La Fortuna

I'm getting better at making snap decisions. I decided yesterday afternoon to travel to La Fortuna with a group of Canadians that I met. For $12 there is a tour known as Jeep-Boat-Jeep that leaves from Monteverde and arrives in La Fortuna at the base of Volcan Arenal in the course of three hours.

Unfortunately the two days I was in La Fortuna it rained constantly. Holed up in a hostel the only American among six Canadians, I was suddenly the target of healthcare debates and the verbal destruction of American politics. We argued and laughed and drank beer and vodka until we decided to brave the rain and go to the local bar for karaoke night. The problem with karaoke here is that it never ends.

Without question the highlight of La Fortuna is the volcano. There is a power around Volcan Arenal that inspires because it is alive. It commands respect through it's unpredictability and expression in bursts of smoke, fire and earthquakes. I have now seen several volcanoes in Central America, but I haven't loved any of them as I love Arenal. The volcano lays down a challenge and dares you to be afraid.

Big Owen

I need to dedicate at least part of this post to my self-appointed body-guard and travel partner, Big O. Since we've now known each other for five days, been through a couple adventures and gotten drunk togther (we met in Bocas), we've been friends most of our lives. Or at least that's what it feels like.

I would be hard-pressed to name a better friend on this trip than Owen. He's been around at exactly the moment I needed some company; easy to talk to, full of humor, up for anything. And at 6'5" he's not a bad body-guard should I ever need one. I haven't yet.

This morning Owen and I decided that we should do at least one nature appreciation tour during our travels. Kind of like reading the Bible because you've been told it will make you a better person. Plus we needed the excercise. We set off exuberantly tramping through the Santa Elena cloud forest, talking and laughing and admiring the beauty of the trees and the jungle. That is until we realized that there are people who take their nature walks very seriously and spend hours in one place waiting for rare birds in total silence.

We stumbled upon one such group on the trail in the midst of laughing loudly over some story and were silenced by the dirty looks. It so happened that this particular group had spotted a quetzal, the national bird of Costa Rica and one the most difficult to spot in the wild. We arrived just in time to view it up close through the spotting scope. It was gorgeous, a vivid green and blood red.

After that we were more subdued and made an effort to look out for animals. Our total number spotted was two. We saw the quetzal and a wild pig. But we completed three hours of trail in an hour and forty-five minutes.

Monteverde

There are brief moments where I wish I was the type of person who always managed to capture beautiful photos of their experiences for later use in illustrating their stories and inspiring envy. But I'm not. Oh well.

After my week in Bocas del Toro, it is refreshing and invigorating to find myself in a town nestled in the mountains with a high of 75 degrees everyday and nights that are chilly enough for blankets. The opportunity for adventure is above average as well. Yesterday was my first experience on a zip-lining tour, something I began this trip intending to accomplish. I enjoyed it immensely, although I did not find it necessary to pump myself up and display my toughness quite as much as the two guys I was with.

The experience is rather surreal, as you are looking down into the valleys it's as if you are floating easily from one mountaintop to another. The views from the top were magnificent, unbelievably green jungle and mountains straight out to the ocean. Looking out over everything I had to draw a deep breath and feel the intense pleasure in silence. It seemed utterly useless and demeaning to try to put any words around it at all.

This morning I went on my second Monteverde adventure. One I would actually define as an "adventure". Zip-lining is fun, but the danger is calculated. Rather like going on an intense roller-coaster. You pretend not to know if you will make it to the other end, but you know you will.

I signed up for a canyoning tour of series of six waterfalls that run down the side of a mountain. You hike the trails to the top and rappel down from one to the other. When I found myself standing backwards at the top of the first falls, I realized that the outcome depended entirely on my strength and skill in reaching the bottom. If I got stuck it was my own fault and I'd have to figure out how to get out of it. That feeling is addictive, I recognized that I had experienced it before......when I decided to travel to Costa Rica, in Bocas, when I accepted a ride from a trucker.

But this was even better, and it brought a rush of adrenalin and a feeling of pure joy.

The largest waterfall was 114 feet from the top and by the time I reached the bottom I was in such perfect rhythm with my body that it was unbearable to stop.

Note to self; add waterfall rappelling to list of activities to continue on a regular basis.

