This park contains the highest peaks in Costa Rica, and temperatures can drop very low at night.
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The 90 minute ride (160 colones) was slow because of the load and the steep grade. As soon as I got to San Geraldo, everyone jumped and ran up the trail. I trudged up later with my pack to see a hundred runners begin a race to the summit. I walked after them, carrying my pack and climbed slowly for a couple of hours to the first runners' rest station where I realized I did not have the energy to make it to the summit 12 km. further. This lower part of the park is mainly deforested, and dairy cows roam the green hills. One of the course monitors had picked a sort of tropical strawberry in the meadow and offered these to me. Each day I was struck by the kindness of so many of the Costa Ricans I met, either in the city or country.
Heading back down strained my legs in a different way, and I walked carefully as they turned to rubber. Falling would have been a quick way to end my vacation. I passed over a bridge built with USAID funds; this was not on a strategic road, but it is an example of the foreign aid that made Costa Rica the country that received, after Israel, the most per capita from the USA. Much of that was during the Reagan years when Nicaraguan Contras staged operations from Costa Rica and Honduras. Just as I got back to the finish line the first runner appeared followed by a Red Cross truck with sirens going. I headed back to the bus stop and flopped down at the 'soda' (little refreshment stand) and had a drink. I hoped to get a ride back early, but no bus was due for hours. If you sit and wait, kids and other curious people come up and begin to talk. A skinny old man introduced himself as the brother of the 'soda' owner, and then he began his life story:
Many years were spent working in Costa Rica and Panama with the United Fruit Company, a very big force in Central American history. As a field worker he was sprayed with insecticides and herbicides by company planes, and the maladies he developed were serious enough that he went to Peru for diagnosis. Somehow, he ended up in Cuba (which does have very good medical care) and had several operations in the 1970's. His recuperation took place in Czechoslovakia and Moscow! He went through all his documents and passports showing me the stamps and tattered currency from his trips almost twenty years ago. Now he farms coffee and beans, and visits his relatives.
Several peaceful hours passed under the tree, and one of the runners gave me and several others a ride back to San Isidro. The 90 minute trip was cut to 45 minutes, so I had plenty of time to shop. The central market is excellent, and many fruit stands post their prices. Oranges were 3.5 cents and a big pineapple was 65 cents. Cold drinks cost a few cents more than unchilled ones. I drank one in the public square and a retired merchant marine worker sat down to tell me his story and practice his English. He was taking a correspondence course and has no one to practice with. I finally left to get a pizza at El Tenedor (the fork). The crust had a cracker texture, and there was no tomato sauce. Cost was 500 colones for a medium.
Why did I like San Isidro? Maybe because everyone I saw seemed to be living within their means, or at least in a more modest way than most people in Silicon Valley. I also liked seeing people outside, people together, people in church, people jammed into a bus, and people flirting and conversing. Much of my interpretation may be caused by my poor knowledge of Spanish. For all I know everyone was really wishing for a cellular phone and unlimited credit at Nordstrom's.
There is no movie theater, but the video rental places offer new films with Spanish subtitles. Most of the titles were American or Mexican. The bookstores offer school supplies: copy books, rulers, backpacks for kids, and no books. Costa Rica has a much higher literacy rate than the USA, but I'm not sure where they get their reading matter besides newspapers and a few magazine stores that offer a lot of photonovelas and comics.
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At 6:30 I headed for the bus station three blocks away and paid 225 colones for a seat to Dominical, 25 miles away on the Pacific Coast. While I waited a farmer came up and tried to sell me his 'finca' (farm) because he thought Americans were good people and would enjoy taking care of his plot. I told him I had already sold my vineyard and did not have time to tend another. During the scenic trip down the mountains I sat next to a German secretary from Munich who had been in Costa Rica for four weeks and wished she had three months to see all the sights.
Dominical is on a gravel road and only gets a relatively small number of tourists. I'd say there are about 50 hotel rooms in the area. Willdale Cabins cost $20 each for a single or double and have a fan, porch, boiled water for drinking and a device to heat the water as it comes from the shower head. I turned off the heat to cool down. Three showers a day was the norm in this place. Richard Dale is a retired photographer and stays with his son while he rents his house some miles away on the ridge over the ocean. His son has trucks and bulldozers for earth moving and hauling building materials and has lived in Dominical for several years. The office overlooks the estuary of the River Barru about 300 yards from the beach. A great place to sit and watch birds and lizards sunning and eating. Today is Sunday and many groups of people have come from other cities to spend a day on the beach. They arrive in by bus, truck, car, and van and leave by evening. Some campers stay longer. The beach is known for a dangerous rip tide, and it took the life of a German diplomat this month. I did not have any trouble, but the water is refreshing only as long as you are in it. Because it is so warm, you don't really cool down too much.
