Barefoot in the Forest - Sunday 4-5-2009

From Casa Brian, I walk with six other people to a supposedly gorgeous, secluded beach known only to locals several kilometers south of Playa Samara. A tall cliff separates Playa Samara from this beach. We walk south to the end of Playa Samara, and then walk carefully on rocky outcroppings sheltering tide pools. These rocks curve around the point and open into a cove and small beach. Five hundred meters directly across the water from this secluded beach is an island with a tall cliff and its own tiny beach. Our guide points to a steep trail leading up a cliff at the end of the beach we are standing on. We start walking the nearly vertical trail. I lose my breath quickly and struggle to keep up with the others. The trail isn’t even marked, it’s just the only discernable path up the cliff. We step across roots and branches and fallen logs, holding tightly onto tree trunks when we can, and always careful of our footing on the pathway. The pathway is barely the width of a person’s foot. Two-thirds of the way up the cliff, the path bends along the cliff face so that I can turn my head left and look down the cliff. The path is terribly narrow here and there is nothing for me to grab onto if I lose my footing. I take a deep breath and keep walking.

The trail is so steep and the day is so hot. I stop to catch my breath several times. The trail leads us inexorably up, doubling back on itself, cutting through the trees and bushes. The trail finally ends at a fallen tree. We carefully climb across its length, reaching a dirt road near the top of the cliff. I’m breathless and drenched in sweat. We follow the dirt road to the right. The road ends at the edge of the cliff and we can look straight down on the rocks below and directly across the water to the island, 500 meters away. We stop for pictures and water, some of others also take a cigarette break. The strap on my left sandal separates from the sole, wrecked from the climb. My left sandal sole is connected to the rest of my sandal only by a bit of glue on the heel. As the group follows another dirt road down the other side of the cliff, I have a moment of clarity. My left sandal is so wrecked that it’s more comfortable for me to walk barefoot. If I walk down to Playa Carillio, I’ll have to do it barefoot. That means I’ll have to climb back up to the top of the cliff barefoot and then back down the narrow, barely-marked trail to Playa Samara barefoot. I cut my losses and tell the group that I’m headed back to Casa Brian.

I take my sandals off. It takes me several minutes to find the fallen log we climbed to reach the dirt road at the top of the cliff. I gingerly grab a hold of the trunk and slowly slide down. I think I find the trail back down, but it dead ends after a minute of walking. I go back to the log, but can’t find the trail. Part of me seriously wants to sit and wait several hours for the others to return. Instead, I make my own trail through the leaves, branches and fallen logs. After a minute, I think I find the trail and I start following that down the cliff. The path seems even steeper and narrower going down. I lose my footing a couple times, but catch myself before I slide down the cliff. It’s a weird rush for this suburban kid to be walking barefoot down this cliff, hemmed in by thick vegetation and worried more about spending $10 to replace my sandals than about getting bitten by some hidden snake. About fifteen minutes after starting my slow descent, I reach the hidden cove and the gravelly beach. It’s blazing hot today and my shirt is soaked with sweat. I put my gear down and wade into the temperate waters. The terrain changes quickly from gravel to rocks which are too sharp to stand on so I retrieve my gear and keep walking toward Playa Samara. I cross the sharp rocks and tide pools slowly because I have to pick my steps carefully while barefoot. Forty-five minutes later, I’m back at Casa Brian, sore but pleased that I didn’t freak out or give up partway down the cliff.

More Rest, A Night Hike, Friends From Wisconsin - Thursday 3-26-2009

I talked to three girls from Wisconsin this morning as I wrote and they ate. They had been in Panama for two months staying with a family and doing missionary work for the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We all laugh when they tell me that it will be nice to be home in Wisconsin, where three five-foot-seven, light-skinned, strawberry blond, blue-eyed girls don’t stick out. I laugh harder when they tell me how someone asked them point blank if they were Norwegian, and then how a burned out hippie Vietnam Veteran who’d been living in Panama for God knows how long asked them if they were speaking Swedish when they were clearly speaking English. A quick note about the Wisconsin girls – they’re real cool. Also, I tried my best to remember their names but their names are so similar that I forgot them anyway. I think they are Katie, Kaylee, and Kiley. No, they are not sisters. They are just friends with coordinated names.