Valentine's Day

I spent most of Valentine's Day with a trucker. A short, balding trucker named Roger. Yet by my method of measurement, it was one of the best and will go down in history as exceptional. At least until I fall in love and Valentine's Day has more significance.

This morning I decided that I wanted to travel to Monteverde with some people I had met in Bocas. I had only been back in Rosario de Naranjo for 24 hours, but I feel ready for action and I haven't had my fill of unpredictable adventure yet. By the time I did laundry, packed a bigger bag and arrived at the bus platform I realized that I had two options. Wait for a bus to San Jose and hope that I was in time to make the bus to Monteverde, or gamble everything and wait on the other side of the road for a bus to Monteverde and hope it showed up. I walked across the highway four times trying to decide which was the best option. At last I determined that it was ridiculous to go in the opposite direction to San Jose and began to wait for the Monteverde bus to pass by.

I am not a very patient person. Ten minutes of waiting and it suddenly crossed my mind what an adventure it would be to hitch-hike. I had a large knife in my pocket that an older gentleman in Bocas had given me when he discovered I was staying in a hostel and sharing a room with men (his words were "You need this more than I do"); it was the middle of the day, and I determined that if the right opportunity presented itself I would give it a shot.

Five minutes later, Roger showed up. He was alone, I happened to know that the road was well traveled and that I could jump out and run faster than he could. But more than that, I looked in his eyes and no alarm bells went off. I felt perfectly calm and secure. That will sound stupid and naieve, but it proved true. He was a gentleman the whole way, even stopping to buy me a water bottle. And I arrived in Monteverde two hours earlier than the bus. I was waiting at the bus station with a big grin on my face when my friends arrived.

I can now cross off "hitch-hiking" from my list of things to do.

Hostel Experience

I started taking a survey of how many gringo visitors of Bocas del Toro had been handed the "this is the last taxi" story in Changuinola. I discovered that nearly everyone had. I felt even better when I learned from a couple of irritated tourists that they had paid $15.

The first thing I did the following morning was check out of the hotel. I caught a taxi with a driver who couldn't speak from talking and shouting during the Carnival celebration the previous night and rode out to spend the morning at the beach with Marj and Melissa. I put off finding a new place to stay until I returned that afternoon because I found myself with a sudden fear of being alone and introducing myself to new people. When I finally swallowed the fear and checked in to Hostel Heike on the main street of Bocas, I felt a burst of excitement.

I fell in love with hostel life. Never have I been part of such a diverse, interesting, rebellious, sincere crowd of people gathered in one place. Through no conscious decision of mine, life exploded out of me and fear disappeared completely. I initiated conversations with new people and re-discovered how much I love connection. Every night I went bar-hopping with a different crowd and talked about everything and nothing. In the course of a week I went snorkeling and visited a new beach every day with whomever I happened to meet in the morning; I passed my personal record in alcohol consumption; learned to smoke; danced freely; made friends that will last and fell in and out of love. Never have I felt so present in my own person and so alive.

Bocas del Toro, Panama

Imagine.......a group of islands in the Caribbean with sunshine nearly every day and beaches of pure white sand and turquoise water. When I arrived I was filled with wicked delight that I was in a place this beautiful in February, when my home town is gray and drab and existing at 32 degrees. I love traveling!!

Today was full of new, delightful and challenging experiences. First, I learned how to travel by bus and found how surprisingly cheap and easy it is to navigate the Costa Rican bus system. We left our hotel in San Jose at 8 am this morning to catch the 10 am bus to Sixiola on the border of Panama. It was $9 for the five and a half hour bus trip. I found myself sitting next to a Tico biologist and in my broken Spanish began asking him about his family. With hesitation he informed me that he had a daughter that lived with her mother on the Pacific side. After a moment he added that he had two daughters that lived with their mother in the north. And after another moment that he had fathered a son with a woman he was currently going to see in BriBri. I smiled and tried to hide my look of astonishment that a skinny biologist had managed to accomplish all of this in between study and scientific pursuits.

We arrived in Sixiola around 4 pm and walked across the bridgethe border into Panama. I found myself nearly skipping across it I was so excited and thrilled over the idea of walking into another country. For $5 we received our entry visas and then we were met by the scam artists of Panama. Two young men had met us as we came off the bus and walked us across the border. When we had received our visas they suddenly began telling us that we needed to hurry to catch the last taxi out of town or we would miss the last water taxi to Bocas and would have to spend the night in Changuinola.

