Our travels to the other side, summarized in word and photon.
Monday, April 26, 2010
26 March 2010 * Photos of Nosara
While in Nosara, we spent time at Playa Pelada. We also enjoyed a nice sunset dinner at Lagarta Lodge. And we watched howler monkeys as they fed in a tree over the pool at our B&B, the Vista del Mar.
Playa Nosara
We stood poised, waist-deep in the warm green sea,
holding boogie boards at the ready.
Squinting brilliant sunshine, we studied the horizon,
waited like panthers.
Broken wall of churning water marched upon us.
We pounced upon it:
sliding down bubblesurf
and onto shore.
At ride's end,
we rolled into sandfoam slurry.
Receding waters sucked us back
to the crash zone.
Above us, ten pelicans hovered motionless, studied the sea,
waited for a flock of fish
to pounce upon.
We awakened before dawn to the throaty calls of howler monkeys echoing from the hills and through the forest. Emerging to the veranda, I drank the rich air and listened to scattered birdsong as the sky grew light and the sun emerged above the tree-rimmed ridges to the east.
Coatimundis rustled in the leaves below. Vultures sailed above. Hummingbirds flitted from blossom to blossom along the hibiscus hedge. A mother monkey with two young ones came to eat flowers on a tree near the corner of the patio.
A large tan and brown frog, with great sticky toes and large round brown eyes climbed the wall, then fell, then climbed again, then fell agin, then climbed a third time.
We encountered pizotes (a.k.a. coatimundis) on the road from Arenal to the coast. We also were visited by numerous pizotes at the Vista del Mar Hotel in Nosara. Here are some photos:
Pizotes
Rustle. Poke.
Here comes pizode: padding, clicking, pigeon-toe claws.
Sniff. Peek.
Rounds the flowerbush: flagpole tail raised in greeting.
Lick. Slurp.
Slakes his thirst: black & pink mouth drinks pool water.
Approach. Ask.
Winkers his nose: might he have a morsel of breakfast?
No! Go!
He scampers away: jumping through hibiscus hedge.
A soothing land breeze blows over my back as I sit on the Club Carrillo restaurant deck. I sip tea and guava-pineapple-papaya juice, my belly filled with breakfast of fresh baked bread, gallo y pinto, papaya, watermelon, pineapple, and melon.
Before me, the great arc of Playa Carrillo curves around counter-clockwise from North to South. The bay is a beautiful turquoise circlet, protected on the seaward side by rocks and reefs. Slow waves sparkle, swell, crest, and break on the fine, light-tan sand, which separates the water from an enclosing ring of palms. The white foam of the surf shimmers brightly in the sunlight.
A sharply patterned bird -- white breast, black cap and eye stripes, and a brown spotted coat -- sings a clear and pleasant kee-whoop kee-whoop song, then alights to scavenge for toast crumbs.
Rain is plentiful in La Fortuna. It comes with a whisper and falls like a soft cloud, nourishing the forest. We haven't heard thunder, nor felt the impact of heavy drops falling through deep clouds. Here, the rain is fine and light —a close cousin to cloud mist. Everywhere, it is green, except for the brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows of the flowers.
The rain's soft patter is a scoresheet for the brilliant song of birds. Their calls slice the air shrill and sweet, one outsinging another, weaving a spacious melody upon the grey sky.
But the rain is not always such. We also watched rain fall in sudden drenching bursts, filling the air with vast dense arrays of heavy drops, drumming an infinitely textured thrum upon the roofs and leaves of our terrestrial domain. The realms of water and air mix; lake and sky co-mingle as birds flit and call through the liquid din.
Three sleeps are now past in the land of Pura Vida. We three have been enchanted. But there has been some discomfort: vomiting episodes for Tara and Tessa. The bus from San Jose to La Fortuna defeated Tara, when frequent stops and winding roads conspired to throw her stomach up.
The driver was kind, though, waited while she heaved in a side-of-road crouch. Then let her sit on the front step, with door open. He spoke to her and joked and gave her candies.
