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Costa Rica

I was 4,200 miles away from home and standing mid-thigh in the middle of the Baru River where it narrowed to meet the hammering surf of the South Pacific Ocean. One errant pebble under my tender feet could topple me into the driving river and roll me into a booming, watery destruction. I have never been closer to death nor felt more alive.

That one moment was the pinnacle of my vacation in Costa Rica. I don’t recommend wading across water squeezing through a bottleneck like toothpaste wearing a jet pack to get the full effect of this slender Central American country. You can do the full blown tourist experience, complete with guided everything (in which case you can stop reading now), or you can meander across the country, senses engaged with the unmitigated essence of the place. It’s meditation on steroids.

Unless you have the luxury of a private plane, you will likely enter Costa Rica at its primary airport, Juan Santamaria International Airport (JSIA), in San Jose, located in the middle of the country. Tiny by U.S. standards, JSIA still provides efficient service. A bit of history: the airport’s namesake, Juan Santamaria, was killed while defending his country from an attack by a U.S. citizen, William Walker, who wanted to establish slave states in Latin America. Ticos (Costa Ricans) have not allowed themselves to forget this invasion. April 11 is a national holiday celebrating Walker’s defeat.

From the airport to downtown San Jose is a twelve-mile taxi trip. Because there are few street signs and fewer stop signs, the taxi drivers, and there are swarms of them, communicate by honking and gesturing. They hang out the windows to yell greetings at one another. At least I think they were greetings. When you don’t know the language, it can be difficult to discern between enthusiastic friendliness and zealous animosity.

I was visiting Costa Rica with my cousin, June, a fearless veteran of free-form traveling. She insisted we didn’t need reservations. I was skeptical. She had, however, scouted out hostels in prime locations and listed them in order of preference. Fortunately, a room was available at Hostel Toruma, the first on her list. Following her instructions, our Tico taxi driver pulled into the driveway of a walled palace—modest, but a palace nonetheless. We were staying in what was once the home of Jose Figueres, the Costa Rican president who abolished the army and gave women the right to vote. Once a center of San Jose society and politics, the fortified building now served as a cheap stopping place for backpackers and non-resort tourists. Hostel Toruma provided a room with a double bed, a table, and a chair for $11 per person. Gym-style bathroom and showers down the hall. I was a bit appalled to see a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant across the street, but it proved to be a valuable landmark to find our way back after a walking trip.

The hostel has since been upgraded to appeal to a younger crowd bent on partying rather than soaking up the culture, but for $34 a night and ear plugs, it can’t be beat for economy and location. A short walk into the middle of town took us through a delightful mix of parks and old buildings - some historic, some just old. We found the post office easily, as well as money changers. Oh, and public restrooms were readily available, but toilet paper wasn’t. Thank goodness my cousin was aware of this and carried a supply in her multi-pocketed vest, along with a plastic bag for storing said paper after use. That’s right. Signs were everywhere: No flushing of paper. The sewer system couldn’t handle it.

Not all Ticos speak English, but enough do to make street and road navigation passable, and if you speak a little Spanish, that helps. Once we learned the basics of the monetary system, we made purchases without much hassle. Our first major purchase was a bus ticket to San Isidro de El General, where we would spend one night then continue our trek to a beach on the Pacific Ocean. 

The next day, after an improvised breakfast in the open air, we walked from Hostel Toruma to the bus station and boarded the bus to San Isidro. Two middle-aged white women, tall by Tico standards, we stood out like blanched beacons. We watched Ticos pile into the bus. They filled the seats, the aisles, and the steps, something that would never have been allowed in the States, but here, a bus was a mode of transportation, not a target for a lawsuit.

As we pulled away from the city limits of San Jose, small fields of coffee bean trees flanked the road on our left, and forests began their ascent on our right. The 80 mile trip took us southwest through little towns with tiny houses painted bright blue or orange and yards dotted with what we in a more temperate climate consider house plants. Unfamiliar flowers—reds and yellows and purples—backed by enormous leaves decorated the roadside. Green, green everywhere. I was stunned with the lushness of it. If the bus had stopped, and I never traveled another foot, I would have died happy. 

