NOSARA V

WE HAVE PLANS THIS MORNING TO SURF, BE IN THE OCEAN BY 7.

Jen, the jeweler (Stone: www.jenstones.com) pics S and I up from VdP at 7:30am. We make a stop in town to pick up a friend of hers, Kristen (Yoga instructor) and we are off to Playa Guiones. S and I get dropped at The Oasis to get boards and the Tica woman behind the counter who calls me Don Miguel says she’s got “the perfect board for you, Don Miguel.” I say I’m ready to give a shorter board a try, but a slow one.

The board I pick is 6” (a full third shorter than the previous board), lighter and I carry it with it just enough ego-inflation to make me step a bit quicker on the way to el mar. I get impatient. I have a board near the size of the 19-yearolds I see ripping up the big waves. I snap at S to hurry up. She demands I put on Sunblock SPF 5,000 and lathers up my back and off I go. Literally running, into the waves. S has taken a more modest approach and rented a board similar to the one she had the first time out, and no-doubt watches me run off, like a wind-up toy toward the edge of a table, thinks to herself “There goes the man I married.”

First wave, not luck. Second, no luck. Fourth, fifth, sixth – tenth, same. The long board, the slower board I had the first time enabled me to pop up and find stability in the water the way you can imagine trying to pop up and stabilize on a door-sized piece of wood. With the smaller, zippier board, imagine trying to accomplish the above (See: necessary for surfing) on a cucumber.

So back to The Oasis I go for a bigger board after being thoroughly deflated, but I am able to summon a look on my face for passersby like it’s only my towel I’m going back for. Or sunblock. At The Oasis, the Tica woman shakes her head and says “Don Miguel, I gave you wrong board. I am not so good at giving boards.” I grumble dejectedly and slink back to the shed for the previous board. Back to the beach.

First wave I’m up. Then ambition takes hold and I’m trying to ride every wave (waves coming 4 or 5 a minute). But I’m getting up 40% of the time and this seems like pretty good numbers to me.

My chest is chafing from the board. My knees are bruised. The waves come faster and more than once I’m thrown under and come up on the wrong side of the horizon. There are too many surfers out. The beach is crowded. We should have come at 6. I’m getting my ass kicked. S has ridden a handful of successful waves and decided to sit a few rounds on the beach. Because she’s sensible. Because she is patient.

We meet up with Jen and Kristen and drive back to VdP where Kristen is going to teach a yoga class for Harry, his wife, Lucille their daughter and Lucille’s three children (Lucille is here with the children following her husband’s/ the children’s father’s sudden death in June.)

S does yoga too. Dan and Christy arrive and we have lunch on the terrace. S showers and we walk (yes, walk!) to what’s supposed to be the opening yoga class for the RYGLA teacher’s workshop. First we go to the NYI’s main studio. Jen, Kristen, Dan, Christy, Sara and I wait until after we’re sure the class is supposed to have started and no one’s arrived. “It’s yoga, no one’s ever on time?” “Maybe they’re on TicaTime (the unattached, indigenous time schedule = usu. 10 – 15min behind or early)?” “Maybe it’s at another studio?”

Dan and I opt to search the one, maybe two, other places in town where a yoga class could/would be held: Casa Tucan (nope), the beach (yep). Ring of yoga-clad dwellers sitting lotuses. Dan drops me and heads for the rest of the crew.

How long do I wait before walking over and joining the group? Long enough to make it obvious I’m either wanting to be a part of or I’m stalking one of the participants.

I sit, a woman offers to make space in the ring for me. I look to the road to the beach, hoping S & Co. will be just now walking over and I won’t have to do this alone.

…the group is probably 20 in size, centered around the RYGLA (who is wearing a small bikini, cowboy hat, sunglasses and holding a petrified peapod which at first glance I mistake for a piece of charcoaled firewood or flashlight or microphone) – everyone is fixated on her. She gives the group the instructions that when the peapod is passed to you you repeat “Oooom wave, mighty wave, glorious wave, my name is (insert name) and this year is going to be a year of (insert value).” The peapod starts going around. I look back to the road – Sara Please be there! – and nothing. Meanwhile other people – vacationers, locals, surfers, joggers, families – are passing by with one eyebrow raised in our direction.

“Ooom wave, mighty wave, glorious wave my name is ___________ and this year is going to be a year of Glory!”

Someone rescue me, please. Ayuda is the Spanish word for Help.

