And so we sat on that outside porch of the resturant at Sierpe, little knowing what was ahead of us. After not too long a time we were told to 'come! come! to the white boat". And off we tootled, down the steps where we watched as our luggage was flung into the bows of the little boat. I said a little prayer for my laptop but right along with that thought was a definite "oh well, whatever" and a smile. Before leaving, a bunch of black garbage bags were grabbed by one of the guys riding with us, and he struggled for a good while to get our bags inside them. "the rain - she's comin!". I had packed the laptop and all camera stuff in a waterproof bag inside the suitcase so was not too worried about anything getting wet at all. So the bags were then loosely draped over everyones bags and the kid went to sit on top of them all! Sigh.
We cruised through the magrove swamps on a 'tour' that was much more exciting than the one we had the other day that we paid for! This boat was only about 25 foot long but it had a really good motor attached to it and soon we were scudding around corners racing with two other boats going in the same direction. It got interesting as we crossed their wake and we soon noticed that all the people on the other boats had lifejackets on. We could not even see any on ours! But it was fun - we stopped to get a closer look at a crocodile who really was not interested in being gawked at and slid into the water smoothly, reminding me to hang on just that bit tighter as we screamed around the next corner. And then we saw the breakers - yup - the ocean, right ahead, and were soon bouncing over the waves that really were not too big at all, but still!. There was an outcrop of black, very jagged rocks on our left and the boat capitan just kept on getting closer and closer..........then we stopped and my eyes kinda sorta popped out. We were looking at *huge* breakers coming right at us between two of the most evil looking of those rocks! And we just hung out there. I did not even want to look at the El Capitano - he needed to concentrate, obviously. After about a minute and a half of no one saying anything at all, no explanations and a definite unbelievable hush amongst the passengers, he suddenly kicked that motor into top gear and took off like a missile! Around those rocks we screamed, that motor giving it all it had. We bounced up on top of one wave, fell into the trough, only to look up and find another one waiting for us. Then we were flung sharply to the left where we rode the top of the next big one for a little while before falling off like a tired surfer.. Hoo boy. I think my fingers buckled the aluminum awning frame that I was clinging on to. What a totally wild ride that was..... it only lasted about 3 minutes, but geez.
We were still a good distance away from 'our place' and for the rest of the ride we ran parrallel to the beach, watching the breakers crash onto the miles of brown beaches, creating 'milk moustaches' all along the way, as the palm trees stroked the the sand as the breeze blew. All along the beaches are little houses dotted - mostly made from corrugated iron, washing hanging outside on the lines and kids playing happily outside. Here and there was an obvious hotel and we dropped a few people off along the way. And then it was our turn. Curly haired, bandana wearing middle aged Carlos was patiently waiting on the beach, just as he said and greeted us as we did the wet landing thing off the boat. This is when we have to step off the boat into the water and wade a short distance to the shore. No problem at all. And there we stood on one of the more remote beaches of Costa Rica listening to the quiet around us. It was glorious. Getting here had taken over an hour boat ride.
Carlos, not at the picture the voice had painted, carried the luggage up the beach where we were met by a motorcycle driving pretty fast right towards us and at the last minute doing a star studded u-turn! The tall, thin guy on the motorbike had his thick black hair combed straight back and upwards, dark glasses perched on top of this do, a bright red t-shirt and a huge, brilliant white smile for us as he reached his very limp wristed hand across the two feet space to greet us with a shy and coy 'hellloooo" as his eyelids fluttered suggestively. It took everything I had not to burst out laughing - I was sure it was a joke, but what if it wasn't. It wasn't. Thank goodness I had not laughed!
We were told that the motorbike was a taxi - but not ours and shortly a pickup/bakkie arrived and our luggage once again flung into it. We asked if we could sit or stand in the back of the truck - it had high railings all around and looked like fun. A good many people laughed, but up we climbed and off we went. We learned really quickly to watch out for branches that hung there waiting for us, but we both thouroughly enjoyed the ride along roads that had been seriously washed out by some good rains. I think the best was watching Carlos' face as we bounced around the roads past people he obviously knew.... they all laughed and he jabbered something back at them which I am sure we would have loved to hear if only we could have understood! We passed a few little stores, many people waving, some houses on stilts,lots and lots of beautiful countryside..
And so we came to a river. A very very full river that no truck could get through. A short discussion between Carlos and the driver ensued, we were told to get out, out came our luggage as well and we started walking to a tiny little wooden hanging bridge that was about 15 foot above the muddly red water rushing down below. Apparently the rain hit this area hard this morning, but we missed it totally on the river and out in the ocean. On the other side of the little bridge were horses. And we were told to wait. So we did. There was a lady with a small baby in a house right next to the road, who was washing piles of laundry with those old fashioned scrubbing boards.... made us truely thankful for what we have at home. It did. Not too long passed by and another car came to pick us up and took us to the 'hotel'.