Inside the bus, Ticos chatted with one another and the bus driver. More than once I wished I knew the words for “Stop talking with your hands and keep them on the steering wheel!” This Mercedes Benz bus was taking up one-and-a-half lanes of the narrow Inter-American Highway and navigating switch-backs with a driver who was more interested in local gossip than arriving in San Isidro unscathed. There were times when I had to turn away from the window to avoid peering down a thousand foot drop that began three feet from my nose. We were just one off-the-wheel hand gesture away from plunging into the treetops below us. 

Four hours and 80 miles later we unfolded ourselves out of our bus seats and stepped into San Isidro, a town nestled between two mountain ridges. (Much later, I learned the name of the tallest of the mountains we had crossed—Cerro de la Muerte or Mountain of Death. I’m glad I was ignorant of that during the bus ride.) We walked a short way to the center of town and found a hostel across the street from a park where Ticos gathered to visit and use the public phones. We explored a bit and settled on a pizza place for dinner. We lounged on the cafe’s narrow veranda and listened to the exuberant conversation of a German family from a nearby table. The pizza was good, and the view of cloud-topped mountains airbrushed by a setting sun was spectacular.

A town of 45,000, San Isidro has the feel of a small village. There is nothing sleek or modern about it. Since it is warm without the extremes of blistering heat or icy winds, people live primarily outside. Man-made structures are merely shelters during rainy season. The tallest building, a church, pays homage to spiritual needs, not to physical comfort. Mother Earth is at her kindest in this sheltered niche. 

On our walk back to the hostel, we handed our remaining half pizza to a group of young, strapping Scandinavian men who would have been right at home in lederhosen. (Yes, I know lederhosen are German, but still . . . .) They were hiking down the Cordillera de Talamanca mountain range into Panama. Oh, to have been 30 years younger.

The next morning, I traipsed around the town while waiting for my intrepid traveling companion to reorganize the contents of her many-pocketed vest. I checked the departure schedule at the bus station and discovered we had time for breakfast. I found a club-sized papaya and a white pineapple at one of the ubiquitous fruit and vegetable markets and carted them back to the room. Rarely did we eat in a restaurant. For five days, we lived mainly on fresh, often exotic fruit from open-air markets and cheese and crackers from little local grocery stores. 

After breakfast, we boarded a bus for our final destination, Playa Domenical. This shouldn’t have been a long trip, but we stopped at every crossroad, side road, almost road, and in some places, no road. Families stood waiting for the bus against backdrops of tangled vines and  towering trees. Sometimes people got off the bus and simply disappeared into the forest. 

These Ticos must have lived in primitive conditions. Utility service was non-existent, but everyone on the bus was clean and neat. Except maybe my cousin and me. We were hot and thirsty and cramped. We were never going to get to Domenical. Until we did.

The bus stopped. We got off and wondered where the hell we were. No signs, no people, nothing but a sandy road, so we followed it until we beheld one of the earth’s greatest treasures: a tiny open-air cafe serving frescos. Pure watermelon blended until it was a rosy nectar. Nothing has tasted as good before or since.

Fortified, we set out again, hoping we were heading west toward the ocean. Coconut palms and small, thrown-together houses lined the road, and gradually a subtle, rhythmic roar eased itself into the pauses of our conversation. The fine dust of the road turned to sand, and we stepped out of the palms onto a brown beach littered with drift wood and were presented with a full frontal view of the Pacific Ocean. Even now, it is hard to find words. Its vastness, its vitality made me feel small and larger-than-life at the same time. I was at home in some alien Eden.

We stood in awe for several minutes until luggage and fatigue pulled at our arms. We’d had a good run of luck finding rooms without having reservations, so we headed up the beach to the Tortilla Flats Hotel to see if our luck would hold. It did, and soon we were dragging our luggage across the threshold of a minimal room. No fancy resort here with mints on the pillows or mini-fridge filled with designer water. It was cheap, had two beds (twin-sized), and a shower. Since we didn’t plan to spend much time inside, it was all we needed.

For the next two days, we watched red-gold sunrises and sunsets; walked the curved beach; sat on driftwood with the Pacific at our feet; and ate watermelon and pineapple and tiny, ambrosial bananas. (I still buy the smallest bananas I can find in hopes of recreating heaven-in-my-mouth.) Two young women (ex-pats from the States) and their children visited with us about their lives in Costa Rica. One showed us the edible, bell-shaped cashew apple growing wild next to the beach. The soft red fruit had a mild citrusy flavor, nothing like the cashew nut which hangs from its underside. The other woman hacked into a freshly fallen coconut with her machete so I could taste its watery milk. We were informed that machetes are commonplace accessories for residents of the Costa Rican countryside.

