In the Green Kingdom of the Ticos

Nel regno verde dei Ticos

Here we go!! Destination Costa Rica... I (Andrea) in the company of Stefano, on the wings of "mamma Swiss" leave a Barcelona in full spring and, passing through cloudy Zurich, arrive late in Miami, a Latin American melting pot, which welcomes us with its sun now almost at sunset and a frightening muggy heat. It's 20 May; the habit drives us, not without some difficulty, to get through the US checks and, smoking a cigarette, we think about what to do since the delay has made us miss the connection with American Airlines. There we go...the unknown Martinair Air could help us...in no time at all we find ourselves on board, surrounded by beautiful Dutch hostesses but also by a voluminous Ecuadorian lady who, heedless of my squinting eyes, plagues me with the story of her life and keeps at it until almost landing.

I'm exhausted, I still have the drone of "Pili"'s endless tale in my ears when I find myself at the arrivals of the modern airport of San José, capital of Costa Rica. A city with little history, once anciently called Villanueva del Belmonte, founded in the times of Columbian colonisation, San José appears dark and not very reassuring to the tired eyes of the newly arrived traveller. Hostal Pangea, in the Amòn district, will be our home for this night in San José: not bad, picturesque and very crowded; the hostel has always been a place of encounters and exchanges, of fleeting acquaintances and of friendships that last an evening. We have a drink and admire the beautiful view of San José from the height of this endless terrace.

The city, always relegated to second place compared to the first capital, Cartago, doesn't have great attractions, but it remains a mandatory stop before, during and after any trip to Costa Rica. The next morning we are in the company of some brave Costa Ricans and head by bus towards the Caribbean zone. Destination Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. The Caribbean breeze greets us already at the first necessary stop at Puerto Limón; armies of palms greet us, the warm, humid sun caresses our skin, everything lights up, the green, a constant of this journey, begins to predominate... Without a doubt, Puerto Viejo is a wonderful place. Surrounded by black, white, abandoned and wild beaches... the Caribbean coasts of Costa Rica are an uninterrupted series of coves, coral reefs, very green palm groves, natural parks.

Small clusters of colourful little houses give that cheerful touch; the black people (a legacy of an English exploitation of the Jamaican community) smile at us; we like Puerto Viejo. Cecilia, the abundant owner of the Apartamentos Agapi, grabs us, convinces us and transports us to her complex, near the remote Playa Cocle. We spend days under the banner of a beautiful though greenish sea thanks to the inclemency of a slightly cloudy sky, of fruit cocktails, of fish cooked with the typical ingredients of Caribbean cuisine, of evenings listening to music, of bike rides in the middle of the forest in search of the most beautiful beaches. Often deserted, given the low season, the place really is a dream.

The die-hard rastas sell their homemade products even crouched on the trees, girls stroll by, music starts in the morning and ends late at night, the palms keep swaying, the scent of coconut, eyes dazzled by the shades of green, the few tourists present, this is total relaxation...how wonderful!! We leave Puerto Viejo and, after a second night in the cells (as Stefano calls them) of the Pangea hostel in San José, we head south. The grandeur of the South Seas, the Pacific Ocean, awaits us. The bus journey winds through the verdant heights of the Central Valley, then descends towards Jacó and the Pacific coast. The spectacular coast rises and falls, the glimpses of this dark blue sea, its violent waves and a landscape different from the Caribbean one accompany us until our arrival in Quepos, a small town a few km from the nearby and famous Manuel Antonio park.

..Manuel Antonio

We end up in the gloomy Cabinas Ramirez, in the company of enormous red crabs, all kinds of shellfish, red ants and an endless array of colorful birds, trying to settle into this somewhat rough-and-ready complex... But the wallet is crying and we have to cut it short. The room is scary, the bathroom too, the owner's warnings as well... in short, these cabins really don't seem like a good choice. We quickly leave the room and go see what the air is like on the beach, our first contact with the chilly Pacific water, drinking a "batido en agua" with a purplish sky announcing yet another breathtaking sunset.

The park we visit in the following days doesn't disappoint our expectations: of course the $20 guide isn't worth it, we see the monkeys on our own, the iguanas (even though we'll later find out they're their distant cousins) are everywhere, the sloths are almost invisible, a horrible big spider winks at us, little raccoons look at us in amazement, a few beehives, a few toucans... in short, the guide is both useful and useless. We learn quite a few things but all things considered it didn't really help us that much. But if the park is truly worth it, it's thanks to its phantasmagoric beach: Playa Manuel Antonio. Simply fantastic: compared to Caribbean or Thai beaches, the beach is wider but the continuous motion of the tide devours the beach, reaches the branches of palms felled by the fury of the wind, kisses little evergreen trees...

