The Captain

Francisco had lived his entire 34 years on the shores of the Osa Peninsula and Sierpe River in Southern Costa Rica when we met him as our fishing guide and boat captain during our week in the Corcovado rain forest.  He grew up with only his feet and a canoe or kayak as a mode of transportation.  As such, he knew the jungle trails and waters of the southern Pacific as well as most folks know their way from their bed to the bathroom.

Reserved, reticent and recessive to the point of introversion, Francisco went about his duties silently and showed no emotion nor made no comment even in situations where those around him were bursting with excitement.  A childhood accident had reduced his vision to one eye and it seemed the scar where his left eye had been had affected his temperament as well…his zest for interacting blunted…his enthusiasm dulled.  He had chosen the orbit of a lonely planet.

As a boat captain, however, his ability to read the swells and pitches of the ocean was remarkable given his lack of three dimensional sightedness.  Ever wordless and focused on the task at hand, he piloted our boat gracefully through troubled waters.  And because there are no docks to facilitate passengers disembarking, Francisco had to back his panga in to shore while battling wild surf with 6’ - 8’ waves crashing the beach every few seconds so we could jump out in shallow water.

To pull this maneuver off without destroying both boat and outboard motor is a feat that depends on exquisite timing and the ability to dominate the ocean swells the way a lion tamer cowers the big cat.  It requires converting those roaring waves into allied forces…..a skill that denies being taught and transcends learning.  It requires a nearly innate feeling, a sense of oneness with the beast.  Francisco possessed that unity with the raging sea.

To the delight of those fishing, this inborn talent also allowed him to guide his party to spots on the vast ocean surface that harbored hungry schools of fish.  He could read telltale signs offered up by nature that few of us could see.  He spotted minnows breaking the surface hundreds of yards away, birds circling so far in the distance we couldn‘t see them with binoculars, and his gut radar was well tuned, his eye working overtime.

Perhaps the most amazing triumph was his ability to zero in on whales making passage from Alaskan to South American waters.  In the late afternoon with the sun low in the sky, the choppy surface of the Pacific is one dark flash after another.  As the panga bounces from wave to wave, chop-chop-chop, objects near and far are equally blurred.  Picking out the dark humpback of a whale a quarter mile away in such conditions is all but impossible.  Certainly, none of the six in our boat, ever spied anything close to a mammal in the water, though we all strained our eyes relentlessly.  And, yes, we each had two good eyes devoted to the task.

Then when we least expected it, Francisco would suddenly decrease our speed, make a ninety degree turn and cruise quietly for a few hundred yards, sometimes even a half a mile.  Whereupon and to our utter amazement we found ourselves within spitting distance.  We were side by side with a migrating mammal.  A gigantic whale slowly sliding through the sea, occasionally blowing a spray of saltwater skyward, slipping its way south, only to eventually turn around and head back to whence it came.

All the while, Francisco remained expressionless even despite the round of applause from his six passengers.  He had a job to do and this was only a part of it.  There would be more whales to spot and he still had the responsibility to deliver us back to the camp beach safely, many miles away.

He would employ his eye to our full benefit.  He would show us more than the sights of the sea.  He would show us the true definition of courage and stoic humility.

Our Jungle Adventure

Geri at our tent

We began our southern excursion about dawn on Geri’s birthday.  The ultimate destination:  the Corcovado National Park on the Osa Peninsula at the edge of the Pacific Ocean just above Panama.  National Geographic has called this rain forest consisting of nearly 300 square miles “the most biologically intense place on earth“.  Our home for the ensuing five nights was the Corcovado Adventures Luxury Tent Camp.

Now, admittedly, the term ’luxury’ juxtaposed to ’tent camp’ sounds a whole lot like an oxymoron, but in this case, there is a scintilla of truth to the implication.  The setup consists of a wooden platform about 2’ off the ground, upon which sits a 12’x12’ tent containing comfortable beds on individual platforms.  The deck extends beyond the front of the tent to provide space for a table and chairs while the whole enchilada is sheltered by a 20’ tall canvas covered A-frame to protect the tent from rain and sun.  The ‘luxury’ part derives from the fact that the tent is swept clean each morning by a caretaker and the comfortable cotton sheets are changed daily while the visitors enjoy 3 delicious meals a day.  So there.  Not such an incongruous use of terms after all.

The Ocean kisses the toes of the Jungle

On the tropical Osa Peninsula, the jungle meets the ocean just above the high tide line.  There are slivers of sandy beaches all along the coast interrupted by mounds of volcanic rock that bubbled from the earth thousands of years ago.  Since there are no roads in this area, the only access is by boat or small charter plane which can land on a cleared grass strip at one of the ranger stations in the park.

One navigates the jungle via well worn paths barely wide enough to put one foot in front of the other.  A “main” path runs parallel to the beach just 20 to 100 feet inland. The tent camp property borders the beach but is entrenched in the wilderness so the night time jungle music produced by thousands of animal, reptile and insect inhabitants can be incredibly loud in combination with the rhythmic roar of the ocean’s waves just a few yards away.

Macaws kiss & make up after a fight

The daytime adventures were so fraught with sensory bombardment it is difficult to convert the experience to words.  Meeting the wildlife in their natural habitat, up close and in person, provoked reactions ranging from excited to awestruck to comical.  It was always exciting to see Scarlet Macaws and Toucans disguised as a streak of primary colors soaring through the air then landing overhead in an almond tree while announcing their arrival with ear splitting squawks.  And we were awestruck upon encountering a Tapir and a Jaguar on the trail as they each regarded us cautiously before slinking off into the privacy of the path-side flora.  But it was the several varieties of monkeys that were the comedians, throwing pieces of fruit at us and at our tents.  As we hiked and strolled along the paths and beaches, it seemed that the animals we met were almost as curious to see us as we were to see them.  The main difference…..we had cameras and they didn’t.

White Face Monkeys look on curiously

Asleep by 9:00 p.m. and awake by 5 a.m. we never knew what surprises each day would bring.  Whether hiking through the jungle from beach to beach, snorkeling off the shores of Cano Island, catching Spanish Mackerel while trolling the sea, or body surfing in the warm waters of the southern Pacific, every moment came wrapped in novelty, presented in Technicolor, and enhanced with high-definition sound giving new meaning to “the real deal”.

For me, the highlight of all surprises was putt-putting alongside a mother whale and her baby as they lolled lazily southward in search of even warmer waters..  The six of us in our little 20’ boat were close enough we could have practically reached out and caressed this mammoth animal who exhaled mightily through her blowhole each time she surfaced for a gulp of air.  The enormity of this peaceful beast can scarcely be described and the opportunity to share in her journey was very likely an experience we will never repeat in our lifetimes.

Our Campsite

While there are many subsets of stories related to some of the charming and fascinating people we met of both the local and visitor categories, my efforts to confine these individual blogs to a reasonable length forces me to leave some stories untold and others postponed to a later date.  You can find those upcoming blogs as well as previously archived segments at:  http://moorecostaricathoughts.blogspot.com/

And for the benefit of the curious, I am including the web site for the hosts of our adventure.  It’s just a click away at http://www.corcovado.com/  .  I’ll leave you with the photo below in which Geri caught a small troup of white face monkeys having a conference at the base of a tree near one of our beaches.  Adios until next time.

The Monkey Creed: "JUST SAY NO" to humans who want to join their party!

What are the Odds?

El Coco…………CO mmunity of CO incidence?

While assisting the carpenter who was building a small porch enclosure two years ago at our home in Asheville, I happened to mention we wanted to go away for the approaching winter. Some place warm, with a shoreline and tropical breezes.  He said it was really nice in this little fishing village down in Costa Rica where his brother, Lyn, owned a condo.  Lyn’s primary residence was in Fort Myers just an hour south of our “home town” and he only visited his condo occasionally.   A few phone calls to Lyn down in Florida and we had arranged to rent his condo for a portion of that winter in this country we’d never been to, in this tiny town we’d never heard of: Playas del Coco or simply, El Coco to the natives.

During the early part of that first trip while grilling a slab of snook we’d picked up from a fish vendor who caught it earlier that same day, Geri was approached by two ladies on their evening walk.  They wanted to know what she was cooking.  Explaining to them that it was snook, one of the ladies, her name was Linda, said, “Wow, I used to go to a dumpy, remote restaurant out in the boonies down in Florida called Snook Haven, but they never actually had snook on the menu”.  It seems Linda had lived close to us in Sarasota County and the restaurant she referenced was on the Myakka River about 2 miles from our former home there.

As ladies meeting each other for the first time normally do, these three volleyed the usual “where do you live?” type of greetings and Linda volunteered that she only knew one person in our current hometown: Asheville, North Carolina.  It turns out the lady Linda knew there was our good friend and neighbor, Louise, who lives on the same mountain that we do, just up the road from our house.

Linda’s walking companion, Diane, turned out to be the wife of our new friend Kenny who owns a condo in the small complex where we were renting that first winter.  Ken and Diane live in Boseman, Montana, a medium sized town in a big, wide open state that is all sky.  They ended up meeting a nice younger couple here in El Coco who also owned a condo in their same building of 4 units, almost directly below them.  A fast friendship was forged with their neighbors, Tammy and Monte, who to their mutual surprise, were also from the town of Boseman, Montana but had never met Ken and Diane until they ended up being neighbors in the condo complex of Valle Grande here in the sea-side village of El Coco, Costa Rica.

It was pure coincidence that Kenny turned out to be in just the right spot down in Tamarindo last year and put into motion the actions which prevented Geri’s drowning and premature departure from this earth.

As we were unpacking and settling into the condo we rented for our three month stay in El Coco this winter, I discovered to my utter amazement, napkins from the Venice Yacht Club, in the teeny, tiny town of Venice, FL we’d called home for almost 20 years.  Because we made all of our arrangements to rent this condo through the owner’s rental agent here in Costa Rica, we never had any idea who the owner was until we discovered his business card in a kitchen drawer and learned he lives in Venice, Florida.  Two itty, bitty towns most people have never heard of, Venice Florida and Playas del Coco, Costa Rica connected by the invisible chain of coincidence. 

Friendships formed between people who were unknowingly neighbors back home but never met before coming to El Coco…..  Relationships developed because people from vastly different parts of North America happened to cross paths and connect in a micro-community in Central America….  Do these diverse threads of happenstance really weave a fabric that is the creation of coincidence?  Or, is there really no such thing as coincidence?  Is it true that nothing meaningful happens by chance?

I can only assert that someone more qualified than I would have to answer those questions.  Maybe it’s you. You are, after all, one of only thirty people who will receive this email “blog”.  Is it just a coincidence you’re on my list of “A Few Friends and Family”???

A Bunch of Bull?

Each year the final five days of January are designated as La Fiesta del Coco, a celebration of the Costa Rican cowboy and one of the more legitimate excuses to have lots of loud music, much pounding of drums, parades with horses tap dancing down the beach, bull riding competitions and the consumption of vast quantities of beer. 

The fair grounds (a couple of vacant, dusty fields) are converted to a carnival-like site with bumper cars, a tilt-a-whirl ride, cotton candy dispensers and food tents.  As night time descends upon the village, the festival site comes to life and in short order transforms into a virtual beehive of activity.  A mechanical bull surrounded by huge air mattresses is the favorite activity of children large and small as the climax of each ride is when they are flung from the saddle, tumble through the air and bounce on the mattresses in a tangled mass of arms, legs and laughter.

The highlight of this festival, however, and the real reason for it to exist, is the bull riding competition.  The circular arena is considerably less than half the size of a football field.  It is surrounded by rickety bleachers made of rough hewn lumber that is mostly lashed together with twine.  The bleachers rise about 20 rows in height and funnel down to a wooden fence on the perimeter of the arena.  There are only 2 categories of admission.  You either sit in the bleachers or you sit on (or stand along) the fence.  If you are standing along the fence, it is MOST advisable to be on the outside rather than the inside.  This is where the entertainment gets to be “interactive”.

