My Turn: Eco-trip to Costa Rica proved to be more than just recycling beverage containers
It began with the travel brochures for Costa Rica. They were beautiful — lush jungle, wildlife adventures and sparkling, blue oceans. My husband was hooked.
Now, there are many ways to experience Costa Rica. Ours was not for the faint-hearted. Upon arrival in San Jose we loaded ourselves into a five-seat prop plane for a one-hour flight to our first destination, the eco-lodge.
The pilot was an expert at crop dusting, tree trimming and aerial stunt flying because he incorporated all of it into our flight. Landing was fun. Only someone with a great deal of skill (and strong religious beliefs, apparently) can find the landing area that materializes as a strip of earth about the size of a Band-Aid, but only after you have already assumed the crash position and given yourself last rites.
My first mistake was failing to look up the definition of “eco-tourism” or “eco-lodge” before agreeing to the trip my adventurer husband planned. I assumed it meant you recycled your empty beverage containers. Did I mention we slept in tents, on cots, with screens instead of windows and one communal bathhouse? We had electricity only two hours a day, none of it in our tent.
At dinner our first night we got a brief orientation about all the things that can kill you in the jungle. Turns out just about everything can or, at least, make you very sick.
As night fell, bats came out and frogs, large ones, began to croak. Other things began to make their sounds, too, but I didn’t want to know what they were.
After dinner we went back down the hill to our tents with our flashlights. At some point I became lucid enough to notice the ground parting in front of me like the Red Sea. This is because waves of insects and reptiles were hurrying to get out of our way. My trusty flashlight beam picked up a spider large enough to require a license plate.
My 12-year-old, exhausted from the first day of travel, became hysterical. But I had to maintain calm if I was to have any hope of convincing the kids they could sleep in their own tent by themselves.
Being in Costa Rica was like being in God’s “pick-a-part” lot. It’s as if God said, “Gee, I have all these extra insect parts, now what can I build?” Every insect reminded me of the toys from under the bad kid’s bed in “Toy Story.” The aptly named “Halloween crab” is purple and orange with bright white spots on its back. At least that’s what I remembered before I started screaming.
That first night we took a ridiculously small can of insect repellent and sprayed it liberally around the screens, doorway and steps of the kids’ tent. This was like putting out whipped cream as a roadblock for a Mack truck, but we convinced the kids they’d be fine. And they were. I, on the other hand, stayed up all night trying to convince my bladder to hold on because I didn’t want to walk to the bathroom in the dark.
The next few days brought adventures for which I was completely unprepared physically. There was hiking in the national parks, horseback riding and jungle canopy tours. I dutifully participated in all of them lest I be left behind by my family.
I learned a lot. Capuchin monkeys, for example, although real cute up close, can probably shred your legs like string cheese — particularly if you insist on taking flash photos of them.
Poison dart frogs are called that for a reason and, unless you want to see what medical care is like in Costa Rica, it’s best you resist the urge to touch them.
“Jesus Christ lizards” really can walk on water, but they’re also so abundant on land that you find yourself saying “Geez-US!” every time you almost step on one.
You can do a zip line tour, which is pretty much the equivalent of strapping yourself to a thin cable at the top of, say, the Matterhorn, and letting go. You slide along the cable at breakneck speed from one platform to another. I wondered who was laughing louder at me, my husband or the ever-present howler monkeys.
Eventually, I realized I’d relaxed. The Costa Rican brochures came alive for me. Our kids had a ball and we experienced an amazing part of the world. My husband is already planning a return trip. I think I’ll go with them, as long as I can stay poolside at a hotel from time to time.
