domingo, 31 de mayo de 2009

There and Back Again (USA to Costa Rica)

I did not cry when I said goodbye to the group at the airport, although it would have been an excusable excuse, along with your football team winning/losing a semi-important game, thinking about Old Yeller, or running out of milk after you've poured your cereal. It was strange to leave, because it felt like we'd be gone from each other for a few days and then be back; really, the entire time I was back in the States was a sort of dream. Without my dear friends, I did notice that I was able to move faster than a beach ball filled with sand, which was nice when I had to do things like use the restroom. Throughout the next few days, however, I did find myself turning to say things to several of them specifically and realizing that they weren't around. Just in case, since we were all going our separate ways, I wore my lucky boxers our last day, Saturday. To ensure everyone made it back allright I kept them on until Tuesday. Just to be sure. I think they would appreciate it.

That first day I spent time with my dad's side grandparents, and my aunt, uncle, and cousins; I passed out for hours in their house and then we went to buy books. I met my mom and her parents in my college town, and we drove by the apartments I'll be in next year. We ate some INCREDIBLE cheesecake with my grandparent's friends that was so good it might go down in the annals of my Food Hall of Fame, forever overshadowed by the greatness of that Orange I Ate Back in Junior Year of High School. I spent the next three days in Dallas with my awesome family and great old friends and was off again, this time to Orlando where I stayed up all night with my two best friends eating junk food and watching TV and playing Halo. Then it was time to leave and I was at the airport and on the plane to San Jose.

I arrived in Costa Rica's impressively modern airport and had the exciting hmm...now what? feeling and found a taxi that took me to a bus station, where I met a friendly American couple, an Australian girl, and several Texans. We got on the bus and were on our way to Monteverde, and I bid consciousness goodbye for the several hours we were driving. We arrived and all went to the same hostel, which was owned by a Texan. Yee-haw. I loosely planned the rest of my trip that night, and got ready for the park the next morning.

Let me begin this by telling you a story about a small world. I was in Costa Rica, specifically in Santa Elena outside of the Monteverde cloud forest, and went to the said forest's national park. No sooner had my Australian companion and I embarked on the trail did we encounter a guy around my age with long hair and a hippie head band collecting berry samples on the side of the trail. We found out he was American, from Georgia, from Berry College (the largest campus in the United States!) and I stared at him dumbstruck and asked if he knew a friend of mine from Buenos Aires. And he says yes, he knows this friend, they went to high school together. And this is made all the greater by the fact that Berry College has all of 2000 students plus change. I love travelling.

The cloud forest was, interestingly enough, devoid of clouds for much of the morning as we hiked. I talked to my friend about Australia and learned quite a bit about the continent which, although gigantic, has a population smaller than that of Texas. It's nice to run into people from places I won't go to for awhile. Along the hike we saw several groups seriously rapt in concentration watching for birds, and we very politely laughed at them. We saw a brown winged friend with an orange stomach in a tree we passed and my Aussie mate wondered what it was called, to which I replied very matter-of-factly "That's an orange-bellied...brown...bird." She was impressed with my technical knowledge.

We hiked all the way to La Ventana, where, with luckily cleared skies, one could look to the Caribbean side as well as the Pacific side of the forest. I don't know if you were actually able to see the water, but you were at least supposed to stand there with a serious look on your face and hmmm thoughtfully and then make a remark to the effect of you wishing there weren't clouds so you could see China. Once up there, the clouds showed up in force. It was strange to stand there looking out over the hills visible through the fog; the clouds advanced, thick and dense as an approaching army, and when I held my arms out to meet them the mass passed right through me, unaware and uncaring of my resistance. Going over to the Pacific side you could watch the wispy soldiers continue on their way, advancing heedlessly to the vast waters of the ocean.