As the bull and rider burst into the arena, those spectators, the brave and/or crazy ones sitting on top of the fence,  run into the arena and dash from side to side in an effort to tantalize and torment the bull, the objective being to make him angrier and more violent in his romp about the ring.  Those spectators who enter the fray are, quite naturally, at great risk of bodily injury from finding themselves on the pointed end of the bull’s horns or the bottom side of his hooves.  It is the obvious danger inherent in this spectator participation which thrills the crowd even more than the guy trying to maintain his position atop of the bull. 

As the 6 piece brass band continues to blare through the dust, the bravery of the crowd on the fence (fueled by much beer) increases as the evening wears on.   It seems the most aggressive bulls are not introduced until the latter part of the evening when the combination of bad-bull and inebriated spectator-participants generates steady activity in the first aide booth.

There is something bordering on the confluence of comedy and potential tragedy that makes watching 20 or so loco Ticos running around inside this fenced arena with an irate, long horned bull strangely entertaining for a brief period of time.  Unless you happen to be a Tico, in which case, you can never get enough of the thrill derived from watching your friends flirt with catastrophe as they run, stumble, fall, roll and dive under the fence or scramble to the top of it in their attempts to avert an ambulance ride due to a personal encounter with the bull.   As many of these fun seekers have never been to a movie theatre nor ever had a TV, creating their own form of entertainment with what they have available gets to be an art, in and of itself.  This is, after all, Costa Rica…..Pura Vida!

Beware the Treacherous Tides...

So, Kenny got here last week.  We like Kenny.  Not just because he saved Geri’s life last year.  But, actually we ARE kind of grateful to him for it.

Kenny lives in Bozeman, Montana where he has a carpentry and remodeling business.  It’s mostly kitchen & bath make-overs and lots of roofing after their big hail storm last year .  But it keeps him busy and physically active…translation: fit, trim, nimble, and right in the zone of a middle weight boxer, say 160 lbs plus or minus a few ounces.  That nimble part makes him ideally suited for his favorite activity:  surfing.

The carpenter/contractor bought his condo here in El Coco several years ago, when they were still cheap, before they got expensive, and then got cheap again.  His main attraction to the Pacific west coast of Costa Rica was the endless string of beaches,  many of which are known as some of the best surfing spots in the world.

Several of them, just a stone’s throw to the south, are gorgeous, white sandy stretches that invite big Pacific rollers to crash onshore in an unrelenting cascade of aggressive surge and explosive spray followed by their silent retreat, as though embarrassed for all the commotion they caused.  Many such beaches are so devoid of humans as to feel unreal, as though the planet had been vacated, and you, the visitor, didn’t receive the notice to abandon the world.  Others, those that attract tan bodies in bikinis and young boys with boogie boards, are so populated they actually have life-guards like there were at the municipal swimming pool when we were kids.

The downside to these Pacific ports of paradise is that there can be, and usually are, some severe and extremely dangerous rip tides with a vise-like grip and the power of a locomotive engine.   Numerous people drown in these waters every year.  Although she knew of the dangers, Geri, who was out way too far and way too deep, clearly thought she was wearing her bullet-proof bathing suit that sunny afternoon and Kenny just happened to be near her when one of the tigress tides snatched her from the calm and proceeded to whisk her helplessly, swiftly into its netherland of darkness.

Not close enough to intervene physically, Kenny witnessed the vile act of the sea and being way outside of earshot, he instantly raised his clinched fist holding it as far skyward as possible, signaling to the observant life-saver atop his seaside perch that someone was in the process of drowning.  In seconds the lifeguard leaped from his pedestal and hit the surface of the ocean with purpose.  Lying on his stomach atop a super-sized surfboard, he skillfully paddled with unimaginable speed, skittering across the water and through the waves like a crazed insect.  In short order, he had extracted Geri from the jaws of certain demise and gotten her safely onto the rescue board some 300 yards from shore.

Had it not been for Kenny whose experience surfing in treacherous waters had taught him the universal signal for lifesaving assistance, Geri would surely not be among us today.  Ironically, we did not know our surfer friend / condo neighbor was even at that beach in Tamarindo that day.  Nor did Kenny know that we were at that particular beach on that particular day.  It just happened that he wound up, at precisely the right moment, in the general vicinity of Geri’s near catastrophic departure and knew the protocol to initiate the action that saved her life.  So, yep, we like Kenny.