I felt my guard go up instantly. When I found myself stuffed in a pickup truck with six other people having paid $10, and watching our money be split between the four guys who had managed to get us all to agree to this ridiculous situation...... I felt a split second of rage. How dare they get the better of me! Then I burst out laughing. How many times a day do you think they manage to convince the gringos that this is the last taxi?

After an hour in the back of the pickup, we arrived at the water taxi, paid our $4 fee and found ourselves speeding across the water to the islands as the sun began to go down. We arrived in downtown Bocas in the midst of the last night of the celebration of Carnival. Up until this point I had been gleefully enjoying the moment and not thinking too much about what the next would hold. I was struck with sudden seriousness when I found myself alone in the midst of a loud crowd and was told that all the hotels and hostels were full for the celebration. One side of me felt momentary panic, but the other smiled and said "This is exactly the kind of experience you've always wanted, now what are you going to do about it?"

After an hour of walking from place to place I landed on two options, a honeymoon suite for $80 or a small, dirty hotel room with no water for $15. I opted for the hotel room, asked that the sheets be changed and the bathroom cleaned, and slept on the cleanest side of the bed with my sweatshirt for a pillow and a chair against the door in case any of the drunk people in the hall decided to investigate my room in the middle of the night. My last concious thought was "I can't believe how happy I am to be living this. But thank God I'm exhausted enough not to think about what might be in this bed."

San Jose

Generally, I don't think of myself as being an impulsive person, but I hate to miss out on opportunities for new experiences because I'm always a little afraid I'll miss something wonderful and regret it later. So when I met two girls this morning who invited me to go to San Jose and on down to Bocas del Toro in Panama, I decided in half an hour that I wanted to go. I've been on a highly introspective track for the last few days, and an adventure with an uncertain outcome sounded very appealing. Within two hours we were on the bus to downtown San Jose.



(Marj and Melissa)

I did not find San Jose to be anything remarkable, an average large city with it's own diverse population. But I found excitement being part of the crowd, and wandering around exploring with Marj and Melissa. And we had the opportunity in the evening to enjoy dancing in one of the many clubs downtown. I had been craving good salsa music and I was not disappointed.

Summary of Week 2

I ate an avacado and enjoyed it for the first time in my life (it was in fresh made guacamole, so there). I went out for a beer with a group of Tico friends for karaoke night and felt like the stiff, proper American girl that I've always been.


And that was the extent of my worldly adventures during the last week.


I had forgotten the power of spiritual adventures; of facing fears, limitations, questioning yourself and everything you have been. But while my worldly adventures have been few, my spiritual adventures have been the type that take your breath away......stir up turmoil and a beautiful type of agony and end in a new awakening. My life during the last week has consisted of numerous conversations with many different people and each one has been about me. I started out in resistance, because I avoid talking about myself.....I don't really enjoy it and it frightens me to think that I might discover something ugly. If I can ask questions and keep the focus on the other person, I remain in control and it does not require the exposure or examination of anything I may wish to keep hidden.

But there are times when people show up and ask exactly the right question. One of those people showed up for me in the form of a 40-year old Italian life coach. After my first five-minute conversation with him, I felt as though my entire inner world was breaking down. This woman I had created to present to the world; amiable, always appropriate, educated, rational and in control of herself, who knew how to answer questions in a way that never exposed her weaknesses and had answers for everyone but herself. The woman that I had been working to create my entire life, whom I presented with pride and spent enormous amounts of energy maintaining----she is not really me at all.

In fact she is the one that holds me in submission, in bondage and fear of error, she is the one slowly destroying me from the inside out. The real me is full of ignorance, impulsiveness and stupidity. The real me longs to dance along the street and be free to talk to anyone. To make enormous mistakes and learn from them.

After two days of intense conversations with this man, I've been rejoicing in my humanness. It is liberating to welcome every thought and emotion instead of burying it. I suddenly feel as though I want to tell and show everyone how beautiful it is to be alive and how perfect we all are in our imperfection. I feel a craziness to find the words, the expression that will awaken other people to that realization.