I got an extremely late start with the whole traveling thing. Prior to a 2004 trip to Europe, the most exotic place I'd ever been, aside from the Jersey Shore, was the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. My most recent trip, however, from which I just returned, included six days in and around Costa Rica. For those of you who have forgotten the details of the exhaustive Central and South American geography studies that undoubtedly characterized grades one through twelve, Costa Rica is in Central America, just north of Panama and south of Nicaragua.
On a plane with a capacity well over 100 people, there were only about 20 on our flight from JFK to Liberia - likely a combination of the oppressive heat this time of year and the fact that Delta just recently, within the last few months in fact, added this route to its international repertoire. The heat didn't get to us until the very end, however, when Moose and I reluctantly discovered, after spending our first of two days on La Playa Grande, that the application of SPF 30 just once doesn't cut it when you're so close to the equator that you can hear and smell your flesh cooking in the sun.
Nicaraguans think that Costa Ricans, or 'Ticos', have sacrificed their culture in order to accommodate gringo tourism, both American and European. While I am certainly ill-equipped to examine the full implications of this sentiment to any conclusive end, I do know that each year thousands upon thousands of Nicaraguans illegally enter Costa Rica, presumably in search of something better. Conversely, much of the enterprise rampant in ecotourism centers is not only geared toward outsiders, an understandable byproduct of tourism, but it is often owned by foreigners (i.e. the vast majority of the real estate signs in desirable areas, which are numerous, were written in english). The vast majority of the countryside, however, is decidedly third-world. Confusing matters further, Costa Rica is the longest standing democracy in Latin America, has a 96% literacy rate, was the first country in the world to constitutionally ban its military, and plans on becoming carbon neutral by 2022. As with most things, you take the good with the bad I guess.
After enduring a close call with genocide at the hands of Christopher Columbus and his generous gift of small pox and exploitation (no coincidence that between 1 and 3% of the population is full-blooded native), the Germans were actually the first modern outsiders to rediscover the many eco-wonders Costa Rica has to offer. And they are plentiful...The eco-wonders not the Germans.
The locals seemed almost invariably happy, at least to my untrained eyes. "Ticos", a colloquialism for Costa Ricans as far as I could tell, were generally welcoming of our presence, appreciative of my admittedly futile attempts at recapturing a once modest command of the their language.
Fortunately and unfortunately, it was my sister's presence in Costa Rica that prompted our visit. Upon our arrival - which strategically fell on her last day of the month in the forest studying capuchin monkeys - we drank Imperial at her house before going to the local bar to become further acquainted with her cohorts; some of them locals, some of them Canadian, English, and American.
Our first full day we headed to Tenorio, a volcano and the home of the Rio Celeste, renowned for its hot springs and sulfur induced turquoise coloring. There were so many gases emanating from the earth that the jungle at times smelled like someone was trying to hide a monstrous doodly-plip-plop with 10,000 matches. An hour and a half hike brought us here:
And, shortly thereafter, here:
And then here:
The hot springs we found within the adjacent river were actually too hot to sit in. My foot almost melted when I tried. After the arduous two hour hike back, we decided we were too wiped out to leave. Rather than fall asleep at the wheel, driving the car off a cliff or into a herd of cows alongside the gravel road, we opted for the accommodations offered by a little Costa Rican woman who maintained a two room inn out of her home just down the way from the trail. Picturesque would be an understatement. As if it weren't enough, for 3,000 colones, or $15 per person, she cooked us arroz con pollo, fed us cold Imperial, and gave us two rooms for the night, even preparing us breakfast in the morning. I can't for the life of me remember why I neglected to have my picture taken with her. Perhaps the Imperial is to blame. I did get a picture of the view from the open air dining room and of our sleeping arrangements, though:
And of the other direction, an obstructed view of the least impressive part of the adjacent hillside:The next day we were off to Arenal, a live volcano not too far from Tenorio. Here, we snagged a room at a hostel for 1,000 colones per person. That's $5! We used the local tourism office to make reservations for the trifecta of tours. 1. Horse back riding up the side of the volcano:
Not sure why my head's cocked so far to the left. There is no doubt, however, that my malnourished steed lamented the fact that he'd been assigned the 200 lb American. Once I got over the trouncing my testicles were taking as I repeatedly sat on them in direct opposition to the horse's gait, I entertained myself by watching Moose and my sister and the looks on their faces as their horses broke into and out of full gallops. Both of them just stared, wide-eyed, straight ahead, far too afraid of their current circumstances to avert their gaze or attention in any direction.