The five year-old next to me doesn’t say the wave part and can’t think of anything this year is going to be about. I take similar tack and mumble something about courage. Pass the pod. “Ooom wave…..”

Jen, Kristen, Dan, Christy and Sara arrive as RYGLA takes off down the beach with her boyfriend, holding hands and I’m left to explain the bit about the circle, the sand and the dedication into the ocean. (RYGLA told me – me! – to instruct “your friends” “when they arrive” to draw a circle in the sand with Peapod, draw in that circle the representations of items we’d like to leave behind at this retreat, then wipe the circle clean, take a handful of flowers and dedicate them to the mighty, glorious ocean.) None are too keen on the whole deal, self included, so we splash in the ocean, take pictures of the glorious, mighty sunset and drive back up the hill for dinner at VdP. Our last meal in Paraiso is deep fried Red Snapper. We say our goodbyes and head to bed early (tomorrow our bus departs downtown at 7).

M.

PLAYA DE AZUCAR – THE ENDLESS TIDE – A HERMIT NAMED CHESTER – RED EYES – GREEN EYES - INFINITY

We travel down from Celeste Mountain, our thoughts our clothes our souls drying on the road the farther we get from the rainforest. Gabe & Meghan have chosen a private beach resort on the northwest coast of Costa Rica, the beach there, to get married. I have known Gabe for twelve years, since he moved into a house I was renting in college. He is one of my closest friends. He and Meghan have been dating for five years, she is a truly inspiring individual: she does triathlons, half-marathons in impressive times. The ceremony will be small – 40 people – and mostly family and a few friends. They chose this beach in particular because of its renowned beauty, its seclusion and privacy. The day of the wedding they have booked the entire resort so only guest and family will have access to the beach and hotel.

The drive to Playa de Azucar is just under two hours and on mostly-paved road (which is a stark contrast from the pot-holed, dust cloud, dirt roads we have grown accustomed to in Nosara). Gabe, Meghan, Danny (a computer programmer from Seattle) and his girlfriend, Jen, are traveling with us. We stop briefly in Liberia, Costa Rica’s second-largest city, for refreshments, then press on to Playa de Azucar (PdA).

PdA is located in the center of a small cove on the Pacific Ocean. The waves are small, the scenery lush, the wildlife rampant. We all peel out of the car and head directly to the beach. Like Nosara, the water is warm, 70ish degrees. We waste no time in plotting what will be our routine for the days leading up to the wedding: beach, pool, lunch, beach, dinner, pool. The beach is secluded from the other beaches by rocks on either end of the cove’s U. We rent boogie boards each day and ride wave after wave after wave.

Boogie boarding is not unlike surfing in that it requires the same sense of timing, positioning and tenacity. You need to be just far enough out to catch the wave, but not too far as to have it crash on top of you. Having spent several days on a surfboard, I pick this up pretty easily and we spend the days trying to perfect nuances of the sport: riding the wave down the beach, staying up for longer, boarding on our knees.

The pool where we spend our not-beach, not-eating daylight hours is an Infinity-edge pool, which means it has no edge (see infinity: continuing into perpetuity). Lounging in the pool, the farthest edge appears to not exist, like looking out over a glass table into the jungle. Every time I hop in the water I have to swim over to the edge to see just how it works. I want to say the disappearing trend in pool edges perhaps is symbolic of a larger trend?

The food at PdA is comparable to the Comida Tipica, but with a slightly prettier presentation – sliced avocado splayed like palm leaves, drinks with paper umbrellas. Breakfast is included with our room, but everything else we pay for we charge to the room – which is a good way to have no idea how much money one is spending. There is also a food & hospitality tax in CR. Tourism being the chief moneymaker in the country, they have found some interesting ways to extract small fees here and there for tourists. 10% gratuity here, 13% F & H tax, a $26/per person tax to enter/exit the country.

We explore the tide pools on the edge of the cove. S teaches yoga to the wedding guests every morning. We eat, swim, eat. Friday NBC is broadcasting the San Diego Chargers V. the Indianapolis Colts, we watch some football in someone’s air-conditioned room, Pina Coladas are delivered, nachos. (I’m in a bad way after the Colts tank, they were my pick to win it all.) Then back to the ocean.

It goes on like this. I get a tan. We run out of SPF 30. I have to loosen a notch on my belt. I think they are called Luxury Problems, these.

