The Whet

Mile after unexpected mile surround us, wrap us up in ribbons of new asphalt blackly cordoning off our sorrow. Like gauze, our memories stay light, transparent to the moment; there, but not all there is, even as we recall a silent ride on this road taken in the thin, slicing heat of the master's absolute fury, or the weight of his disappointment over a forgotten provision, pressing bare feet into similar paths.

The international concert of the artist that managed to get every last hotel in La Fortuna and parts beyond booked nevertheless failed to make enough of an impression so as to have their name remembered. Everyone knew the whole region was full, "of course", and that it was for "the concert", yes naturally, but of whom? "I think they're from Mexico". You could see it as bum luck, I guess, that in an otherwise lazy season, in the midst of a crisis of tourism, we managed to pick for an overnighter that one date presided over by anonymous Mexicanos with cult followings --but the better vantage is the one proposing it's a useful test. Of our preparation, patience, of what we've provisioned, of what we're ready to perceive. The very nature of traveling as we do, without promises, without pre-payments, free to call off whatever the fuck we feel like whenever we feel like it or don't, means occasionally some sort of bridge will be inexplicably out, inviting us to be creative.

Speaking of vantages, allow me to interrupt myself a moment to record the current, while the morning sun still dapples through it, warming my throat and shoulders as I perch above, Bimbo's excellent cold brew decidedly not steaming by my side. A grove of broad-leaved trees stretches out some pleasant walk's worth into the distance, old leaves and fallen flowers carpeting the way. These give off into a languid stream, where birds --kiskadees and montezuma oropendolas¹ -- drink and flit, avoiding the occasional passing of a gardener in deep rubber boots. Against the crunch of leaves underfoot breeze moves through the trees in hushed, tremulous roars, cicadas insisting somewhere in the distance. The air is clean, gloriously unadulterated by anything whatsoever, which, while a near-constant of my life, is nevertheless noticable --a twist of perception I wish carried out as well in everything else.

In being disconnected from the daily flow of life I find myself tethered differently, that common paradox of acid-washing away life's incremental buildups. It's the earth; it's the sun; love itself, expression in leaf and language, undeniably abundant whether I feel like acknowledging them or not. I breathe in and bit by bit, the surroundings help me take the next, whether I want to or not.

Ah, but this view, this perch steeped in peace, had to be clawed and carved out of that National and International yet Apparently Solely Mexican Concert Debacle as I was saying earlier. So after a pleasant four hours' meander through familiar jungle paths to this, our intended sojourn, we found ourselves without a place to stay. "Let's just go to La Fortuna, there's a gazillion hotels, someone's gotta have something." Except that mecca at the base of Arenal was booked up right and proper, from unlit shanties barely indicated on the road to the big resorts with strobing signs suggesting the very essence of amenity.² If it wasn't exactly a pity to turn around and head home owing to the beauty of the drive and the pleasure of having spent a day at trying, it wasn't all that ideal either, so as we turned our horses round I made a point of staying awake enough to see if we might not run into something rentable on the road back.

Twenty kilometers or so later, the "Bar and Marisqueria and Karaoke The River with Cabins" managed to meet the well-lowered criteria of 1) visible from the road, 2) with enough space in front to allow pulling off and stopping without having to brace against something³ . I asked a woman lounging around on one of the cut-trunk makeshift tables whether they had anything for the night, which sent her, all smiles, into the kitchen, which in turn produced a gruff if affable greyhair, evidently the owner-cum-cook. He reached under the bar and brought up a galvanized bucket containing a series of keys, and proceeded to fish around in it thoughtfully. Several keys were turned down despite the evidence that nobody else was there. Eventually, he seemed satisfied with No. 4, and gave it to the woman so she could show me what was on offer.

I've certainly stayed in dingier places, just not any time in all that recent memory. But it was cheap⁴ , reasonably clean, and the water did in fact run, so we took it, on the theory that we could check out some of the natural environs we'd come all this way for the next day, and see if the concert deluge had let up any, by then. We passed a fine night as only they happy enough with each other to let immediate circumstances fly for a while may, and though we woke up with nearly a hundred mosquito bites between us, we did manage to sleep. In the light of day, the place looked a little different, and we wondered idly whether the old guy had made this place his project long ago and meanwhile lost his determination, or if he was a newer owner intent (or not) on fixing it up. At any rate, it was apparent that at some point "El Rio" had been a life's aspiration, the nacre of a dream not quite capable of completing the pearl.

In a typically Costa Rican twist of the unexpectedly fabulous, this place's seafood was beyond exceptional. I don't know if I've heard of more dubious places to try fruits of the sea and fresh-caught filets beyond perhaps an airplane, but I've certainly not been more surprised. I think I had shrimps on the rice device or something.

With a new day decidedly afoot, we mosied back to our original destination and found it blissfully emptied of concert-goers, and so we let down our suitcases again. This time, much more comfortably.

A splendid because hard-won repose was had, and then I spent a while appreciating what a proper bathroom looks like:

So that's: a shower big enough to comfortably fit four or five people, a magnificently large, powerful, vertical shower head, and semi-transparent glass tiling to allow abundant natural light. The curtain's a bizarre if less noticable addition, but otherwise that was one of the best showers I've ever had, and I have no idea why more of 'em aren't designed exactly like this.

Also, the instant mini-bar, as supplied by the Strictly Trained Harem Kitchen Corps⁵ :

We spent a while refreshing and then set out to Rio Celeste, which at long last actually was the true object of this trip, that confluence of rivers where the water was supposedly bright turquoise blue. And, it was!