All the while, Tessa lolled between consciousness and limp drooling torpor. I had applied a Scopolamine patch the morning of our flight, but didn't anticipate the impact it would have on her. She was OK and not airsick between Vancouver and L.A., but fell under the drug's powerful spell at LAX - sleeping most of our 5-hr layover. Then she slept to El Salvador and growlingly moaned of sleepiness during our stopover there. Then lights out again to San Jose. No motion sickness, but a paucity of consciousness!
Tessa was awake for an eventful traffic-weaving, bus chasing, culture-shocked taxi ride from the airport to the bust station in San Jose. I, in front, attempted to converse with our friendly driver, fumbing for words and trying to prevent Tibetan from leaking into my 1977 high school Spanish. For 12,000 Colones, our driver delivered us to the bust that would bring us to La Fortuna.
Riding that bus was extremely pleasurable for me. We carried our bags aboard and kept them close, fearing the notorious bus thieves of San José. But, our fears were unfulfilled. We only encountered friendly fellow travelers, and a vibrant slice of life: mothers with well-mannered children; elderly men and women with bowed legs and broad smiles; young men in sharp tee shirts and spiked hair; young women in skirts and striped knit shirts. Vendors boarded from time to time, hawking bottled water, box juice, plantain chips, candy. The bus stopped frequently, picking up anyone standing by the roadside that wanted a ride. We filled to standing-room only and the driver requested with a Pura Vida for all those standing to move back make room.
We stopped in Quesada for a 20-min rest break. The bust station was alive with little shops and hundreds of travellers. I bought a bag of mandarins, a bag of mangoes, a wrapped plate of cut mangoes, and two orange ice cream cones (for me and Tessa -- Tara was in no shape for it.)
We rode through verdant hells. Everywhere, tropical agriculture flourishes: coffee, heart of palm, taro, papaya, mango, coconut, banana, plantain, orange, melon, squash, pineapple, cane. Frequent road-side stands made my mouth water, with their ripe arrays of bright fruits and vegetables. Traversing a lush valley, we made our way to La Fortuna, a small town, whose central core spans ten blocks. We disembarked, wandered to the main drag and sat down for two Imperials, one sandia refresco, a plate of spaghetti and a casado vegetariano.
Los Lagos
By nightfall, after 30 hours on the road, we reached Los Lagos, our resort hotel. Eagerly, we changed into swimsuits and headed straight for the hot springs. The volcano-warmed mineral waters of these springs is soothing and healing. The resort has 5 hot spring pools, 2 cool-water pools, 2 cool plunges, 3 water slides (1 hot), and 2 kiddie pools. One pool has a built-in wet bar, where visitors sit on submerged stools to drink Piña coladas and watch futbol on the TV. Most pools have mushroom-shaped canopies, beneath which on can shelter from the rain and look out at the sumptuous gardens, streams and fish pond.
All of these are inter-woven with a beautiful and fantastic variety of tropical vegetation. In the evening darkness, we listened to frogs and toads croak in jungle thickets.
Smooth expanse — blue into grey rimmed with pink & the tangerine sun resting on beds of coral cloud.
We sail on maple wings float above the ice king, Mt. Rainier staunch above dusk.
Before this lift, we rode wheel and keel, saw a man collapse, as dead, at Bridgeport checked, passed, scanned, queued met an eagle man who asked: "Why do you live in Canada?"
(How could he not know? The green island, the garden city, the cherry blossoms, the wild deep sea, the books and letters, the daffodils nodding on a December's summer morning, the lingua franca, the easy space for turbans, toques, (even burkas!), the leaves, the ice, the team, the gold medal goal! Doesn't he know?)
Our destination? The Rich Coast, land of Pure Life. We travel to escape normalcy. We travel to shift. And to smell the deep green lush castle of dense life. To touch Earth's pulse, drink her clear blood, re-call her heart beat.
An extravagance! Earth's hand is always open. We needn't fly 10,000 leagues to find it. No. Our journey is superfluous and an indulgence. Where is the benefit?
We must make meaning from this travel. We must unblind our eyes, live pure for the sake of all that live and die and suffer grey lives of concrete and contamination. The human tsunami of cannibal locust. The pestilence we've wrought upon our Earth.
