I'm horrible at keeping secrets, which made the first two weeks of February incredibly hard for me. In our group of twenty three there are three guys; a Valentine's Day surprise was Jesse's idea to start with, but David and I caught on right away. This was not something we could half-ass: if we were going to do something, it had to be over the top.
As if Anibal, or program coordinator, had known about our plans before we did, an overnight had been planned for the night before Valentine's Day.Our entire group would be hiking down an extremely muddy path into the Bosque Eterno de los Niños to spend a night at the San Gerardo Biological Station, a rustic two-story building two miles into the forest.
The hike in was beautiful, and the sun was just coming out after a few weeks of heavy rain. A few parts were a little dicey – a couple of people wiped out in the mud, while the rest of us had a number of close encounters. We walked slowly, stopping to check out nifty plants, a massive swarm of army ants, and a crazy millipede (did you know they secrete natural cyanide?), among other things. When we stopped to eat lunch, we counted monarch butterflies migrating past us on their extremely windy journey east – the cross-Costa Rica journey is impressive considering that on windy mornings I can barely keep my feet on the ground as I walk 1.5 mi to school, but not so amazing considering that some monarchs have been known to cross the Atlantic ocean as a part of their seasonal migration.
We were led by an exuberant British guide named Mark Wainwright, who has lived in Monteverde for ten years as an illustrator and a naturalist, working with scientists in the area illustrate field guides of birds, amphibians, and mammals, researching amphibian extinctions, and leading tours for people like us. Listening to him and talking to him, content aside, was amazing and fulfilling for two reasons – he not only speaks passionately about science but has the unique and enviable ability to talk about scientific concepts and findings in English instead of whatever language most scientists like talk about them in. Even cooler, he radiated the presence of someone who was unabashedly doing exactly what he wanted to do with his life, while making enough in the process to get by. In the words of the principal of my first high school, he was lucky enough to have his job (day-job) and his work (life-work) be the same thing.
Did I mention that Mark has the ability to make things spontaneously appear? Yeah, make that reason number three: on a night hike through the woods that Friday, he pulled firefly larvae (5mm long worms that emit a tiny glow that turns on and off like Morse Code) and a nocturnal cricket with 8 inch long antennae out of thin air, and then walked twenty meters up a creek bed, reappearing with a tiny colorful frog no bigger than my thumb.
By Saturday morning, Jesse, David, and I were ready to go: we had spent Wednesday and Thursday night making twenty hand-made Valentines (and drinking excessive amounts of beer), and the twenty roses, three boutonnières, and sixty chocolate truffles had been quietly tucked onto the back of the four-wheeler that carried our weekend's supply of food to the Station. Jesse and I had visited the two thrift stores in town (called “Ropa Americana” in Costa Rica: who knew that store owners throughout Central and South America could buy old clothes given away by people in the US...by the kilo?) and bought collared shirts and tuxedo vests, Jesse had carried in his fully-charged computer (there was no electricity that morning) with a Valentine's Day playlist made for the occasion, and I had hiked in with a carefully rolled and painstakingly hand-made sign for the occasion:
In an attempt to market authenticity, the sign outside of almost every small restaurant in Santa Elena says "Typical Food" at the bottom, except I had no idea there were that many different ways to misspell "typical."
We got up at 5:30 to set everything up and start cooking. Unfortunately, the heart-shaped pancakes idea failed pretty miserably, but with a lot of help from Anibal and the family who runs the Station, the breakfast itself turned was great. We avoided the kitchen, instead locking the girls upstairs as we set the table with the cards, roses, and chocolates. And that was that... they came downstairs and we served them breakfast. They were pretty surprised, especially after we had spent the last week being totally disinterested in their secret Valentine exchange that had happened the previous day.
After breakfast and another hike through the woods – we saw an Ornate Hawk Eagle (really rare – the first one Mark had ever seen) and what Mark claimed was a Puma track, but just looked to me like a pile of ruffled leaves – we were given the option of hiking out at our own pace. Amanda, Abby, Hillary and I gobbled down lunch and bolted immediately, giving us time to explore the small trail that we remembered splitting off from the main one, marked by a small sign that said nothing else but “catarata” (“waterfall”).
As we hiked in, I remember Amanda saying that she wouldn't be surprised to find Jesse, who had been the only person to get out before us (he has a tendency to sneak off without telling anyone), sitting at the top of the waterfall meditating. Twenty minutes later, we stumble upon one of the most hidden, idyllic-beautiful-indescribable-in-words-or-pictures scenes I have ever seen in my life. And Jesse did not disappoint: he had just beaten us to the base of the waterfall, and a few minutes later he fulfilled Amanda's prophecy (we all followed him up to the top right after I took this picture):
After sitting at the top of the waterfall and wading in the water at its base for a while, we hiked back out and ran into Mark, the last one to leave the Station, when we reached the main trail. It was perfect: I had been hoping for a chance to talk to him all weekend, and as we hiked up the muddy hillside, I got to ask him about his life (he has an eight year old son and moved to Monteverde on a whim after college, a year after spending a semester in Costa Rica studying abroad). We talked about sustainability, American politics, and Barack Obama (go figure...), and I am proud to say that not once did I mention working for the campaign – ever since the inauguration I have been trying really hard to not make campaign stories every other thing that comes out of my mouth.
Anyway, we made it back up in no time to meet up with the rest of the group at the trailhead. That day was the most beautiful and enjoyable I have had in a long time; to make it even better, I'm pretty sure my boots have never been that muddy in my life. At some point in the few days before Valentine's Day, I remember hearing Elise mention that her favorite question to ask at dinner parties is, “where is the most interesting place the shoes you are wearing right now have been?”
One day, I hope someone asks me that – until then, I'll be wearing my hiking boots to every dinner party I go to.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment