Pura Vida

Group Email, 29/06/07



My Dear Friends,

This is the second day now of the group portion of my trip, but already the week at La Tranquilo seems another lifetime. I am (still in Costa Rica) in a small town called La Fortuna at the base of an active volcano. It is raining. Just this week it has occurred to me that ¨the rainy season¨ is not merely an expression; it is, in fact, a season, where it rains-- incessantly. Yesterday I asked Santos, the man who was leading us through the wet forest (not rain forest, ¨wet forest¨), if the pattern was sun in the morning, rain in the afternoon, and on and off in the evening (as it had been that day). ¨It is not so predictable,¨ he said. This morning it is raining.



I met the others on the evening of the 27th, in a small hotel with ants in the toilet (other than that it was quite nice). In total we are 14, and I´m happy to say there is more of a mixture here in terms of age and temperament than on some previous trips I´ve been on (though once again overwhelmingly female-- 12 to 2). Our guide´s name is J., he is 25, from Atlanta --but without the accent-- and looks more like a band geek than an intrepid traveller. Despite this he is cheerful and laid back enough to inspire confidence, and I was happy to hear he would be going with us all the way to Mexico City (45 days from now).

The first night I was sharing a room with a woman named L., who is training to be a solicitor in England. When I first arrived at the hotel I found her reading a fashion magazine, which made me a bit nervous, but she is actually quite nice. She has spent most of her time with another solo English girl named S., who I can´t actually recall seeing since that first meeting (but L.s talking about her so she must be around). There is possibly the sweetest Swedish couple imaginable, M. and M. who heard the hotel clerk saying they needed the ¨matrimonio¨ suite and started giggling so hard she turned to stare at them. Then there are three girls from Vancouver whose names I don´t know (they have not exactly made themselves available), and two others, A. and F. from the UK; they have alarming tans already, and spend a lot of time whispering in each other´s ears.

Then there are the 4 high school teachers-- two from Chicago, one from Alabama, and one from San Diego. The guy from Alabama is named D., and has the most peculiarvoice I have ever heard; it´s as if he is sucking on helium all the time, or under water, I have not yet decided which. The woman from San Diego, L., is my closest friend here; she very rarely stops talking and laughs often, whether others get the joke or not (but then so do I) and today she is going to ¨challenge herself¨ by rappelling over a waterfall. If that doesn´t add up to 14 do let me know, and I will figure out who I´m missing. Of course, this group is only together for two more weeks; then the solicitor, A., F., D. and I go on, picking up 8 others. If you´re confused now don´t worry, it is hard for me to keep them all straight, and I´m here.

The drive from San Jose to La Fortuna was just over 4 hours, through the most incredible countryside. At one point we had to stop because there was a huge pile of rocks in the middle of the road, some of which had to be moved or our van couldn´t fit through. We stopped again later on to take pictures of a waterfall beside the road-- a little market had been set up and there was lots of excitement over the stuffed monkeys with velcro paws. I switch over to my 6th set of camera batteries.



This place is La Fortuna because it is fortunate that the lava from the looming volcano (which is constantly flowing) travels down the far side of the mountain, rather than towards us, destroying the little town at it´s base. From our hotel (which J. referred to as ¨that pink thing on the corner¨) the volcano looks close enough to touch. At least, it looked close enough to touch yesterday; today it is so cloudy it is not visible at all. The place seems very empty without it.



Yesterday evening 5 of us went partway up the volcano for a hike (in the wet forest, remember). It was already raining when we got out of the car, but even so Santos had us stand for sometime in the parking lot explaining that in 1968 there was an explosion that killed more than 80 people. It seems much darker in the forest, and before long we can´t tell what is thunder and what is the rumbling of the volcano above us; the leaves filter out some of the torrential rain (and I do not use this term lightly) but after an hour or so we were soaked right through, and the ground had turned to mud that filled our shoes and sent us slipping in every direction. Every once and a while Santos would stop and talk to us about some plant or other, which we couldn´t really see in the dim light. D. asked if there were bullet ants here. Öf course, but they are mostly active at night¨, he says, as the darkness falls. Despite the picture I am painting here I was having a marvellous time; the jungle is my favourite kind of environment, but this this rain was so loud and so powerful it was as if nothing outside those trees even existed, like we were in our own green world, just us and the howling monkeys high above us.



When we got to the station at the edge of the forest, emptied out our shoes and struggled to ring the water from clothes we could just see the steam pouring from the lava as it hit the water. By the time we made it back to the hotel it was too dark to see anything but the low-watt neon of the restaurant across the street.



That´s all for now, my dears. Only one more stop in Costa Rica and then we cross over to Nicaragua. See you on the flip side!

Much Love,

N.

-- "To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.¨ Emily Dickinson