I will admit to doing one touristy thing. Our first full day in Domenical, we took a horseback trip through a forested mountainside to a waterfall. It reminded me why I don’t like to do touristy things: other tourists. That I was riding the most reluctant of the horses did not try my patience so much, but the squealing, silly woman toward the front of the line made me grit my teeth. My cousin and I lagged behind in an attempt to enjoy the jungly forest around us. Any monkeys or birds we might have seen were scared off by the non-stop yammering of the female primate up front. 

Despite the woman’s incessant racket and my lazy horse, the trip was worth it. Halfway to the falls, we stopped for breakfast. Prepared in a shack and served by young Ticas, the meal consisted of eggs, gallo pinto (black beans and rice), lots of fresh fruit, and coffee with warmed milk. We ate in a small clearing surrounded by tall carambola (star fruit) trees and green parrots. Afterward, I wandered around and found a little garden where one of the workers was cutting an herb of some kind. I asked her about it, and she told me it was kulantro. Curious, I tasted it—cilantro. But it didn’t look like the cilantro I was familiar with. I made a mental note to research it when I returned home. I discovered it is also known as sawtooth coriander. Whatever its name, cilantro or kulantro, its smell and flavor always evoke images of Costa Rica for me.

When we finally reached the falls, I stripped to my bathing suit and slipped into the water. Two teenagers clambered up the rocks and jumped into the deep end of the pool formed by the falls. They were joined by one of the Tico guides, a bronze young man with muscles defined by hard work instead of a gym. It was an idyllic scene full of laughter and splashing—best viewed from a floating position. Ahhh. . . . 

Despite my furtive prayers, the loud lady did not drowned or get lost, but she was more subdued on the return trip, as we all were. We had just experienced Nature at her finest, and even the drama queen could not resist the pull of quiet contemplation. 

The tour van dropped us off at the turnoff to Domenical just before the bridge crosses the Baru River. We stopped at the fruit stand next to the road to buy white pineapple and watermelon. The vendor convinced me, without speaking English, to try an unfamiliar fruit a bit smaller than a tennis ball with a dark purple rind. He showed me how to break it open and toss its contents into my mouth. It looked like frog eggs, felt like tapioca, and tasted delightful, slightly tart and sweet. I had just experienced for the first time a maracuya, a variety of passion fruit. The farmer vendor nodded happily as I smiled and smacked my lips in appreciation. There are no communication barriers too great for the language of food.

We stopped on the bridge over the Baru River to take some pictures. It seemed a wide lazy river, but I discovered its power the next morning when I crossed the narrow stream that connected it to the Pacific Ocean. It impressed me as representative of the people of Costa Rica, calm and easygoing on the surface, deep and powerful underneath.

The next morning, while waiting for June to rearrange her multi-pocketed vest for the fortieth time, I took a walk alone along the beach and had my mind-blowing encounter with the river when it tried to shove me into the Pacific. I felt I had passed some sort of test and been approved by this amazing country. I had been here for only two days, but how easily I had grown attached to its rhythm, to its pleasant assault on the senses. 

That evening, we walked the edge of the ocean and watched the sun go down while brown pelicans wheeled and dove into the surf. We had to say good-bye. 

The next day, we traveled the 100 miles to San Jose by hired car rather than endure a six-hour bus ride. About 20 miles before reaching San Jose, the car broke down. We were totally at the mercy of the driver and a bit concerned, but we were soon transferred to another car with a new driver. We arrived at the Brilla Sol Hotel in time to wash the dust off and go to dinner.

After our rugged foray into provincial Costa Rica, June had decided that we should be rewarded by splurging on a nice, but non-chain, hotel. This time she had called ahead to guarantee our room. Like Hostel Toruma, it once was a walled estate; unlike Toruma, Brilla Sol had gardens, private rooms, and a restaurant for guests. That last night, on a veranda with mandarin flower-scented breezes, I ate garlic-encrusted fish, delicious beyond imagining. As comfortable and pleasant as it was, I would have happily traded it for a piece of driftwood, a white pineapple, and the music of the ocean.

I had fallen in love with this strong, quiet country, and my heart ached with leaving.

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