Talks and Actions

So……the road brought me back to Costa Rica ones again. I find it quite a shame that most of my time in Central America has been spend in this country where nature is sublime but culture is lacking. I would have loved to know a little bit more about Guatemala and Honduras, but ah well, other beautiful things came along.

I headed straight to Robb when I entered the land of Pura Vida.
Robb lives in the Osa Peninsula in Matapalo…..and a little bit further. With a bus that could not drive faster then 20km per hour average you are bounced and shaken along a road following the sea. At one point this road divides in two, where it follows closer to the sea: Matapalo, and where it goes further into the middle of nowhere.

Robbs instructions were ok, but I was happy that the locals told me to hop back into the bus at this crossing, cause Robbs house turned out to be quite a bit further op the hill. His driveway was maybe two km (I was really wondering where I was going) finally I saw the main house and Robbs small yellow house. It was totally surrounded by jungle, green houses in the garden, Howler and White faced monkeys and a little bit down the road a house with killer view over the sea.

This is where I spend some relaxing days. Just listening to the sounds of the sea, hiking down the hill to meet some of the friends Robb would hang out and swimming in the sea.
Robbs work, besides being extremely passionate about gardening and greenery, is to guide little tours to an enormous Matapalo tree, strangler tree (it strangles its host and takes over) where people can climb the limbs and afterwards jump/fly down in the ropes. A lot of fun and together with some of the people that live here it was extra interesting. The fourth day I made a walk on my own, Robb doesn’t like hiking, and saw some more really nice jungle and more beautiful resorts and houses. Wow, this whole peninsula is full with gorgeous retreats, yoga centers and original open houses. It is very far from everything, an hour by car over the bumpy road to Puerto Jimenez where you’ll find stores and reserves.

This fourth day I was planning to leave the next morning. That night at Martina’s, the only bar/restaurant on the road, an hour’s walk from Robbs house, I met a lot of new people and the friends I had met in the previous three days. With Zeph, 30 from France, I talked quite a bit and he turned out to have traveled a lot. So the conversation flowed freely. I told him I was leaving the next morning and ask him if I could maybe sleep the night in their house. He was staying with his friends Super Steve and Mariela for two months to help them out on a bamboo seminar. It would save me a lot of time traveling and dragging my heavy backpack. They agreed and with the six-wheel quad he brought Robb home and me and my stuff back to their house.

A whole new chapter started right there.
First of all I had forgotten my binoculars and bikini bottom at Robbs, So I hitched and hiked back and forth to fetch those. That took a few hours and when I came back it was afternoon. Not really feeling the need to move on today, Zeph said I was more then welcome to stay another night and offered to visit a small village, Los Brasos, where we could swim in a waterfall and visit a friend before heading back to Puerto Jimenez for an opening party. So that’s how the afternoon and evening went by, besides the party, which turned out to be a flop, so we chatted the night away in a local bar with nachos.

Sunday is the only free day at this bamboo company, so we slept in till 9am and took the kayaks out for some peddling and fishing. Alejandro caught a fish that was just getting eaten by a bigger fish; you could see the teeth marks on the body. The evening was spend with the neighbors with who we made a fantastic dinner and played domino-train.

Monday it was time to really leave. We all said our goodbyes and I made a drive to Uvita where Grahams sister, Tera lives (Graham was my boyfriend in Calgary). She had given me the name of the place, but nothing more, so here again it was a little puzzle to find the ‘Smiling Mango Retreat Centre’ but after a good hike and a friendly local who walked me up the hill for safety I found her.
She was already in bed cause she had a terrible fever. The next two days I helped a little at the Center, Tera and her boyfriend Fredric had just bought this place a few months ago and had moved here with her two kids, Mika, 6 and Sebastian, 4. The renovating was under construction, new rooms were being build, a massage building was created, the garden was planted and the organization developed. Within a month she wants to invite the first customers and her main goal and energy goes to the education of raw food diets. It’s all very interesting and I really find it a shame that I could not talk more with her about all the idea’s that she has.
But she was really badly sick for three days. She did not leave the bed and was extremely happy that Giselle (a fiend from Montreal who was also visiting) and I took care of the kids. So for two days we took the kids to Cascade Verde on the other side of the road where you can slide from a high waterfall and to the long beach of Uvita. It was very pleasurable and it felt really good to help out a little bit.
Only on the last day I got to talk to her. Hopefully one day we’ll visit again.

In those three days I had decided to just do it and go hiking in Parque Nacional Corcovado with Zeph. So I made the bus and some hitching back to return to Bamboo Steve. Just when I came off the bus in Puerto Jimenez Zeph walked into me, so that all worked out fine.

We left early in the morning with all our food, sleeping bag and tent, first with the quad, then to a friend of Zeph who came from Indonesia and his wife was from here, but they had lived in Belgium for 7 years so the whole family spoke Dutch, which was extremely weird to see. She made us a fantastic breakfast and he brought us to our taxi, who was going to bring us to the entrance of the park. From there the hike started.

Not even five minutes into the hike we saw our first animal, a nice two meter, wrist thick Mika, a common snake that can brake your leg with the whip of its tale. A little bit further we saw a Lore, another smaller snake. The hiking was nice, a little bit up and down, but nothing strenuous, and the last part was totally flat. Zeph and I were talking a lot and probably a little too loud, cause some Germans behind us asked if we could be a bit more quiet, hihi, I remember myself saying that as well in the Grand Canyon where two guys were so loud that it echoed thru the whole canyon. We spotted Squirrel Monkeys, Spider Monkeys and Pavones: big black birds. And halfway thru we discovered that this forest is infested with ticks. We had them everywhere, in our hair, on our butt, armpits and our groin, nasty!
The forest wasn’t that impressive, maybe because it was really dry and a rainforest is better to be seen when it’s wet, but still, the paths were wide and well maintained, not really adventurous, and the camping was on a huge grass field (with ticks) leading away into an airstrip.
I had an awesome time. Zeph and I talked so much about traveling, his family, our up growing, stories of the road and opinions, we popped the bottle of wine we had dragged along and watched some falling stars.
The next day was spend walking the trails around the ranger station. We did not see much, but had some awesome cooling down time in the river while wildlife flew by. In the afternoon we went out to peddle another fuller river and on the way there we saw a Tapir; so cool to see one of those animals in their natural environment. At the river we spotted two bull sharks but no Crocodiles, that was a petty.
Totally satisfied we went home and had a similar night besides the fact that this time someone shone a torch on us, we still don’t know if they wanted us to be quiet (again) or if they were just wondering what was going on…….it must have been a funny sight.

And the third day we hiked out. Many Scarlet Macaws were seen, those huge red parrots with blue and yellow tail feathers, they mate with one partner for life and can reach an age of 80 or more; true love.
It was a long hike on the beach, those last 20km, but very very pretty in the early morning and easy enough with the right stops for a fresh coconut, breakfast and a swim in a river. What a fantastic three days. It had been a long time sins I had done some tramping.

At the moment I’m in San Jose. I relaxed two days at the house in Matapalo, Steve and Mariela are really Super. She wanted me to teach her knitting and Steve can cook fantastic. And one night we played ‘Who am I’, it’s gonna be a hit in the peninsula.
Yesterday was the 10 hour bus ride to San Jose, and today and tomorrow are spend behind the computer. For six weeks I had no time to do my web side, so here it all is. This weekend Zeph will do some business in San Jose as well and let’s see if I can finally see something else in this big city then the marked and this internet café. Monday I will catch a bus to Nicaragua, without a doubt. Lets see what the last few weeks in Central America are going to bring me.