But that's a couple of hours' drive away yet; first, we stopped off at a...frankly, I couldn't tell you if this was someone's house, or a store someone else had started and kept passing on to family members who changed its contents every turn, or maybe some sort of community flea market or mini-storage or...they had big coconuts, at any rate, which is what I was after.

As I walked up, three middle aged women were rocking themselves in enormous, ratty barcaloungers, tinny bachata scratching itself out of some receiver somewhere in the piles and stacks of stuff. They slowly if enthusiastically organized themselves into opening a pair of coconuts for me while I looked around and tried to imagine the lives of they who produced this collection, and the organizational scheme, if any, of the owner, if such a role could even be said to exist.

Didja spot the chicks? Because they spotted you, and you don't look to be bringing them more watermelon.

Rio Celeste had been on the list of things to go see for a while, it's just that we'd made several attempts to check it out during the course of other trips and each time been thwarted by an unreasonably shitty road. On the last pass we determined through sheer trial and error that there are three approaches to the place, and the second's the one we want. As it turns out, what we really want is a combination of the first and second approaches, switching the one for the other at the halfway mark between the highway and the little track that winds up to the accessible part of the river, but anyhow; we finally managed, even if it still took a little backtracking.

There's a national park offering a hike to some stretch of this thing. There's also multiple problems there, such as being overrun by tourists and all the curio-and-overpriced-snackbar monstrosities that go with the clueless if loud and indolently milling throngs. It also "closes for entrance" at two in the afternoon, I guess because the locals don't want to see what happens if goofballs don't make it back to the trailhead before dark. I spent a while talking to a ranger, who described how to get to a different part of the river, outside the bounds of the park. Her directions being perfect, we quickly found our way to the river's edge. This one, with less official if still rather friendly greeters.

We walked a ways, enjoying the improvement in air that had already seemed unsurpassable. As with anywhere we go, and everything we do, we felt both the presence, and the lack of it, of that man by our side; or more properly, behind us, with some instrument of torture/toying/encouragement. It's as if the majesty of any place imprints the master on itself in the bas-relief of his absence, and even as I missed him with every step along the rocks, every appreciation of some new sight or creature, I nevertheless felt him there. And so we stopped and peered into the bright blue pools a while, until I surprised myself in deciding to go climbing out into the river's center rocks. "Why don't you just take your shoes off?" asked the Bimbo, but I shrugged and set myself the task of jumping and lunging over the streams of water just-so, and may my shoes get soaked if I can't manage.

But I did, and then the Bimbo joined me, and much revelry was had, along with plans to return.

And so the sun began its second setting on our voyage, and we turned again towards the glorious shower hotel. Which, as with nearly everything here, is a true voyage in and of itself.

I'd made a note to stop for a picture of this sign to a place anyone'd rightfully want to turn into, not even noticing the true gem of the Jbu in the background. Where is Jbu, you ask? It's where you go to Jbang, naturally. Oi-oi-oi-oing, boi-oi-oi-oing.

With another day successfully eaten and licked clean, we rose the next morning --which was when I began this winding diatribe-- with an eye to the trail advertised beyond the bungalows.

To diverge perhaps aimlessly yet again: as a child I was decidedly an urban creature, so surrounded by minimalls and ferroconcrete as to have never even climbed a fucking tree. I wasn't terribly interested, either; outdoorsy stuff, as far as I could tell, was all about spending a bunch of money you didn't have on "gear" you didn't seem to need in order to go make yourself really uncomfortable somewhere while you tempted fate to throw unexpected conditions at you, thus rendering the whole escapade moot. Particularly objectionable in all of this was the apparently mandatory inclusion of all manner of bugs.

Eight-year-old-me would be horrified at the prospect of hiking into the jungle, without even any repellent, what the fuck, aren't there like two-foot beetles and shit in there? Honey, most of this stuff hasn't even been classified. But I've learned that it doesn't give the slightest shit about me (or my preconceived notions, or my fears, or my preferences, or whatever else), and I love it, for it, for itself, for how far away it is from that past, geographically and paradigmatically, entire.

Besides, it's mostly plantlers, anyway.

Okay, and some bugs.

If whacking a trail into the ever-ready creepers is as difficult as they say, the same they is extraordinarily adept. A wonderful trail, belying deep understanding of the place and what'd be a pleasant way to experience it.

The hiking hiked, the river rio'd, t'was time to travel back to town, until the next adventure.

1. These are the guys famous for --other than looking like something scribbled on the margins of Pepperland (yes, the Sgt.'s)-- emitting a loud whoop and then dipping down and around the branch their claws stay gripped to. If anything's earned an ostentatious name, this species'd be it. [↩]
2. I'm not sure La Fortuna, or anywhere else in this minipok lillicountry, has ever been full in this sense before, hence no need for or even concept of "no/vacancy" signage. [↩]
3. Laugh, but if you've not done a "Let's see what we find" in Central America you'd be surprised how many "businesses" seem to have imagined all custom either coming in by foot or at the very least approximating the speed of such. I can't even recall how many places were insta-vetoed on the strength of being effectively gone once noticed. [↩]
4. To the tune of $15 or so. [↩]
5. That's: steak sandwiches, turkish eggplant salad, some fruited sparklvasser thing or other, and, of course, jars upon jars of cold coffee. The various milks and chocolate truffles were in the door and so not depicted. [↩]