Another of the features of PdA are the EE-WHANNAS. They are everywhere. Roofs, pathways, trees, restaurant. Harmless, they patrol the grounds in pursuit of insects. When they scamper up too close to guests, the hotel’s employees shoo them away the way you’d shoo a cat from a bowl of tuna on a kitchen counter. EE-WHANNA hisses, then usually remains in eye contact with a look like “how dare you!?!!” Never heard anything about attacking tourists, though it is easy enough to imagine one snapping up someone’s Chihuahua and dragging it down into a storm drain.

Howler Monkeys swing the trees during the morning and evening hours, sitting in the afternoon sun like gargoyles, watching. S glimpses a red squirrel hollowing out a coconut (right? a coconut), pawing out the meat. One of our rooms has 31 bats hanging from the balcony. The sightings get to be commonplace. EE-WHANNA sightings begin to go unremarked. One morning the monkeys wake me before six and I lay in bed wondering what it would take to get my hands on an AK47 like I’ve seen the Policia wear. Paradise is becoming lost.

I think the trick here is to remain impressed. I feel this way as I write, at 30,000ft on the return flight to New York, the city I love. Such a beautiful city. Buildings like mute Swiftian giants, vibrant neighborhoods, unyielding diversity, life throbbing from every bodega and F-stop. M-F, The Grind has an anesthetic quality.

A Buddhist koan: two people are waiting at a busstop for a bus that’s running late. One person grows increasingly anxious and upset at the lateness of the bus. The other remains calm. Therefore, it cannot be the bus that is causing the anxiety or the calm – it’s the person.

*INTERPRETATION: It is not New York or PdA or VdP or CML which of their own power grow dull, it is the person. Perhaps this is where we reach for the larger understanding. Religion maybe. Values. Integrity. To be at times the anxious person and at times the calm. And both being ok, non-judging.

S, however, in no way shares my perspective growing dull. About two days before we leave she begins to say things like “I don’t want to go home” “we only have one more day!” “I’m not ready to go!”

We have the wedding however, guests begin to arrive each day. Pat & Christina, Sustainable business consultants from Bellingham/St. Paul. Dan & Christy, the couple we met at the RYGLA retreat in Nosara. Meghan’s family, Gabe’s family.

The guest list fills out and we’re nearing the Day. A larger and larger percentage of the hotel’s guests are part of the ceremony populating an isolated cove resort with only your family and friends the way a Tolstoy or Austin populates the pages of a novel with characters. We are secluded here to take part in the unfolding drama.

CELESTE MOUNTAIN LODGE – THE ECOTOURIST INDUSTRY – POLICE ENCOUNTER – THE TOWN OF BAGACES – THE RAINY SEASON

Celeste Mountain Lodge sits in a valley between two of Costa Rica’s active volcanoes, in the perpetual mist of tropical rainforest. The lodge is an Ecolodge, meaning many of the hotel’s features, structures and amenities are carried out in harmony with the ecosphere (see: nature). The foundation of CML is comprised of old tires, wood scraps and metal waste. All of the hotel’s energy comes from sustainable sources (solar, geothermal). The hot-tub is heated from the burning of harvested, fallen timber. The lighting is entirely powered by LED bulbs. The trash is filtered to retrieve all (ALL) recyclable materials. And so on. Meals are included for guests at CML (sustainable, locally acquired meats & produce), including lunches which Joel packs for us the two days we are there – sandwiches, muffins wrapped in banana leaves, not plastic and juice (jugo en Espanol) in plastic containers we are to return to him empty.

The first thing you notice when entering the rainforest is: wet. Everything is wet. The two days we stayed at CML we saw no sun. clouds, mist, rain in alternating variables consumed us each moment of our stay. Joel made it a point to apologize for the weather, but then would add, “Szuch iz zee way zings r ear in zee rainforezt.”* We disembark the cloud cover twice to go into town (Canas, Bagaces respectively), but the entirety of our time is either in anticipation of rain, or in the midst of torrential downpour. Think of the footage you’ve seen of mudslides swallowing houses, cars, trees. Then think of the rain that would have had to come fall to precipitate (I know I know) such a slide. This kind of rain fell daily at CML. And from what I am told, rain of these proportions is the rule here, year round.

So rain and more rain. Eco and more Eco. Joel and Joel. S and I were totally unprepared for the shift in climate from sunny, beach, sun, pool to gray. More than once one of our party remarks how much this climate resembles the Pacific Northwest. & how we could have stayed home if we wanted to trapse through mudcaked trails…. But alas.

