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COSTA RICA SLOTH

Many new experiences filled our senses.  Lush life-force energy permeated her misty, vine filled rain forests.  The windiest roads imaginable led us literally above the clouds, taking us, curve by curve, to the domain of the volcanoes.  Beautiful beaches, flowers and butterflies surrounded us.  We saw (and heard!) howler monkeys,  toucans, and parrots. A very hairy sloth posed for us in a tree right above the road.  The quite active volcano that we visited stayed shrouded behind clouds during our stay at its base, but gifted us with some roars that we felt into the core of our being. We soon realized that Spiritual intent for the journey didn’t exclude very 3-D experiences.  Staying heart-centered throughout it all was the lesson.   The “real world” did manage to intrude a bit the first day in Costa Rica, and it translated to some feelings of real frustration.  I was still trying to figure out how to remember what was safe to eat and drink, and I forgot to follow just about all of the most important food safety guidelines my first day of travel.  We had prepared well for the journey, having several long talks with seasoned world traveler Martin Gray. Martin has created the most visited Sacred Sites website on the Internet, after many years of travel. With all that I knew, I still slurped right out of the water fountain at the San Jose airport.  So much for the “only bottled water” rule.  Then I ordered fresh veggies and some seafood in a restaurant.  Wrong again … local water and bacteria is on fresh fruit and vegetables, so they should be avoided unless personally peeled and cleaned, and seafood may be from polluted waters; hepatitis and bacteria were things to be concerned about.  I had failed miserably, knowing that a mistake in the wrong place could mean months of dysentery, though Costa Rica was a fairly safe starting point.  My nerves were a bit shaken.

It is interesting, as I look back on this, that it was water that was a potential source of sickness. I did feel inherently protected throughout the trip, and I soon learned to use muscle testing when I needed guidance on specific foods or drinks.  As I let go and surrendered, I realized that there were to be no “accidents” on this journey. 

We had rented a SUV for transportation, and we were in for some not too pleasant surprises when we went to get it.  Our requested automatic transmission vehicle was not available.  No record of the request was ever found. Dan had never quite gotten the hang of a stick shift, and he expressed this by explaining that he had wrecked everything with a clutch that he had ever tried to drive, including a tractor!  I hadn’t driven a stick in years, and I was already unsettled by what I had observed of the country’s driving style.

I had witnessed driving unlike any I had seen in America during my shuttle rides in San Jose, as well as roundabouts that seemed to have no obvious rules of right of way. There just didn't seem to be many road signs, and even highway exit signs were nonexistent.  We were told we had to look for landmarks to know when to exit highways.  My Spanish was not even good enough to be considered rusty, so I was already very sure that my only place in a car in Costa Rica was as a passenger. 

It took over four hours and a switch to another rental car company for an automatic vehicle to finally get to us, and we had to pay a large sum out of pocket for it.  We stayed fairly patient, though Dan paced a lot, considering our desire to just get going on this much anticipated first day.  We prayed that this was no portent regarding the energy of the trip.  The vehicle that we finally got was a full size SUV and that ended up being a very good thing a few days later on a road far more challenging than “four-wheel drive only”.  It also carried us well upon some roads that seemed to literally enter the sky.

We left San Jose very gratefully, and carefully.  On the journey to our first stop, Arenal, we drove at times for as many as 50 miles without any road signs, through rural, mountainous areas.  I soon found myself losing faith that we were even going in the right direction.  Maps are little good when roads are not marked in any way.  As much as I have not cared to wait for road construction, it was quite enlightening to see what happens when roads are not at all maintained, not for years at a time.  Huge holes concealed by puddles would loom ahead on these barely paved mountain roads, as we traversed them in the rain.  Large chunks of the road that hung over the mountain's edges had literally fallen away, and a traffic cone was the only warning of the danger.  I tried to ease my fear by staying focused on our lodge in Arenal, knowing that it offered gorgeous chalets with amazing views of the volcano.  From the photos it looked almost too close to the action for comfort!