After breakfast, Yolanda helps me book my hostel in Playa Tamarindo (3-30-2009 until 4-2-2009), and my transportation to Tamarindo via Greyline ($45). OK, so here is something I’m going to work on while I’m out here – planning less. I’m already in Costa Rica without a real itinerary, but I feel like I should stop booking my moves five days in advance. Yolanda’s son Johnny walks in and offers to take me on a night hike through the private ecological preserve. Yolanda had called the Monteverde Preserve to book me a night hike and found they had closed for the day, so Johnny’s offer interests me. Johnny is a guide at the private ecological preserve and was going to charge me $25, but the Wisconsin girls book too and he charges them $20 because they are a group. I ask to pay $20 too and Johnny relents, eventually. Johnny's 26 and had a baby boy yesterday. He’s not married to the mother, but Yolanda seems OK with that.

At 5:15PM, Johnny, the Wisconsin girls, and I walk about one mile from Manakin Lodge to the private ecological preserve. Johnny is an amazing tour guide. He finds a female tarantula hiding in her hole. Only females live in holes. The males run loose on the forest floor. We listen to him describe how much of the preserve is former banana and coffee farmland turned into secondary forest (replanted forest after the virgin forest had been cut down) by bats. Bats eat their own weight in food every night and so excrete seeds from the fruits they eat several times a night. Johnny tells us that bats are responsible for reforesting about 70 percent of the preserve. Humans played no part in the reforestation besides buying the land and then leaving it alone. He takes us to a huge leafcutter ant mound and tells us that what we see is only a small portion of the colony. Leafcutter colonies can house eight million to nine million ants but only one queen and can span several hundred feet in every direction, Johnny tells us.

The narrow trail is covered by a bed of leaves and branches off confusingly, leading down black, unmarked paths. Signs are sparse. The forest encroaches on us tightly. I do not know how I would find my way through the ecological reserve even by day. Deftly, Johnny guides us up slopes and down into valleys. He tells us this secondary forest has been growing for 25 years. That seems like such a short time considering the towering trees, thick strangler vines, massive roots, and impenetrable undergrowth. As we walk, Johnny shines his light onto tree branches and repeatedly finds sleeping birds. Some birds are orange with black heads and white breasts. Others are brown. Some have green heads and red breasts. Johnny points out leaves with undersides so soft they feel like cloth. He finds an alligator tree sapling, picks some leaves, and wipes his arms with them. Natives and native animals have used these leaves as mosquito repellant for centuries, he informs us. The scent is strong and similar to pine, but sweeter. He says he has been a guide for 12 years and I believe it. We come to a clearing with a bench and the forest opens to the spring sky. We sit for about fifteen minutes and Johnny points out Orion, Taurus, and Gemini. I look for Pisces but can’t find it. I think it’s too late in the season now.

We walk more along the bending, confusing trail when Johnny excitedly points out a cat-sized rat-like creature with large black eyes and a long tail sitting about 25 feet above us in a tree just off the trail. Tonight is only the second time in his life he has seen this animal. We stay awhile as Johnny tells us about the animal. We walk on and Johnny points out a snake the length of my index finger curled on a leaf. Johnny tells me this snake could easily kill a man.

After the night hike, we all walk to the road that leads west to Santa Elena and east to Manakin Lodge. Johnny tells us a bit about the local restaurants and then bids us goodnight. The Wisconsin girls and I walk to Las Palmas, just past Atmosphere Café on the road to Santa Elena, about 1 mile outside of Santa Elena and 500 yards from Manakin Lodge. All the prices are in dollars. Las Palmas is a large, upscale restaurant with reasonable prices, white table linens, and rustic wood paneling. It has plenty of tables but few customers, testament to this year’s poor high season. Try the Hawaiian Pizza for $6.95 (small with four big slices) or $10.95 (large with eight big slices). Their large menu also included other pizzas, pastas, (the fettuccini alfredo looked good), and beef from hamburgers to filet mingon.

For the next ninety minutes, the Wisconsin girls and I have a great conversation about the Jehovah’s Witnesses and negative stereotypes people have about them. The girls answered each of my probing questions about their religion, its tenants, Witness’ obligations, and how it differs from other Christian religions with patience and without judgment. They also maturely handled my favorite question about religion: what if all religions lead to the same place and each religion exists only so that people can choose the path most suited to them. They didn’t buy it because their religion interprets the Bible strictly and does not have room for such metaphysics. I was fascinated to learn that Witnesses, as they call themselves, are taught the pagan origins of much Christmas and Easter symbolism, including the strategic placement of these holidays on top of pre-existing Pagan holidays by the early Christian Church. I’ve read about these topics and was quite impressed that three 20 year olds were familiar with Christmas’ placement over the Roman festivals Saturnalia and the Feast of the Unconquered Sun, even if they couldn’t name those festivals without my prompting. I’m quite comfortable in my Catholicism, watered down and unorthodox as my brand of Catholicism might be, so conversion to their cause wasn’t in the cards. Still, the four of us enjoyed a fine, educational, and deeply interesting conversation about a touchy subject. I talked more easily about religion and the criticisms of religion with these three girls than I can with many people two or three times their age. I hadn’t had such a stimulating conversation about religion since my Hindu friend from business school, Devang, and I talked about Hinduism over steak and pasta in Florence, Italy during Spring Break 2005.

After dinner, we all walk back to Manakin Lodge and call it a night.

Five Hours of Hiking and Goodbye to New Friends - Tuesday 3-24-2009

I woke up at 7:15AM to get picked up at 8:30AM today for a day hike with Ricardo and Fernando. I sleep much better here than at Costa Rica Guesthouse. CRB was near train tracks and the trains would start firing their air horns at 6:00AM sharp. Also, my windows overlooked a street where cars would honking their horns during morning rush hour. At Manakin Lodge, the wind howls at night. Some gusts are so strong the windows and door shake as though someone is trying to enter my room. It was disconcerting at first, but I don’t mind anymore. It adds to the rustic feel.

Breakfast is free here and it’s good. Yolanda’s menu has about eight items. Today, I eat her organic granola with yogurt and a small plate of fresh fruit. A couple from New York is eating breakfast too, and I eat with them.

The shuttle bus to Preserva Santa Elena is late and I spend the fifteen minutes between when I’m supposed to get picked up and when I do get picked up terrified that I got left behind. I really need to work on that. The shuttle bus is empty when I get on and I ask if there will be other passengers. The driver says no. Did the Portuguese guys oversleep? On the way to Preserva Santa Elena, the driver stops and I think he says we have to wait for someone. Ten minutes later, another shuttle bus arrives with the Portuguese guys and ten other people. I transfer to that bus and we’re off.

Unlike last night’s hike, today’s hike through Preserva Santa Elena is unguided. ($20 admission including transportation, open daily 7AM to 4PM. Transportation leaves in front of the bus stop 6:30AM, 8:30AM, 10:30AM, 12:30PM and 3:30PM. Return buses leave the preserve at 9AM, 11AM, 1PM and 4PM. We got picked up at about 3:30PM. Reserve at your hotel or at Camino Verde, in front of the bus stop).

At 9:30AM, Ricardo, Fernando and I start our hike ambitiously. We choose the longest trail, the 4.5 kilometer Cano Negro trail. Very little of the trail is flat or easy. Instead, we walk up and down steep hills, jumping from stone to stone or step to step. Where tall trees do not block the sun, the jungle explodes into light green, emerald, kelley green, and countless other shades of green. Other parts of the rainforest are so thick with huge trees reaching hundreds of feet into the blue sky that their many leaves diffuse the sunlight, leaving the trail shadowed. I pass strangler vines growing large around massive tree trunks. Fallen logs, damp and moss-covered, lie strewn about the forest. In some places, smaller trees grow between the giants making the forest seem impassable. In others, we can look through the forest and see nearby hills also covered with dark green. At all times, the jungle feels vast, endless.

We pass few other hikers. We stay quiet as we walk, listening instead to the calls and chirps around us, and always on the lookout for the rustle of leaves which might signal a monkey, coati, or other exotic animal. Several times, the Cano Negro trail leads us to the bottom of a valley, where we and find a brook quietly flowing from somewhere high in the forest. I reach my hand into one brook and find the water cold. We stop often for pictures. Fernando has an expensive-looking black camera with a large zoom lens. He takes pictures of the wild flowers and berries we pass on the trail. His camera captures their bright reds and yellows perfectly.

Halfway through our walk we come to a vista point that offers a clear shot of Volcan Arenal. Arenal’s top is smoking white and grey. Arenal’s cone is a mix of green and grey. We put our gear down on a wooden bench and take pictures with the volcano. Afterward, we eat and rest. Ricardo and Fernando brought biscuits which they happily share with me. I did not think we would be gone so long so I left my food at Manakin Lodge. The breezes are cool and gentle. The sky above us is a bright blue, the only clouds are near Arenal. Ricardo eventually suggests we move on.

We reach the end of the Cano Negro trail, about three and a half hours after we started, and choose another trail to follow. The Encantado Trail is 3.4 kilometers long. It is similar to the Cano Negro trail, passing through thick jungles, up hills, and down into valleys. However, the Encantado Trail offers several animals to photograph. We see a coati, a kinkajou, several white-faced monkeys followed by a baby monkey and a large black bird with a long beak and round body that none of us can name. We finish this trail about two hours after we start. Afterward, we make the long, steep climb up to the information center and wait an hour for the bus to pick us up. Near the benches where we wait are four hummingbird feeders. Brightly colored hummingbirds zoom in for quick drinks and then fly off again. Fernando and I take pictures of several birds, including one with a black head and sapphire chest, and another that is nearly entirely emerald in color.

The bus arrives at 3:30PM and drops me off at Manakin Lodge fifteen minutes later. I shower and rest, and then head out again at 5:30PM to meet Ricardo, Fernando, Taylor, and Taylor’s friend for dinner. We eat at Café la Mar, a second story restaurant with large windows. Taylor and her friend went hiking and zip-lining. Ricardo, Fernando and I are tired from our five hour, eight kilometer hike. Still, the conversation is lively. The restaurant has a large menu which satisfies everyone’s tastes and budgets (entrees from 2500 colones and up). After the meal, we all exchange emails and promise to stay in touch. Ricardo and Fernando invite me out to Portugal again (they had already done so several times the last couple days). Finally, I shake hands with and then hug both Portguese gentlemen and then Taylor and her friend. Fernando wishes me good luck in my travels as we walk outside and say goodbye one last time.

The walk back to Manakin Lodge seemed longer than usual. I was going to miss my travel companions. Truly, this 32 day adventure is going to be like the last few days – I meet some people, spend some time with them, have a whole lot of fun, and then they leave or I leave, and only happy memories remain. Bittersweet, but totally worth it since I wouldn’t have any nice memories of the people I’ve met if I hadn’t first met them.

