Costa Rican Rivers And
Canopies Ensure Wild Times
By Lindsey A. Evans, Etownian.com
There is a river in Costa Rica called El
Torro, the Bull, because either you ride it
or it rides you.
You are into a dimensionless plane where all
is motion. But there is no forward or back
in this curved space which, for an instant,
lasts indefinitely. Then your knees scream,
"rocks!" and you remember things like top
and bottom. The panic comes when you start
asking questions: where is the surface, the
boat? Hold the paddle and place feet, what
was it, where is it? And then you gasp for
air before you register that you are above
water and the people in the raft have barely
started to turn around to make sure you are
still there. This segmented disorientation
was all the more disconcerting because for
the rest of my time in Costa Rica, I sensed
a connectiveness that could have inspired
Avatar.
With a few days in Costa Rica before
starting my semester in Mexico, I decided to
cram in experiences that I could not or
would not dream of doing back in
Elizabethtown. Going under on my first-ever
whitewater rapid was one of them. My
explorations of the country took me from the
treetops of the cloud forest in the
mountains to the heart of a small Tico
community where I lived with a host family
for a week.
My companions for the canopy tour in
Monteverde were all adrenaline junkies from
around the world: two surfers from
California and a party boy from Chile who
played wicked soccer. The hum of the cables
and wind in your face are a rush. You are
doubly secured to the zipline " a set of
rollers and another carabiner " and when the
wind starts to turn you, you are glad of
both.
But oh, the views! Vast seas of treetops,
the Pacific in the distance, cows like toy
statues. I did not have nearly enough time
to marvel at the delicate white orchids on
part of our trip "each petal a distinct
piece of bone china. A howler monkey in the
tree next to us was quite indignant about
the hubbub as we laughed at Nick going
upside down, but I think I beat his noise
with my screams on the Tarzan swing. They
did not have to shove me; I would have
jumped " probably. The last cable was a full
kilometer long over a deep, verdant valley
with a half-rainbow tying it together.
I had the privilege of seeing the
mountainside I flew over close up, like it
should be seen. The morning of horseback
riding was a peaceful family affair. The
father picked me up in an ancient van; the
daughter and 14-year-old son were my guides
through the Christmas colors of coffee
fields, the scrubby pastures dotted with
chubby calves and homey cattle, and slices
of wild tangled forest. The dramatic folds
of the land are exactly like a senoritas
swishing skirts. At the end a one-year-old
caballero ran out of the adjacent ranch
house clutching a cowboy hat. Everything in
this country is connected, after all. Even
the fence posts grow roots.
One of the guides went out of his way to
show me where the biggest male iguanas were
flaunting their florid orange spikes, and we
stumbled upon a mating couple. They were
interwined, literally wrapped up in each
other.
The connections here go beyond the bond
between a couple. A single tree hosts
hundreds of other plants, insects, birds,
maybe a monkey or squirrel, and that that is
just above ground. The families in Las
Lagos, a community in Heredia, have family
histories and trees that intertwine back as
far as anyone can remember. The distinction
of the individual, so stressed in America,
blends into the colorful collective. What is
the bromeliad without the tree? |
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