About 2:30 I decided to hike to the Escalera, the high road that rises 1000 feet above the ocean and is the home of a number of ex-pats. who have set up forest retreats for visitors. The turnoff was not evident, so I hiked down the coast about five miles and then back to Dominical. On the way back I watched a classic sunset and actually saw the green flash just before the sun sank into the Pacific. Hundred of cattle egrets populated one tree on a stream bank. Pelicans dived in unison for fish. Three fishermen carried a 50 lb. red snapper up to the restaurant to try and sell their day's catch.
I went to another restaurant and ordered a fish fillet, but they only would serve the 'pescado entiro' or whole fish. One waitress showed me how big the fish was, and the cook widened his arms as he showed me. I wasn't that hungry, so I settled for a pork chop and fries for 325 colones.
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I awoke about 8:30 and went for a swim in the tepid surf. The undertow did not bother me, and the Sunday crowds were absent. About 15 people were visible on two miles of beach. This is a place to relax away from the crowds, and a few surfers seem to have discovered the town. Jungle Jims is owned by a fellow from Manhattan Beach, California, and the ads boast satellite TV sports and the most beautiful bartenders on the Pacific Coast.
Richard Dale and I had a long talk about ham radio, the CIA influence in Costa Rica, sailing, Tsunamis, immigrants and land prices. A woman got 20 hectares of forest preserve only to have a German software company owner buy the adjacent parcel so that he could build a Thai restaurant for his wife to run. His wife is German and used to cook on private yachts for crowds of 12--a little different than running a restaurant. The parking lot will be next to the preserve. Most of the people I talked to loved the town and its tranquility, but figured it would go away in a few years, especially after the road was built. It's too bad they can't come to some agreement about how the place should be developed or preserved, but there is no town government. Mail delivery happens when the 'guardia civil' heads into San Isidro and picks up the week's collection.
I took another walk, this time to a waterfall off the road, on the way up to the Escalera. The pool was about 25 meters across and the falls are 10 meters high. Two Ticos came to swim, and I did not want to leave my camera and binoculars unattended on a rock. After they left I enjoyed a cool swim (much more refreshing than the ocean) and headed back, meeting one peasant: barefoot, machete over his shoulder, beat up cowboy hat. God, the road must have been hot for him!
6 p.m. Jungle Jims 4 pm happy hour. Two Heinikens for 150 colones. This is a 'no pants, no service' kind of place. Everybody but one is wearing shorts (that's rare in San Jose). Theme from Summer Place is pumped out at 90 db. I just finished a great Dorado fillet for 750 colones. Another great sunset. Iguanas doing pushups nearby. Life hurries by 3000 miles away at home.
Traveling alone gives me more time to think, to write, to observe. At night the dreams come in greater detail with themes submerged by the busy professional life and family responsibilities. I'm re-reading 'Life During Wartime' by Lucius Shepard. It's a grim look (1987) at a future war in Nicaragua and Guatemala as told by a Psicorps specialist, and it contrasts sharply with what I see for the future in Costa Rica.
Item from newspaper: Airport closed because of cattle on the runway in Tamarindo, Nicoya peninsula. The Director of civil aviation was shocked to find a car speeding down the runway in front of a landing plane to shoo the cows off the airstrip.
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2/23/93 Quepos and Manual Antonio National Park
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I am at the bus stop across from the estuary, next to Jungle Jim's. Iguanas are sunning themselves. A woman I had met the day before is eating breakfast at the Soda across the road. She lives part of the year in upstate New York, part in Carmel, California, and most of the time in Dominical, where she is building a house. I tell her that I am heading for Manual Antonio National Park up the coast. 'Why are you going there? You'll be back here the next day. We have everything that Manual Antonio has, but we have not ruined the area.'
Heading north on the gravel road we crossed several bridges built recently by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from Panama. After Israel, C.R. used to receive more aid per U.S. capita than any other country. Locals believed that the bridges were built in case the U.S. was going to invade Nicaragua, and the military wanted to have more options than just the Pan American Highway (which we helped build too, decades ago).
The scenery on the two hour trip: mainly farms, cattle, palm plantations with company towns every half hour or so. |
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