Confused and vulnerable, I walked
out of the gates of the minimalist San Jose airport into a shouting crowd of
people, each of whom was trying to locate someone. I got picked up by a
toothless shabby man who understood my ‘EF’ cries (the name of the language
company; Education First). Juan Carlos was the driver, a chubby lad in his late
30s who radiated joy. A guy in his mid-twenties, Luis, whom Juan Carlos knew
also joined in for the 3 and a half hour drive to Tamarindo. With all the
jungle and dirt roads around, the first ride felt like a video game. They
chatted all the way, not decreasing in vehemence. I tried really hard to
understand but the two ticos had their own game which my then A2 level
couldn’t touch. Luis at least talked some English. He promised that I was going
to have the time of my life. I don’t think a truer promise has been made to me.
The host family was wonderful. Costa
Ricans live far more communally than we Czechs can ever imagine. In the
morning, my host madre Carmen, the sweetest lady you’ll ever meet,
gesticulated towards the neighbouring house, “mi hermano primero,” then towards
the second, “mi hermano segundo,” and so on. I found out that our little
luxurious shed of a simple yet comfortable house was surrounded by her close
family, members of which hung out at Carmen’s most of the time just chatting
and chilling unless there was a soccer match on; they’d turn shouting and wild.
As for the communal living, the city looked ‘normal’ of course but in the
country where my lodging was, Costa Ricans were a different species than what
I’d previously known about humanity; prejudiced knowledge represented for
example by my mother’s favourite saying that the best place relatives are to be
found is in a photo album.
The school comprised of a flat house
with a huge conference room and two five-floor villas with accommodation for
the ones more inclined to party than to absorb the daily life of the locals.
Classrooms were spread about the buildings around a pool and a comfortable
patio with table tennis. “Monos!” someone shouted. Most of the people just
lazily went on their business. “Monos?” I enquired of my newly made German
friend. “Monkeys, Míra,” she explained, “somebody spotted monkeys, let’s check
it out.” And there they were, in the trees adjacent to the school, some of
which hovered over the patio. The first thing that struck me about the monkeys
was the extreme humanity of their face. But everybody knows, of course, that we
were made on the Sixth Day. They carried their younglings on their backs and
stared back at us until they got bored of the prying cameras and swung away
into the jungle.
The city of Tamarindo, which housed
our school, was a tourist destination riddled with surf shops and expensive
restaurants. Surfing was harder than it had seemed. “Paddle, paddle, paddle,
paddle!” One had to paddle, swim with your arms away from the shore to where
the waves were just about to break. Your arms were sore in a minute. But when
you do finally manage to stand up on your board and ride the wave with at least
some style you feel like a million bucks. Unless a 16 year old Swiss girl
manages to stand up 5 times seizing the wave with flair before you start
gaining some balance on the board. It disrupts one’s manhood. The classes were
very interactive with lots of talking and lots of girls. Hitting on most of
them, shockingly, furnishes a reputation as a perv. The teachers loved their
jobs and it was a marvel to perceive their way of talking; Costa Ricans dance
with their mouths employing all their facial muscles with joyous grace and when
they laugh they laugh with their heart.
A sophisticated European would opine
that they are a simple people, yet as Hemingway admitted, the more intelligent
one gets the lower amount of happiness follows. Ticos don’t have a
standing army and are wise and happy people to such a degree one has to cudgel
one’s brains as to what might be the cause. I blame the weather. Under the
equatorial sun the nature seemed to go mad. The bugs were enormous. A crab
crawled into my outdoor shack of a bathroom and stared at me as I was doing my
bodily duty. The one time I got lost in a jungle, half on purpose to experience
some adventure, I got attacked by 3 inch ginger ants that bite you as soon as
they land on your tender skin. “My ginger brethren, how could ye?!” One tree
was armed with thorns as big as a cockroach. Another tree comprised of at least
10 different species of different trees and creeping liane. There was a
touching scene as I went jogging one day (the humid climate actually made for a
swell run). There was a dry branch on this tree that should have fallen off to
the ground to die. But, a saviour liana which grew on that tree and which
entwined the branch held it mid-fall as if staging the cliché stock scene from
adventurous flicks where one holds the other by a slippery arm about to fall
down into the abyss. This was no cheap scene. It was natural, emotional and
beautiful.
The first three weeks were rather
studious with only two parties a week. People were great. My first impression
of most of them as spoiled brats proved wrong, at least with most of them.
Also, I felt old. My age of 21 was of the old fart sort compared to the 16-18
norm running through the campus. This however hasn’t hindered me in creating
some excellent international friendships, some of which, thanks to the somewhat
seedy invention of social networks, I cherish until today. And thanks to those
pro-pleasure individuals, the last two weeks of my stay at Costa Rica were
bathed in litres of Imperial and Bohemia (two of the best local ‘beers’),
spiced with the occasional vodka cocktail made from insanely cheap and
DELICIOUS fruit and fumed with bad outdoor skunk (the badness of the sensi was
rather surprising considering how close Jamaica was). There was Arizona (US),
Anthony (BE), Miles (US-CA), Sophie (CA-FR), Alexandra (US), Alicia (Swiss-British)
or Seňorita Naranja (NE), to list the social top drawer. There’s nothing like waking up
surprisingly free of a hangover to a blinding sunlight at 10am with a goddamn
dime of a Yankee friend gesturing her dewy beer towards a glorious morning toast.
And so I chugged. Pura vida!
 |
| Image credit: Jaromír Lelek |
The last thing I want to brag with
is my visit to the Río Celeste and the Monteverde national parks. The first
featured an astounding river with shifting colours due to minerals at the end
of which there was a spectacular waterfall where we swam. I exerted all my
effort to swim right under it but the torrent was too strong. ¡La fuerza de la naturaleza! Also, I saw the biggest spider and
butterfly of my life, both larger than the size of a textbook. Monteverde
harboured the adrenalin attractions. There was the infamous zip-lining. And
then there was the possibility of a bungee jumping. The girl before me got
stuck in the ropes and the operators had to climb down to her to untangle her.
She lost her shoes and I was losing my patience. And then I was standing at the
edge of a cabin which was hung on a ski-resort lift steel rope in between
mountain valleys. The drop was 120m. I couldn’t believe I was actually doing
this. My plan was to scream some funny high pitched catch phrase to amuse my
friends. But as soon as there was no solid ground under my feet, I lost my
tongue (also, the nice operators screamed: “¡Nooo! ¡El peligro!”). All I could manage to do was to
absorb the free fall; the incredibly increasing speed, the awkward position of
my stomach somewhere under my buttocks, sheer life wheezing by and into me.
As the rope pulled I flew back up,
and then back down, up and down. In the process I managed to burn my arm
against one of the safe ropes. Regardless, it was beyond fun.
Jaromír Lelek