We hike, eat, hot tub and play games into the new year. Had we done this leg of the trip without friends, a day would have been plenty. But together the time passed pleasantly.

One of our day excursions is toward the Aranal Volcano to attempt to find a zipline canopy tour. It’s New Years Day, which like the US, the entire country shuts down. We drive toward the volcano following handwritten signs and the handwritten directions Joel wrote up for us. Most of Costa Rica’s 4 million inhabitants reside in large cities (approx. 1 million in San Jose, less than that in Liberia; on any given day however, 1 in 3 Costa Ricans is American) and smaller towns. We pass several of these towns on our way to the zipline (which is closed, the abandoned lines hovering overhead taunting us), we stop in Bagaces (Buh-ga-sez) for a soda tipica (see: lunch) at a small diner. We are the only customers and we order 6 of whatever the chef is cooking today (carne, arroz con frijoles, pescado, lechuga). Chef hustles behind the counter, sweat dripping from brown, collar, forehead. We are served on massive white plates of the above ($4 ea.) which we wash down with Coke Light & Agua (Softdrinks in CR are sweetened with sugar, not chemicals, which means they taste magnificent). It is Gabe’s 34th birthday, when I tell Chef he frantically disappears behind the bar and scoops 6 cups of helado sprinkled with red jello.

We drive back to CML, some of our number nodding into sleep. About 20 kilometers from the lodge, before we turn off onto the dirt road, the clouds return. Driving up to CML we pass shack after shack of corrugated aluminum two-room houses, each with an emaciated cow or two chomping at nubs of turf poking out of the mud. Child, or children wave to us from the doorways as we jerk past on the rooted out roadway, before returning to the dark interior. Pause here to feel whatever one feels - “the hurting is so painless from the distance of passing cars.”

Later in the trip we are talking with one of the wedding’s attendants about my job, about teaching, about youth. She shares a story about a ride-along she once was invited along for with a Bellingham Police officer. The ride passed through some of the rougher parts of town and she says she remembers the kids on the corners flipping off the police cruiser, some throwing things. Our friend was surprised by this reaction. She has always been raised to respect the police. When she remarks as much, the officer driving says “C _______, these children are all of our responsibility. Not just the teachers, the police, the counselors, but all of ours. We can pretend that not taking care of the children is not harming, but each of us is responsible.”

Ecotourism was founded officially sometime in the 1980s by a group of environmentalists looking to reduce the impact of a vast, exploitative industry (tourism: see hotels being built by native peoples, increased strain on local resources, improper waste management, then abandonment when the enterprise fails) and to restore dignity to the communities people travel to see. To reduce the impact of the tourist industry. To restore dignity to indigenous people. This movement has seen its struggles (see: exploitation by commercial industrial barons), but on the whole has succeeded in its twin aims: to expand/profit from the tourist industry; to restore balance/dignity to tropical areas. Costa Rica is a bellwether in the Ecotourist industry, many of the resorts and destinationi locations in the country offer Eco-minded options. The country also regulates the beaches in a similar way.

The blue-flag rating system was started by locals beach communities to communicate to tourists the cleanliness and safety of the beach. This self-certification spread from beach to beach and worked toward a national certification whereby tourists can lookup in said tourists tourist book which beaches do not have syringes in the sand or sewer pumped directly into the ocean an know where to go. Entirely self-started, self-sustained and self-regulated.

At dinner we all sit together, the wedding party and whomever else happens to be staying at the lodge. I ask Joel (SZHO-ELL) why he chose to do this and he says two reasons: one, eating together promotes a return to the communal act of eating, the sit-down and eat your dinner as a family your mother talked about. And two, logistically, it is easier for the kitchen staff to plate all the food at the same time because Joel drives all the employees home after the dinner service, some of them living as far as 10 kilometers from CML and who would otherwise have to walk. (Average individual income in Costa Rica is $4,900/yr. Joel pays his employees considerably higher than the average hourly wage, but still only $1.25/hr. His employees work 48 hours a week, 6 days and receive all their meals while at CML.)



*Joel was born in Quebec, raised outside of Paris, spent most of his adult life in Vancouver, Canada before emigrating to CR. In addition to CML, he owns and runs a burger joint (his words) in the Vancouver airport. According to him he has never once eaten there, out of principle?