more than they need to thrive. it's amazing how different the experience is from one part of the country to another, especially with such little distance in between. we spent our nights in a nearby town called santa elena. the locals have mixed emotions about what's gone on here over the past decade or so: a complete evolution from beautiful, simple home to tourism mecca that provides lots of opportunity to make $$. the classic example is one young lady talking about how her favorite climbing tree as a child was now the centerpiece of a restaurant that had been built around it-- next to the tree hangs a sign advertising free Wi-fi.
it's mostly sad, i think. on the other hand, it paved the way for a helluva taco stand, the locals have a much easier time finding work, and there is so much conservation on the minds of those in charge that only 3% of all of the cloud forest is accessible to tourism, preserving mostly all of it for the natural claim-stakers (plants and animals) to continue on as normally as possible. our first two days consisted of hiking around different portions of the huge forest-- again, after corcovado anything paved was a bit of a letdown. but there was no disputing the beauty of our surroundings. we succumbed to the tourism industry and sign on to a tour one day that involved huge ziplines that took us high above the canopy-- unfortunately there was not much time to soak in exactly where we were because of how fast we were moving and because of the adrenaline we felt. we're glad we did it once, but not sure if it's something we need to do again in the future.
one company has constructed huge bridges that allow beautiful views over the canopy, giving us our closest look yet at a troop of howler monkeys-- we also were able to catch a glimpse of what most birders in the area consider the grandest prize: the quetzal. this is a bird covered in shimmering green and red feathers-- their body is about 10-inches tall but the tail covers about another 2 feet. it's magnificent. and it put a nice little show on for us at relatively close range, showing itself off as we stood in awe.
a: seeing a quetzal literally almost moved me to tears. we couldn't get a great picture of it, but those irridescent green feathers against this scarlet red belly plume was just resplendent. i've never seen anything like it. seeing as there are only about 40 pairs left in the park, we felt pretty lucky.
d: towards the very end of our final hike, i felt a brief sting on my right wrist-- looked down to find that a SECOND GODDAMNED TICK of the trip had decided that my body was comfortable enough to settle in for a meal. unlike grody a week prior, this one pissed me off enough that i decided not to name him. i was unaware that tick bites could be painful, but this one stung. ash again plucked it out for me (she's quite a caregiver)-- and we were on our way back to san jose for our final night before leaving the country and returning home to prepare for our wedding two weeks later.
a: i also slaughtered a small scorpion in our hotel room. i'm very brave.
d: quite a trip. since we've returned, we frequently think back to what it was like to be there, stress free and enjoying the ride. some countries get crossed off the to-do list but this one is a place we will certainly return. there is so much of it that we didn't get to see-- the northwest coast and all of the caribbean included. while our experience in san jose was great to tuck away in our back pocket, we don't see ourselves staying there in the future for any more time than we need to... the real value in this country is getting away from the people as much as possible. unfortunately, tourism is approaching everywhere... we'll hafta find new ways to isolate ourselves next time to again fully appreciate the natural entertainment that is offered. very much looking forward to that.
a: i've tried to explain to many people since we've come back that i only feel culture shock when i return to the states--never when i travel. while it's wonderful not to have obligations to work/school/whathaveyou when on vacation, it's really the lifestyle of costa rica i yearn for, or anything less american in the very negative american ways. relief doesn't accurately describe what it feels like to not have a cell phone for several weeks, to have limited internet access, and to literally disappear without answering to anyone. anxiety hardly summarizes what it feels like to return home and again get sucked into the constant invasions of privacy, over-availability, and general fast pace of life (directly resulting in decreased pleasure of wonderful things like food, nature, and relationships) that make up life in the states.
while of course there has to be a happy medium (for example, i doubt it was much appreciated that for my own mental health i had to keep my cell phone turned off the two weeks before our wedding)--if you want to thrive in your surroundings you must be flexible. but i do continue to fight the tendencies so quintessentially american and i hope i always will...it seems to be the only way to upkeep that certain joi de vivre that seems so easy to achieve and embrace upon crossing the various boundaries, political and otherwise, that we do when we leave the u.s.
we will post more pictures and a couple movies from corcovado through the end of the trip next time we sign on...