And here is where we realized that we bit off much more than we could chew....I really really should read between the lines better, but we were both excited to come down to the Osa Peninsula and it sounded so good at we did not want to pay $250 per night for some hotels around here, which there are not very many of, but all seem to be really expensive...... so I - yes, I will take responsibility for this one....... I picked a place that was much cheaper and sounded kind of 'cabin-ey". It is. Very. We were led down a muddy slippery narrow path of slick red mud, between really pretty flowers, to a cabin in the jungle that looks like the Unabomber's shack! Frank and I looked at each other, swallowed our words and went in. Yes, there are three beds - a double bed and a bunk bed set. Yes there are clean sheets on the beds, there is a table, a very tiny refridgerator that was shuddering as it worked and even a coffee maker! Whooo hooo! There was also at least an inch space under the door - and to the left of it, and to the right of it. Thankfully, the spaces inbetween the planks of the door itself were only about an eighth of an inch - THAT should help keep the bugs out! There is no glass, just gauze, but the bugs never came crawling through the huge openings all over the gauze wraparound - there was no need - the door was pretty much open to them! The floor is painted green.... well, I say painted, loosley. Once upon a time it really was painted, now...well, it was chipping up and...... well, you get the picture. The carpet was one of those things your great great grandma made out of all the left over bits of nylon of different colors that were of no use for anything else and the light shone brightly through the many holes in the ceiling which is tin and very very patched.
Now wait - I know you all think I am sounding like a really spoiled brat - but this shack is right in the freaking jungle with the constant falling of coconuts, and dripping rain and humidity. The fan that was attached to the ceiling is pointed away from the bed, and the double bunk - well, I got up on it and it needed two of us to get me down again, so that was not an option to sleep on, even though it is much closer to the fan, that rattles and has years of dust and webs swirling around madly as it churnes itself around in an ineffectual attempt to cool. The table has a tablecloth that has definitely seen better days and could do with some 'get the stains out' bleach, but it was decked with flowers that wished desperately that they were still in the garden. The plastic chairs looked as if too many toucans had nested right above them and the beds - well, everything has a damp, mildewy smell to it. And the bathroom? Laughing. The shower has some kind of fancy contraption with open wires sticking out of the top, and we had to attach a hose to a garden style tap/faucet, turn another switch and literally only dribble the water out if we wanted any hot water. We got warm water once - for about one minute. Seriously. The toilet is the lowest I have ever seen one - I swear my knees got hooked on my ears the first time I sat down! The floor in there is .....well its old linoleum, not very well glued down anymore.
Nice sweet rustic place in the jungle. Just what I ordered, right?? Yup. But before you say that you would have turned around and left or found another place - consider the trip it took to get here! There were no boats going back until the next day and we were exhausted. So we stayed the night. To put it mildly, Frank was not happy at all and I spent some time thinking that if I were still only in my 20's, this might be ok. We did not sleep much at all - its sticky, muggy hot as hades and Frank woke up at 3am with a bug crawling all over us, which he frantically swotted in the pitch dark and spent the next hour and a half anticipating the next, bigger bugs arrival. The next morning we were set to go into the Corcovado National Park. Well, while we are here, lets see what it is that we came here for, right? So 6am found us eating a really good breakfast - oh, supper last night was delicious too!, and then Carlos, with a huge backpack arrived and off we went. He glanced backwards at our feet and told us to go and get our boots. Boots? Ummm. He emitted this long, eyebrow raising, oooooohhhhhh with his lower lip caught between his teeth, then shrugged and off we went again. We should have known better.
The first two miles to the gates of the National Park were done in a 4 wheel drive vehicle that nearly got mired down in a good many times along the short distance. And then it was time to get out and do some serious time. Immediately, my glasses fogged up, but I could not see anything with them off either, so I started the endless cycle of wiping them on my shirt and then perching them on the tip of my nose so the heat from my face took a few seconds longer to mist them up again. I just knew that Frank was dealing with the same issue, but I just could not turn around and look at him right then. And into the jungle we slid on shoes with no traction at all. You know how they tell you not to step on dead logs, how dangerous the viper snakes are around here, the Bushmaster and others equally scary - well, we went thundering through the undergrowth, dead trees, muddy holes, past huge tarantula holes with only one thought in mind - Dont lose sight of Carlos!! Here we were trudging through one of the remotest parts of the Osa Peninsula, with no idea how to get out of it, a tiny path, many scary stories and one very fit guide who could escape from us in just one split second.
