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The Traveler's Life: Costa Rica Introduction I don't really care so much about the turtles. In fact, if the stewardess walked down the aisle offering steaming bowls of endangered turtle soup instead of steaming turkey-swiss sandwich wraps, I'd gladly partake. I've never been one to shun exotic delicacies. It may seem strange, then, that I'm choosing to spend an all-too-rare ten-days' worth of vacation (and a rather large amount of cash) at a remote village in Costa Rica working to preserve the very object of my culinary fancy. But it's not that strange, really -- this particular vacation should offer me a lot more than just a chance to hug some overgrown reptiles. The program is located in the village of Tortuguero on the Carribean Sea, population 700. Tortuguero (Spanish for "land of turtles") is a tiny enclave of ecotourism floating in the marshy lowlands of northeast Costa Rica, and is accessible only by boat and plane. It boasts 22 miles of undisturbed black sand beach, attracting thousands of egg-laying sea turtles (and tens of thousands of egg-laying-sea-turtle-watching tourists) every year. As a participant, I'll spend five-and-a-half-hour shifts at night patrolling the beaches -- counting eggs, measuring shells, marking nests, and tagging flippers. But like I said, I'm not really in it for the turtles. I'm in it because this trip offers a chance to do something different -- something completely not Club Med. I'll be doing good work with interesting people from around the world, exploring the jungle of the nearby national park, and spending lazy afternoons soaking in the culture of the sleepy village. And with ten miles of beach walking planned for each night, I might even lose some weight, too. El Metropolo San Jose looks just like every other big Latin American city I've been in. That is, it looks just like Mexico City -- and it's not just that everything is written in Spanish. The scraggly vegetation, narrow roads, hasty signs and excessive use of sheet metal all seem to be common elements of the Latino Metropolis. As the driver salsa'ed me through the narrow streets of downtown San Jose, I caught glimpses of small cafes proudly displaying fried things under harsh flourescent lights. Despite being Costa Rica's largest city with more than one million residents there are few tall buildings, no central business district, and no gleaming heart drawing together the whole. Instead, there are just indistinguishable streets stretching away in a two-story cacaphony of corrugated steel. I spent my first night at the Britannia Hotel. It was clean and expensive. The room was small. I'd been travelling for 12 hours. I was tired. I slept. "Those are banana plants."
I awoke at six the next morning and managed to coax some hot water from the shower. At six-thirty a large bus pulled up in front of the hotel and I climbed aboard. There was one driver, one guide, two passengers, and 40 empty seats. I was the last to board, and the five of us and our forty empty seats headed off for Tortuguero. The tour guide's name was Victor, and he spoke fairly good English in addition to his native Spanish. The two other passengers were from Valencia, Spain, and they spoke hardly any English. Occasionally, Victor would note something interesting about the area we were passing through and would begin a lengthy Spanish monologue about it. After a few minutes of orating, he would turn to me and give the English version: "This town is called Guapiles." I guess something got lost in the translation.
We travelled up out of the central highlands of Costa Rica and into the mountains. We were now in the magical cloud forest, and a great green shroud of trees covered everything. We then travelled down into the Carribean lowlands and things got less lush -- relatively speaking. The land here had been cleared into a checkerboard of boulder-strewn fields and thin forests. The highway was accompanied by the occasional house, farm, and small town as it galloped out to meet the sea. After a stop for breakfast we turned off the highway, and Victor turned to me. "The road is going to get bumpy now." He smiled. "It's time for a massage, like one-and-a-half hours!" As promised, the road soon disappeared into a rutted, rock-strewn swath of brown dirt. We passed through endless banana plantations. The banana trees, with their green-and-gold fruit wrapped in blue plastic to protect against insects (and insecticides), stretched on forever. Bananas are a major export of Costa Rica and the farms are vast. We drove for an hour before leaving the bananas behind us, and a half-hour later arrived at the end of the road: the Parismina River.
The end of the road consisted of a few shacks, some gas pumps, and a large number of people casually milling about. I climbed out of the bus and into the heavy heat of northeast Costa Rica. In short order my whole body became sticky and I developed the beginnings of a constant desire to shower that would accompany me for the rest of my trip. Our boat soon arrived and Victor, the Valencians, and I climbed aboard. The captain took us out into the river, throttled the twin engines to full, and we headed off for Tortuguero. After a few minutes we slowed as the river took a wide, lazy turn to the left. On the inside bank a boat had been beached and some people were lowering something wrapped in white plastic into it. It was a body. "Yes, someone drowned here," Victor said. Fortunately, I'm not one to worry over omens. We continued on, with the boat slowing occasionally for the captain to point out howler monkeys, turtles, and crocodiles. Mostly, though, there was just the warm wind and discordant buzz of the engines as we hurtled down the river. Machismo After about an hour on the water we climbed ashore for a break. A thatched pavilion housed a little restaurant and bar and Victor ordered some food and beer. Victor and I sat in the shade and talked for a bit. Victor is 24, he has two children, and he lives with their mother in Guapiles. He has been working as a tour guide for a few years, but today was his last day -- in a week or so he was going Italy to study. I asked what he'd be studying. Italian, he said. I asked him if he was going to a college, or using a language school, or...? He said he hadn't made plans yet. I pressed him a bit further, and he finally admitted it: the Italian he'd be studying was actually one of his international girlfriends. He'd also be making trips into Switzerland, the USA, Canada, and other exotic destinations to visit other women he'd met while working as a guide. He was not letting fatherhood impinge on his romantic style.
As we were talking an attractive local girl walked by and both our eyes followed her past. Victor looked at me. "You like our women, huh?" I nodded in cautious affirmation. "Costa Rica is full of beautiful girls," he said. "We have, like, twice as many women here as men. I mean, I can't help myself." He sounded almost apologetic for his philanderous lifestyle, but I got the distinct impression that he considered it nearly an obligation to pursue as many women as possible. Like most Latin American countries, Costa Ricans take their flirting very seriously. |
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