Rich Coast, Poor Traveler
Costa Rica, 2010
We came to battle the monkeys in a bloody but valorous and ultimately triumphant effort to establish our physical superiority and then craft a lasting peace accord, bridging two morally distinct species in a manner as yet unimagined by scientists and poets.
Two of our kind ventured forth, and two returned alive and whole. True, we formed alliances that dissolved over time, and parties were surely lost, but we two returned whole.
Hombre: Me enseñas algo en frances?
We took the long way back to San Jose from Dominical, having been told that it'd be the short way, and as our bus climbed the cordillera and disappeared into the clouds, I was struck by an asphyxiating desire to ask the driver to stop at the nearest town. I could have lived in any of these towns. La Suisa, mi luciernega, was still in the shit, trudging through Corcovado in rain boots that probably weren't tall enough. I couldn't say goodbye to the morpho's earthen colored under-wings (ventral) while knowing there's an electric blue inside (dorsal) engaging the light and lying in wait to hypnotize a lover. And I wasn't done bathing in the streams of light that pour through the rain forest canopy at dawn.
Diosa: Pues, si.
La Suisa. She teaches French literature in a small Swiss mountain town. I was able to use the breadth of my knowledge of tenses when I told her: Si fueras profesor de Frances en mi escuela, nunca aprendaria Espanol. Claro, que es probable que nunca aprendaria Frances, tampoco. Our common language was Spanish, although she also spoke English. Within minutes of meeting each other, we discovered a mutual favorite Spanish word: luciernega. We walked down to the beach in a cove hidden away from the crowds of Parque Manuel Antonio. She lay on her back floating in the mild Pacific water as I gently pulled at her heels, towing her towards the deep. We hiked and met a lazy iguana and a pair of enamored three-toed sloths. How many people have seen sloths banging slowly in the forest? There is no caress more gentle than that of an enraptured sloth. We also met barrels of squirrel monkeys, cara blancas, and aulladores, and, in Dominical, a few proliferate families of goatis.
Hombre: Como se dice 'besame'?
We traveled together--La Suisa y yo--and I could no longer sleep. Beside a firefly, one does not sleep. And then we said goodbye.
Diosa: Embrasse-moi.
Hombre: Por que no. [Pucker.]
Cliff and I had already gone to Monteverde and disappeared two bottles of Flor di Cana. There, I was taught but did not learn to dance salsa. Your steps are way too big, Santa Elena told me. But she could've made more sense to a hole in the ground. That said, the next morning, as we awoke early to hunt for rare birds and cleanse ourselves in the ultra-violet sun shower that promised to churn our toxic blood into honey, it occurred to me that, while clumsily dancing the night away, I was indeed taking the largest possible steps because, at the time, it seemed like that was the challenge. Large steps seemed fundamental to overcoming some unidentifiable obstacle. Picture that.
I also met a girl from Patagonia. It's hard to believe that people can actually live in these awesome places.
At almost every stop, Cliff and I made enough fried plantain tacos to kill lesser men. I realized my dream of focusing my diet on avocados, mangoes, beans and hot sauce. Of course, a couple of roadside empanadas--the size of foam footballs, no joke--also managed to sneak into my stomach tank.
The negative impacts of traveling through rain forests on body odors can shock even the most hairy fatso. Dirty clothes are contagious in Costa Rica, and must be carefully isolated. One should not let his clean clothes even breathe the same air as his Level 4 Cotton Refuse, or "dirty clothes." We decided that the worst job in the world would be Travelers' Smell Tester. I even wrote a traveler's spiritual about changing my underwear.
I've learned to release some sexual energy by playing a guitar. The guitar in the hostel in Arenal/La Fortuna was curative. The guitar in the hostel in San Jose saved me from certain death, and kept me awake all night more or less until we left to catch a 4:30 a.m. cab to the airport.
I ate lunch with a girl in the Mexico City airport. We counted the reasons that people serially fall in love while traveling. One--my first point--we meet people with great attitudes. People who travel can generally sleep with peas under their mattresses. Two--her addition--there is an abundance of happiness and bliss coloring every experience. Three--a mutual discovery--we know we all have at least one common interest: not sitting around all the time. Four, everybody has a story to tell. Five, long bus rides through immense clouds are made holy by holding somebody's hand. And so on.
Luciernega, Corazon. Getting your mind stuck on an impossible girl is like getting your dick stuck in the zipper. I have no idea how I got here; I have no idea how to get out. I don't know how I could get to Switzerland, or even whether she'd want me there. Maybe they need a spanish teacher.
We rode the zip lines over the cloud forest in Monteverde. There were 14 lines at varying heights and lengths. My favorite was the Superman: I was dangling from the small of my back and my feet were harnessed to the line behind me, such that I was hanging from the cord in Superman position with nothing beneath me but the distant Earth and the trees and possibly some rightfully optimistic scavengers. This line is 1.1 km long and soars ~500 ft. above the rain forest canopy from one mountain to another. So naked at such a height, I practiced my breathing and found it to be almost easier and more impactful. When a moment of silence or a click of some kind interrupted the zip of the zip line, I would clench up, stop breathing and prepare for my death. (Atheists are born with only one pair of wings. If they should fail, there's nobody to meet us with another pair.) We later calculated that one would fall for approximately ten seconds from that height. The entire ride is about two minutes long, and so I alternately contemplated my messy death and put such thoughts aside in irregular intervals. A deep breath can do a lot with a little.
My least favorite line was the giant rappel, in which one is tied up by the waist and pushed off a ledge. Shit is fucked.
We visited Arenal and boiled alive in the hot springs. We hiked up through the darkness to see the volcano at night. We met two young American girls. They were huge fans of a guy with whom were traveling at that point in the trip, and so were around a lot. I could tell that our travel buddy would be the gay friend about whom they would tell stories when they get home.
We played barefoot soccer in Dominical -- Gringos vs. Ticos. Cliff and I were playing 12-15 year-old kids and barely won. Two high school gringos joined us. "We don't play soccer. We play football." With cracking, pitch-bending voices, they complained that the little Ticos weren't consistent with the rules. "Don't be a baby," I was finally able to say to a high school football player without fear of reprisal.
I got terminally fucked with a couple from Bushwick. He works at Teterboro and she's a wildlife photographer. We made plans to go to Africa and went off in search of a waterfall. It was some time after 2 a.m. but before dawn. Our guide, the co-owner of the hostel at which we stayed, was on another level, apparently an addict. He asked Teterboro if he could fuck his girlfriend. The night only got stranger after that.
When I would get home, I would go to the bank and open a savings account. I would transfer half of my money upfront and schedule automatic monthly payments of [redacted]--the equivalent of my drinking budget--and prepare to leave New York for the Big Trip next summer.
[Indeed, I did open such an account, and I plan to leave for the Big Trip from Los Angeles to Tierra del Fuego in July or August.]
***You can probably imagine the scene: La Suisa leaves before dawn, a back-lit shadow. I'm utterly awake, offer a kiss goodbye, and then she's gone. As per ritual, I wait one minute and release a week's worth of farts that had been stored at the expense of my gait and, depending on the schoolyard authority one consults, my digestive track. Wallowing, I determined to find a guitar to play.