My friend and I split up after La Ventana and I began a large circuit flyin solo. Alone in the forest my mind wandered and I pondered such interesting things as how marvelous it was that there were no spiders in the forest at all, how maybe I could come to like a jungle without spiders, and how it was never a good thing to feel stuff fall in your hair. I was only thinking this because I'd felt things fall in my hair several times, but after shaking my mane like a Pantene commercial there was never anything there; really, the only things it could have been were bugs or bird poop, both of which would have made me do a high-knees, hands flailing sort of dance that might be similar to a twelve year old girl at an N*SYNC concert, though the twelve year old might have shown more fortitude. One never finds pleasant surprises in the hair. It is never Halloween candy, or a s'more. The best one can ever hope for is rain. Speaking of rain, we had passed through a deluge on the way to Monteverde, and I was afraid of getting stuck in a downpour; really, I wanted to keep my shoes from getting soaked. I am very hardcore. It fell completely, eerily silent while I was walking the trails. Being from Texas, I usually assume this means there is a tornado brewing or a football game on. I quickened my pace, hoping to beat the rain.

I ran across my friend coming through her trail, and asked her how the suspended bridge was. Very...bridge-y, was the response I got. And she was right, as I realized when I got there. It was pretty much an old rusty bridge on top of some trees. I have this bad habit of mimicking accents that started my second semester at college when I had two very good British friends. I always want to say things like 'rightright' that comes out more like 'quiteright' or 'whiterice,' and after hanging out with those two so much I wanted to start saying 'well' in front of things for no reason. Well good. This problem only enhances a greater issue I have which is talking to myself in public, and naturally, as I walked the trails, I would say things to myself in Spanish, and then in Australian. This has, as you can guess, led to a great many awkward situations; apparently talking to oneself and looking off into the distance is somewhat socially awkward. The worst instance happened back in Lima, when I was going through a phase where I wanted to try my hand at rapping. I was walking to school one day, bustin' and flowin', and some students ahead of me apparently heard me rhymin' because they turned around, looked right at me, and stopped until I passed by, very quiet and a little scared. I kept bustin' my rhymes and breakin' my change.

I got back to the lodge area of the park and found the American couple who was a part of my crew for the three days I was here. They excitedly pulled out a camera to show me what they had seen and I watched, suddenly shocked and terrified, as they played a video of a gigantic black and orange tarantula on the path. You probably walked right by it, they said. Maybe even stepped right over it. So much for any sense of security.

I left to go look at a waterfall despite my fears being awakened and intensified. The forest grew ominous and I felt something watching me; soon, a spider became the spider became The Spider. Should the octo-ped nemesis spring into the path, I knew I'd be forced to respond with my best defense, a girly shriek and a Roadrunner-esque escape, except instead of a nice cloud of dust with a POOSH! I'd leave a warm puddle of urine and my DIGNITY! They say that animals are as scared of you as you are of them, and that might be the case with cuddly things like anacondas, grizzly bears, and white tigers; however, when said beasties want not only to eat you but also to psychologically torture you, I don't think they are scared of you at all. When I say this what I mean is spiders, and sea monsters, and zombies. Also, girls my age.

On an unrelated note, what I've come to realize is that Travelling is like this shared, but quiet and unspoken, secret between its members. It's like a treehouse from childhood that has gone equal oppotunity after intense political reform and finds its exclusiveness not in gender exclusion but rather in its members simply being found on the fringes of real life. It is a fun little club. Last night in the hostel I got harmonica lessons from the American man, and this morning as I made my eggcake sandwiches a surfer from the states gave me a rashguard, followed by a quick lesson on wave mechanics and top breezes. A couple from Singapore, also in my crew, told me about their journey yesterday; they are travelling the world on motorcycles, and have been gone for a year and a half going on two years, and have been, to put it shortly, everywhere. On tap for them now is to drive through Mexico and Texas all the way to Rhode Island, and then to Alaska. The thing I love is that the guy says this so nonchalantly it's like he's telling you about the weather back in Singapore, which is, if you were wondering, warm. It's a trip he's planned for ten years (!!!) and he says its everthing he hoped. They married two years ago and she thought he was crazy and hopefully still does.

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