Very soon we saw Puma footprints in the mud - Big Ones! And very recent ones. We also came across the spoor of the Jaguar. Apparently they dont go for human meat, which was sort of comforting, but it had scared all the other animals away. And so started five and a half hours of pure unadulterated hell. We walked where even the Jaguar and Puma's were slipping in the mud. Neither of us was going to say the words "I want out or back", so on we went. I swear that the paths we walked were not meant for humans at all. The leaf cutter ants made better pathways for themselves! We climbed vertical slopes, all on wet leaves and slippery red clay like ground, in our normal little Walmart shoes! We came down the other side of those hills on the same type of turf, but at times with no more than a foots width of the path and a very steep dropoff to a huge amount of pain.
We did see spider monkeys and they rattled the branches furiosly at us, yelling loudly as we walked on, we saw butterflies, a poison dart frog and some toucans way up in the trees. I know we heard hundreds of other animals, but fogged up glasses, a brow dripping buckets of sweat into already fogged up eyes and a heavily heaving chest did nothing for my curiosity at all. When we did stop, and we did quite often, it was really pretty, the river was cute, the small waterfalls looked lovely except for the jagged rocks we would have to walk over to enjoy their coolth and the sunlight filtering through the branches hundreds of feet up are firmly in my camera. I swear that we lost ten pounds each on that walk! Everything was wet before we even got into the jungle and within minutes we were soaked. I forgot to put on a belt so had to keep hoiking up my pants. Thankfully I did not have to carry the full weight of my camera - that thing weighs about 5 pounds, because I brought the brace thing that goes around my back and hooks onto the camera in the front, so that I can walk hands free. Do you have any idea what its like to stumble through the jungle for five hours in a steam bath with bugs and ants feasting on your ankles with an elastisized dohicky clutching your wet shirt around your back and five pounds of camera tightly to your chest? I was not a pretty picture at all!
And Frank carried the backpack with the rainponchos and what felt like a six hundred gallon waterbottle in it. There was no way that either of us was going to pee in that jungle, so we limited our intake of water too, which kept this huge bottle of water weighing Frank down. But....... we did it. We finally got back to the 'hotel' and had had much friendlier thoughts about it along the way. At one point the heat got to me and apparently I turned a really pale white right before I sat down on the side of the path. Not a nice feeling at all - but it passed too. It was too hot in there to think of sitting for long - we just wanted out! We hiked 12 kilometers - about 7.5 miles in about 5 hours
So, here we are all cozy in our cabin in the jungle, Frank trying to catch up on sleep, our extra fan whirring and jigging around on the not so green floor and the heat seems to be building still. We booked three nights here, but are leaving in the morning as early as possible, before it gets too hot. Carlos is very disappointed, but the heat really is just too much. Out of everything, its the humidity and heat that is draining us of everything, energy, curiosity, excitement and even the want or need to eat. Its unbelievably oppressive. We were going to go on a snorkeling trip tomorrow, but Carlos told us a bit more about it and we decided to pass on that one. The beaches are black or very dark brown sand, and they absorb the heat and cook the soles of your feet very quickly - so there would be no gentle meandering down any beach on the island at all... We would be sitting in a palm tree grove, heavily dosed with bugspray stuff, apart from the hour and a half we were to spend in the water. The trip was to start at 7am and we would be back by 3.30pm. Nope. Pass. We both decided that we can snorkel somewhere else another day.
So, when you read this, we will be somewhere else already. Where, we are not quite sure, but from what we understand, Carlos will drive us out of here, across the peninsula to a hotel in Palma something or other where we will find a hotel with airconditioning, a pool and internet. Call me a wuss.... but this is just too hot for us to handle. This would be an absolutley stunning area to explore if it were just a tad cooler or we were twenty years younger - but its not going to get any cooler at all and last I heard, we dont get to be younger again.. I guess we really are too old for some things already. We both struggled a bit with wanting to cut short this leg of the trip, but something Carlos said yesterday in a totally different context stuck with me. He said that its our vacation and we must make sure that we enjoy it. Well, we are making sure of that. This wilted laying around in pure heat exhaustion is no fun at all
But dont misunderstand - we are glad we came here, glad we tried, it's been an experience that we will never forget and will look back on with smiles and much laughter at our inability to adjust to certain things. A good and fun experience too and that boat ride in here was an amazing, exciting and exhiliarating experience! :)
So - till wherever we end up or start up next
love, light, laughter and coolth!
Annie
U6 - I dare ya all!
No comments:
Post a Comment