2. The subsequent zip line canopy tour of the rain forest, which saw Moose inch ever closer to a nervous breakdown, included a hike through the jungle and up the side of the volcano to the first of nine platforms. Weak knee'd trepidation and mild dizziness soon gave way to awe and goose bumps as I glided at high speeds hundreds of feet above the jungle floor, amongst the trees, howler monkeys, and birds to the next platform. We actually have the DVD to prove it, only, because it's Costa Rican and incompatible with my Mac computer, you'll have to take my word for it or come to my apartment to see for yourself.
Later that evening, we succumbed for the first time to a cliche vacation inclination: over-paying to be pampered. In the Baldi Hot Springs , home of numerous hotspring-fed swimming pool-sized hot tubs, complete with piping hot water falls that gave excellent massages, we got a little R & R.
The next morning, we hiked down to a waterfall at the base of the volcano to take a dip: 
As you can see, we were not alone:
(Who's that jacked guy?)
Later on that afternoon, sore and exhausted from all the hiking, we decided on La Playa Grande for our beach destination. A. My sister hadn't been there before. B. It was made apparent to us that La Play Grande was rather desolate and wouldn't be plagued by herds of tourists and imperial franchise businesses like Subway and Olive Garden. C. It's a popular surf spot, which would allow me to indulge in one of my more inconspicuous loves: body-surfing. Its hotels were, however, owned predominantly by Americans and Europeans. But whatever. We got over that pretty quickly once we found this place: 
You can't really beat a two-bed, two-floor room, a pool with a swim-up bar (So what if there was never anyone tending it!) surrounded by exotic birds and vegetation, at an inn with only eleven rooms that also just so happens to be situated in a sparsely populated gated community within a minute's walk of the beach. Oh yeah, it was $15 per person per night!
Here I am waiting the next day waiting for the next set to roll in:
Actually, despite what this picture would have you believe (this must have been taken around low tide the first day we were there), the body surfing was actually fantastic. When sets would roll in, and I was successful in actually getting myself in/on waves in a timely fashion, I had to ride with one of my arms extended out in front of me, rather than both at my sides, in the name of self-preservation. Unfortunately, Moose, our cameraman for most of the trip, must have been sunning herself for all those would-be classics.
Here's Moose and my sister at sunset:
And the sunset by itself:
This is actually the estuary that separates La Playa Grande from the cheezy spring break destination, Tamorindo:
Because La Playa Grande doesn't have any ATM machines, we actually had to pay a guy a dollar to give us a ride to the other side in his boat. How's that for an innocuous detail?
At night, these things lined the streets:
Hundreds of them:
Our finale brought us back to my sister's place in Bagaces and a sojourn with the locals. Here is their leader, the alpha male, warning me not to come any closer: 
Though you likely can't tell, these things were within a few feet of us for much of the day. At one point, an adolescent male made a similar declaration by engaging in a behavior characterized by academics as "branch breaking" when he vaulted down a tree and toward us only to stop short, break a large branch - relative to his stature - off the tree before turning and darting back up the tree from where he came. Monkey equivalent to flexing your muscles, driving a Porsche, or having a pissing contest.
Here's one of mother and infant:
The human parallels were staggering at times. For example, here's what male capuchin monkeys do all day long:
Naturally, this can be quite tiring. Eventually, this becomes necessary:
Here's the back of my sister's head while she, with the help of one of her peers, makes note of the actions of a specific monkey for a ten minute interval: 
When you consider there are about 70 habituated monkeys that are part of this study, it's pretty impressive how easily she could recognize these monkeys at a glance and by name. One person watches, articulating various codes for corresponding behaviors, while the other inputs the coded behaviors into a PDA. At the end of each day, the data is dumped into a computer, cleaned up, and analyzed.
Ultimately, my only source of disappointments: no monkey sex and no big cat sightings. Maybe my avoid-at-all-costs approach to showering I enacted for most of the trip was a turnoff?