Night Hike Through Jungle and Afterwards - Monday 3-23-2009

By the time we finish booking, it’s almost time to leave for the tour. I head back to the hotel to grab my fleece. At 6:00PM the bus drops me, Ricardo, Fernando, and eight other tourists off at the Preserva Santa Elena, the Santa Elena Wildlife Preserve. Our guide, Christian, greets us, asks us to introduce ourselves, and then hands us flashlights. Besides me and my Portuguese friends, the group comprises a pair of Swiss girls, a pair of college kids from Detroit, an Israeli couple and two Englishmen. I snap pictures of the rainforest, dark green against a sky that moves quickly from blue to purple to grey. Moss covered trees tower above us as we follow a marked trail into the preserve. The forest is so thick that the trail becomes impassable without flashlights well before sunset. Christian points out animals as we come across them. Early, we see a rat-like creature the size of a small dog, a raccoon, a squirrel and white-faced monkeys stunned by the light we shine on them. The evening darkens and I point out the yellow glow of fireflies. Christian tells me that those are click beetles, flying beetles with a bioluminescence similar to that of fireflies. Click beetles glow for ten to fifteen seconds, whereas fireflies flash for a few seconds at a time. A click beetle lands on my sleeve. Christian pulls it off and gently places it on an open page of his guidebook. We gather around to see the two gently glowing yellow spots on the beetle’s body. The beetle then takes to the air with a loud “click,” disappearing into the night. We walk deeper into the preserve, and now the vast canopy of trees above is just abstract black shapes blocking out the grey, moonless sky. At ground level, the trail is clear but our flashlights barely pierce the thick forest surrounding the trail, our light blocked and diffused by countless leaves, branches, fallen logs, and massive trunks. Click beetles glowing yellow and fireflies flashing white flit across the trail ahead of us and then vanish into the woods. I marvel at how tree trunks can surpass several feet in diameter, and grow several hundred feet tall.

High in the trees, the wind alternately whispers and howls. Branches bend in the gusts, and then straighten in the stillness. Stars twinkle in and out of sight, hidden and then restored by the moving boughs. On the trail, the air is cool, damp and calm, moved only slightly by errant breezes. Crickets, cicadas, and the occasional songbird break the silence. Christian points our attention to a green viper high in the trees. Its venom liquefies the innards of the snake’s victims and can easily kill a man, he tells us. Further on, the trail opens into a clearing and I get my first good look of Monteverde’s sky. I openly remark to Ricardo at how many more stars I can see here than in Los Angeles. Stars I have never before seen lay scattered like diamonds on dark grey velvet. Even familiar stars glow white or red with unfamiliar intensity. Light grey clouds move quickly across the sky, carried by strong winds. With difficulty I locate Orion and the Big Dipper, hidden against a backdrop of stars I could never see in Los Angeles’ light polluted skies.

The night walk ends too quickly. The bus drops everyone off in Santa Elena. Ricardo, Fernando and I eat dinner at the Tree House Café, a second-story restaurant with a live tree growing through the floor to the second story. A live salsa band plays in the bar area. Taylor, an American girl from Georgia who is traveling with her friend and whom we met on the bus, walks over to say hello. The food is good – I have the Tree House Special which is pretty much Spanish paella – but expensive. ($5000 colones, or $10). After dinner, Ricardo, Fernando, and I find Taylor near the bar. We all sit order, drinks (my Corona was a needlessly pricey $5) and enjoy the night. We move to Bar Restaurante Amigos, half block away and 150 feet down a dirt road. The bar feels warehouse-sized, with a dance floor taking up roughly half the space. Strobe lights, and laser lights compliment the pounding hip-hop, reggaeton, and latin music. American college students on Spring Break and younger locals occupy half the tables, while the other half sit empty. Few people dance. We order another round of drinks (my Corona was $3.50 here, which still seems expensive since beer was $1 at the restaurant at Costa Rica Backpackers). I teach Taylor a few salsa moves and we all chat some more. About 11:45PM, I bid everyone good night and walk the one mile uphill to Manakin Lodge, enjoying the cool, dry night air the whole way.

Arrival in Monteverde - Monday 3-23-2009

I woke up at 6:15AM Monday morning for a 7:30AM Grayline bus pickup. Grayline Tours (www.graylinecostarica.com, phone: 2220 2116) and Interbus are the two main private shuttle companies in Costa Rica. Both run daily shuttles between major tourist spots in the country. I decided traveling this way would be less stressful than trying to navigate Costa Rica’s maddening public bus system. Ironically the bus picks me up 15 minutes late, which stresses me out considerably. The driver makes several more stops. I say hello to the pair of travelers from the second stop when they sit down behind me. “Habla ingles?” I ask. “Yes,” the thinner man answers. I ask where he and his friend are from. He said they are from Portugal. I introduce myself and the man introduces himself as Ricardo and his friend as Fernando. Ricardo and I talk for much of the ride. Fernando is self-conscious about his English and so largely keeps quiet. Ricardo and Fernando work together in Portugal. The pair are traveling through Central America for two weeks, starting in Costa Rica. Ricardo speaks English articulately, with an easily understandable accent and ample skill with which to display his wit. Fernando is shy but polite. I decide quickly that they would make good traveling companions.

