Shades of Green – Costa Rica – [12/13/2011]

Costa Rica is something beyond green. Here, everything is so lush that even the hummingbirds get drunk. You spot toucans sitting lazily in the trees as your tour bus rattles along rutted dirt roads, disappearing further and further from what could be called civilization. Someone next to you of course, wonders aloud who forgot to bring the Froot Loops.

Eventually, the bus drops you off, and you board the open sided metal tram that will take you laboriously up the mountain. As the tram rises into the canopy you can see Tarzan vines erupting to meet the sun, pink blossoms as big as your fist exploding at their tips. Deadly beauty those, as they do eventually kill the trees that host them.

You can’t wear a coat here, despite the constant drizzle of warm rain against your skin and the ever- present buzz of the rainforest. It’s so humid that anything you’re wearing is going to get soaked, and it’s too hot to wear much next to your skin. Despite the overcast sky, you swear you can feel your skin changing colour.

The higher you rise into the canopy, the more you can feel your worries dropping away, carried off by the nearest waterfall, of which there are many, so that the sound of water mingles with the sound of the leaves to create a soothing murmur in your ears.

Of course, when you get to the top of the mountain there are two options for getting back down. You can turn around and take the tram or the chicken-trail back to the bottom or – with the aid of a sturdy harness and a carabineer clip/double pulley system – you can fly.

The last time I went zip lining was in Alaska over a year ago. I had been having a particularly bad week, and the crew tour fell at exactly the right time. Several thousand feet later, I was hooked. Even having gone parasailing since, I still think zipping still feels closer to flying.

That was Alaksa, where I was bundled up in full length jeans and a heavy jacket. If you wear that kind of thing in Costa Rica you’re going to pass out from heat exhaustion. Same thrill, different wardrobe required.

The longest zip on the run was over 1,000 feet; you could barely see the far end of it while standing on the platform. Looking at that very long distance was the only time I felt the slightest twinge of nerves. I’m very small, and the last time I zipped, they warned me that I so much as thought about braking on the long stretch (in Alaska we had to brake on our own, here they had a system rigged up to do it for us – definite plus) I would end up getting stuck. I did not want to get stuck. At any rate, I was most pleased when I managed to make it as far as the brake (about five feet from the landing platform),  before having to turn myself around and haul myself in hand over hand.

When we reached the bottom again we were back where we started, ready to collect our souvenir photographs, Costa Rica patches and whatever else we might feel desperately in need of. For myself I even got a free crystal out of the deal, because I only wanted one (they sold them in bags for 11.95), and the clerk said that he couldn’t very well charge me $12 for one stone, so I could just have it. Amusingly enough someone right after me asked if he could have one too, and was told, “no, for her only, because she is beautiful”…which made me smile. Though I didn’t feel particularly beautiful at the time.

Then of course, they fed us lunch. Any food cooked off the ship normally tastes blissful (which is why so many of the crew know where the best places to eat are in any port), but when it’s  actually good food after a day outdoors, and you’re sitting listening to the rain thunder down all around you – it’s that much better.

Just when you hit a point in these long contracts where you feel as if you’re about to fall apart – you have a day that seems to put you back together..

And oh yes, in case you were wondering… I was serious about the hummingbirds…