A stratospheric vegetation frames this bay of wonders, simply beautiful... and indeed crowded with whitish, wonder-struck "gringos." We pay the due colones and come back the second day, just to pay homage to this monument of nature, to this Eden of water and forest. The sun smiles on us, the food is good, the "casados" are plentiful, the "gallo pintos" fill us up in the morning, the fruit drinks quench our thirst and the fruity alcohol gets us a little drunk at night. Rather than going back into the jaws of the crabs in that horrid dive, we prefer to stay out... among the park trails we run into the fearsome doctor Betge again, a man from Ticino looking for business in Costa Rica, and the stand-by Swiss hostess (like US), Najpa. Father and daughter, seen on the flight from Zurich and met again in Miami, we like them and decide to go to dinner together in the nearby village of Quepos.

We eat at a Mexican place and drink a super fruit-and-rum cocktail in a trendy little spot, before saying goodbye. We discover that the likeable doctor Betge, who seems a bit like the embodiment of an old kapo from a German lager, explains to us that he has come here to invest his Swiss francs in buying Tek wood plants... he says they'll make a ton of money. Doubtful, we let him be... but from there we realize that Costa Rica really seems like a super hypermarket of plants... What a strange contradiction!! On one hand they undersell and sell, on the other they condemn the felling of a tree as if it were the murder of a man... Something doesn't add up for me. The more I travel around these parts, the more I notice the USA's overwhelming power over these countries, contradictions like these are typical here as in Cancún, as in Managua, in Panama City or in San Pedro Sula.

We leave Manuel Antonio with some reservations and after an endless journey together with the likeable Simón we arrive in La Fortuna... Here, like Michael Douglas, we're not looking for the green stone but only to catch a glimpse of the imposing Arenal volcano, terror and fortune of this likeable and peaceful little town. Costa Ricans are well off, they're peaceful and kind, maybe just one note... is it possible that for us Spanish speakers of many years, it's impossible to start a conversation in the language of Quixote without first going through the distant English phonetics?? The Volcano made its fiery voice heard, seriously, for the last time, in 1968, killing 80 people and burying two farming villages: since then it sometimes comes back to take the life of some careless tour guide, even though it seems destined for a long hibernation.

They're celebrating the 49th anniversary of the district of San Carlos, one of the richest districts in the country, the town is celebrating... parades of infantrymen, traditional dances, speeches and celebrations follow one another. The festive atmosphere makes everything more genuine, it seems like a scene from a disaster movie... the town festival, a sleeping volcano, us the protagonists... Luckily nothing will happen. The people have learned to know and respect the volcano... and here's where I wanted to get to: Costa Rica seems to be one of the few countries in the world that has undoubtedly managed to enter into a different relationship with the nature around it: respect, observation and preservation. It seems to be light years ahead of many European countries that strut around, hiding enormous environmental disasters within themselves.

In the following days we visit the wonderful Rio Fortuna waterfall, a jet of blue water, in a green and lush canyon, natural pools, the cloud forest, the tropical mist... wow!!! Despite an insistent rain we decide to entrust ourselves to the expert hands of a guide who will lead us into the bowels of the Arenal volcano park, a journey within a journey, a mission in the mud and under a blanket of dark green, the plants that touch you, that breathe on you, the eyes of the howler monkeys that scrutinize you, the sloths that ignore you, the suffocating humidity that seeps into your bones, oxygen, oxygen and more oxygen. Last stop... what a worthy conclusion... the boiling hot springs of the Baldí complex... A series of artificial pools in a super fake but fantastic setting. Boiling springs, from 39º degrees to the terrible 67º... we don't want to leave anymore, who would move from here.

We quench our thirst with an out-of-this-world piña colada, sitting with the hot water covering us up to our waist, the steam from the springs, the vegetation, the night... how lovely! We return to San José, the usual 4-hour journey... last night at the Pangea hostel, a mind-blowing encounter. Matias Mahia, a great reiki master from Tijuana, unknown to us... we meet him and he overwhelms me. He tells us about his life, the basic theories of reiki, a different philosophy, a difficult but fascinating way of conceiving the world. His presence brings warmth, brings cheerfulness... his eyes seem those of a special person. What remains are conversations from a distant night on a terrace lit by the bright lights of a San José that doesn't want to sleep, but they are words not thrown to the wind, they are important conversations, they are coincidences that are not coincidences.

Farewell, very green Costa Rica, see you again, likeable Ticos... will we meet again? Matias says yes...

Happy travels, Pura vida a todo el mundo...

Andrea