From the gentle rocking of a hammock, it is very easy not to think. Without meaning to, you concentrate on discovering the serenity of the calm, delighting in the stillness and resting in a virgin peace unknown until then. At first, I assumed it was due to the clean, humid air coming from the Monteverde cloud forest, where I experienced that sensation for the first time. However, after many warm November nights swinging in various spots in Costa Rica, I eventually discovered that it didn’t matter if it was the tropical jungle, the lukewarm and distant heat of a volcano, or the evocative breeze of the Pacific Ocean. It’s not the scent you breathe from each hammock, but the essence of a country that awakens all your senses and makes complete happiness sway beside you in a simple piece of cotton
A relaxing hammock at Alby Lodge in Cahuita, on the Costa Rican Caribbean.
We don’t usually buy souvenirs on our travels, but from Costa Rica, we decided to bring back the most beautiful memory, and it was very easy to choose. We wrapped happiness in brown paper and made room for it in the knapsack, between the mosquito net and the hiking boots. Years after that journey, when we escape to rest in the village, the first thing is to hang the hammock in the courtyard. With a mischievous smile, we lie in it to let memory do its work and gift us some nostalgic fragments of that trip. It might seem incredible, but this piece of fabric came impregnated with experiences, smells, landscapes, conversations, and details. Details that, lying in a hammock, you savor slowly, tasting them in your memory so they don’t fade away, because each one of them is part of that happiness we wrapped with such care on the day of our return. One of the most pleasant memories is the overflowing excitement with which we prepared the expedition to Costa Rica from Madrid. It was the first big trip for real, away from agencies and established circuits, and we had never crossed the pond before. Three weeks, meticulously planned throughout the year via the internet, forums, maps, books, and my inseparable guide full of marks and notes, were finally waiting for us. An idyllic itinerary with which we were ready to travel across much of the country by bus, 4×4, canoe, and even on horseback.
We would soon discover the great pleasures and the small inconveniences of traveling on our own…
Shortly after landing and arriving at the hostel where we would spend the night, the television brought unpleasant news from what was to be our first destination: the Caribbean. Heavy floods had inundated the coast and made traveling there not recommended at all. We then began to discover that improvisation was to be an inseparable travel companion, a bit annoying at first, though we would later end up embracing it with fervor, because letting ourselves be carried away by that exuberant country turned out to be one of its greatest charms. Changing destinations, stays, hopping from one town to another according to the weather or an enjoyable conversation with a Tico in a pulpería.
The itinerary that had taken so much time to design ended up forgotten in the backpack that was stolen the next day due to an oversight at the Ciudad Quesada bus station, heading to the town of La Fortuna. They also took the camera, the raincoat, the flashlight, the binoculars… And they also took a bit of the excitement which, on the other hand, we regained immediately when getting off the bus after a four-hour journey, the imposing silhouette of the Arenal Volcano.
Arenal Volcano in the town of La Fortuna
Another memory that visits our mind on those Sunday afternoons in the hammock is the magic that surrounded each and every day spent in Costa Rica. Because magic, undoubtedly, is silently wishing to see a toucan and, at that precise moment, it appearing majestically perched on the branch of a linden tree in a corner of Cahuita.
An “expected” toucan posed for us
Magic is also discovering, by chance in the cloud forest, the most beautiful and intense blue we had ever seen, reflected in the fragile wings of a huge Morpho butterfly in flight. It also seemed like a magic trick to see, while filling the 4×4’s tank at a gas station, a pair of scarlet macaws fleetingly crossing the sky in total freedom, without giving me time to unsheathe the camera.
One also smiles when recalling another of the lessons learned in Costa Rica: that patience almost always has a reward. Our restless nature, little accustomed to waiting, found it hard at first to accept that everything worthwhile there took its time. We learned to wait with excitement because we eventually became aware that, after a period of time, something to delight us would come. For example, more than twenty minutes looking at a thick curtain of clouds behind which there seemed to be nothing.
Once again, following the locals’ advice, we sat down ready to wait as long as it took. Suddenly, as if it were a theater curtain, the clouds gave way to the vision of the imposing crater of the Poas Volcano, eliciting a huge smile of fascination.
The crater of Poas Volcano finally clearo
When we arrived at Tortuguero, a small town where cars do not reach, sheltered between the sea waves on one side and the waters of its canals on the other, our patience was already much more refined. We were able to put it to the test right at dawn when, upon boarding a boat to tour the canals, the sky opened up to let fall what, to our then-civilized understanding, was a true deluge. There, with a kind of garbage bag as an improvised raincoat, sitting in a barge from which water had to be bailed out with a tomato tin, we waited along with the rest for the rain to stop. This time there was no reward, and we had to return to the cabin soaked, with our hope dripping despair.
But by mid-morning it stopped raining and, although they warned that at those hours animals took shelter from the sun making sightings difficult, we rushed like crazy to find Castor Hunter, an old mulatto guide who was highly recommended in the forums and in the already worn-out travel guide. Thanks to him, we once again savored the good taste that patience leaves when guessing from afar, from a ramshackle rowboat, for a few seconds, the figure of an elusive anteater crossing from one tree to another. He also had to draw on patience during the ten silent minutes it took Patricia’s eyes to distinguish, among the thousand shades of green in the tree canopy, a small basilisk lizard.
Basilisk lizard camouflaged among the green of the trees.
We remember one of the longest waits, four hours in Playa Grande, chatting with a group of Colombians who spoke at length about their country and who, by the end of the night, seemed to have become lifelong friends. Just when hope was practically lost, the reward for patience arrived once more. We didn’t mind in the slightest that in the early morning and in absolute darkness, wet sand was thrown forcefully at our faces, because the one doing it was a giant leatherback turtle covering her eggs after nesting on a deserted beach. Before our eyes, nature amazed us once again, making us experience a strange and deep feeling of emotion as we witnessed, in silence, the titanic effort of that animal that sighed deeply and whose small eyes I remember, barely illuminated by the soft light of an almost non-existent moon.
In the town, you don’t perceive those intense smells of Costa Rica, a mixture of humidity, coffee, sulfur, and beans. Nor do you run into the pleasant ticos who told incredible stories while we savored an Imperial beer, nor with Efra n Vargas, the amazing guide from Manuel Antonio who told us how his father had been the first ranger of that National Park, among many other things. No matter how far you look, your eyes will not meet the lush vegetation of the tropical rainforest, nor unexpected cascades or waterfalls.
The power of the La Fortuna waterfall
We know all too well that we will not play football again with four small naked indigenous children, no more than six years old, on the banks of the dazzling Pacuare River. But, despite all this, you can’t help but smile because you are aware that the simple fact of being able to savor all these unique memories means that you have lived them. And our smile grows even bigger when our minds already begin to think about the next destination, because thanks to Costa Rica, a new passion was awakened in us: that of traveling, discovering new frontiers, new knowledge, new people, improvising. Improvisation as the ultimate synonym for freedom. Freedom as the obvious synonym for traveling. Travel as the unbreakable synonym for learning. And this, without a doubt, as a tangible synonym for happiness.
Stories from other travelers #postamigo
Wandering the planet – Costa Rica: Practical Guide