The bus ride passes swiftly as we move northwest into Costa Rica’s ranch and plantation country. It is pretty country, dotted with colorful cabinas and roadside sodas. We drive for two hours then we stop for 40 minutes in Las Huntas (I think) to change buses. The crowded rest stop is well kept, with an enclosed ATM, bathrooms, a soda and a souvenir shop, all with tiled floors. The wind is hot and dry, but the rest stop offers plenty of shade. Just behind the rest stop is a small deer farm. I chat more with Ricardo and Fernando, learning that Ricardo works in finance and Fernando works in engineering.

This second part of the ride lasts over two hours, most down unpaved roads. Though the ride is bone-jarring, it offers spectacular views of the Nicoya Gulf and the surrounding country. The shuttle bus labors upward. I note how dry Costa Rica is at this elevation. There are few tall trees here, mostly bushes and shrubs. Plant leaves are brown with dust. The grass is yellow. This is no rainforest. Not until we near Santa Elena’s outskirts do the dusty shrubs gave way to taller, more verdant foliage. The driver begins dropping people off. When Ricardo and Fernando disembark, we agree that Santa Elena is so small that we will see each other around. I am dropped off last, at Manakin Lodge past 1:30PM.

Manakin Lodge (www.manakinlodge.com, phone: 2645 5080) is about one mile uphill from Santa Elena. At the end of a dirt road, and rundown on the outside, my first feeling was disappointment. I check in with Yolanda, who greets me heartily. She owns the lodge, while she and her family run it. I had booked a Single Superior room for $20 per night. This was supposed to include a private bathroom, a view of the rainforest, and a balcony which backed into the rainforest. I remember the balcony is what sold me on this place instead of Cabinas Vista al Golfo (www.cabinasvistaalgolfo.com, phone 2645 6321), in town. I also remember the Manakin Lodge website quoting this room at $25 per night, five dollars more than what they are charging me. The first room Yolanda gives me is a basic double room, not what I booked. I point this out. Yolanda tells me that the room I booked has been occupied by a Canadian woman for the last three months and that she keeps extending her stay. Yolanda flips through her guest registry for several minutes, probably hoping I would acquiesce, but then gives me a family room when it becomes clear I was going to sit in her office until I got a nicer room. This family room doesn’t have a balcony, but it does have a private bathroom, two queen beds in one room and a queen bed in an attached room. It’s a nice room and for $20 per night, I swallow my perfectionism and my complaints. Yolanda says she’ll move me if and when the Canadian girl leaves. Still, I should book on Hostelworld.com from here on out. I’ve never had a problem booking through them. Yolanda shows me around the lodge, proudly telling me about the paintings she drew and which now hang in the dining area. The dining area is bright, airy, and spacious. Natural light floods in from windows looking out onto the rainforest. The wood paneling, wood furniture, stone masonry, and Yolanda's paintings lend a comfy, warm feeling to the space. Yolanda tells me she used to run a tour company but sold it to purchase the lodge, she tells me. She also introduces me briefly to Stephanie, the Canadian woman who hasn’t relinquished the room I booked.

I walk into town around 2:30PM, starving because I hadn’t eaten since 6:30AM. I eat at La Maravilla, in Santa Elena right across from the bus station. The food is cheap and serves typical Costa Rican fare – beans, rice, meat, tortillas. As I eat my chicken, tortillas and salad (filling and good at 1900 colones, about $4.90) Ricardo and Fernando come in to say hello; they saw me in the window. I invite them to sit. They tell me about how they need to book their bus into Nicaragua, their destination in two days. I finish and we walk together to the booking office. They spend an hour finalizing their itinerary. We all book a night hike to the Preserva Santa Elena for tonight ($17 per person including transportation), and an unguided day hike in a different part of the Preserve for the next day ($20 per person including transportation).