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Tortuguero, Day Two And Three
On day three here it rained. A lot. I ate, slept, walked, contemplated, talked, listened, watched and shared. It was a good day.
On day two, magic happened.
How does a friendship begin and how does one quantify or qualify the feeling of friendship? I am blessed by true friends at home and am so grateful.
I met two potential good friends yesterday. But why does it happen - what cosmic energy brings together people from different countries, seemingly randomly, those of different ages and disparate backgrounds? How do you know that signing up for a boat ride in the jungle will result in a special day? What spark of consciousness brings people together? Is it fate? Is it preordained? Whatever the cause and effect, I am so thankful.
At six am promptly, I met Roberto the welcoming tour guide by the dock. With us were two others - Germans by nationality, world travellers who are more than two months into a year long odyssey that will take them to most continents and definately change them as people.
Ten minutes into our adventure on the freshwater canals of Tortuguero, we three regonized a commonality- a sarcastic sense of humour, a childlike wonder of nature, a pureness of spirit. After an hour, we progressed to fast friends, sharing knowing looks and outbursts of laughter.
During the three hour tour (the three hour tour - obscure Gilligan reference for those older than the hills like me), we observed and tried to photograph monkeys, sloths, iguanas, toucans, egrets, turtles, and caimans along the many other boats trying to see the same things.
A shared humour, a sense of wonder, a recognition of the awe felt in the moment, helped immensely by the erudite and charming guide Roberto. Our day was underway. Breakfast together at the B&B open dining room facing the river, excitedly recounting our trek into the wild, and planning to take the two kilometer hike inside the jungle together. A quick change of clothes, and the fitting of the requisite rubber boots - for the trail is quite muddy. Actually, really muddy. Actually we looked really funny with the shorts and the boots, and I really should have worn longer socks. As you will see, it is a mistake I will not make again.
Once into the national park again, we stop to phtotgraph a spider the size of a fist. And begin to get eaten alive by mosquitoes (zancudo in Spanish - c'est tres cool, Zancudo). Stop, watch a gecko run past our feet. Whip out cameras. Feverishly apply bug repellant to ward off the horde of bloodsuckers, then ambling along, feeling the heat of the day, joking, laughing, a lizard - then awe for the leaf cutter ants, then another gecko. Then a lizard, more repellant, more sunscreen, freely sweating, a haunting bird call, drink water, liana wipes across our faces under the old growth trees and palms, ant colonies the size of an apartment, large growths hanging from branches, another gecko.
The ocean is near, so we detour for a potential breeze and a respite from the bugs, then back along the trail, sun filtering through, clothes wet, reapply bug spray. Another gecko. Still laughing, wanting to go to the end of the trail, the chaffing begins, the capillaries bursting along the surface of the skin on my lower legs, rubber boots rubbing viciously (is that why they're called rubber boots?). The mosquitos are finding their way into my boots, exacerbating the feeling. But we perservere, and are enjoying it all. At the end of the trail, we are pleased, but we have not seen any animals. Lots of geckos! Wonderful flora. We go to the beach for a break and look down the shore, drawn by about 12 large vultures jumping around on the beach. Fearing the worst, we decide to investigate, walking as quickly as we can in rubber boots, hampered by the sucking black sand, waving our arms to shoo these very large creatures away from the shore. We arrive to find baby green turtles. Disoriented, awoken too early in the day or through nature's cruelty, they have to deal with the heat and the circling predators while attempting their gallant run to the sea. They have not succeeded. I will not descibe the carnage we observed, for it sickened me. Our emotions were raw. Immense sadness, rage and then - we find one small turtle that is still alive. We watch. We wrestle with ourselves, all three of us, wanting to help this poor creature down the highway of searing black sand to the ocean, knowing we cannot interfere with nature's way and the instincts of our small friend. It struggles for a moment or two and then succumbs to the heat. We grieve. We try to commiserate together and then reluctantly bury our friend, and walk back towards the path in the jungle. Once again, we see geckos, more dumb geckos. We're sick of geckos. We're tired and hot and sad. The remorse hangs heavy in the forest, the silence deafening. Less laughter and more sarcasm. Damn geckos. Stupid ants. The path seems longer on the way back, hotter, foreboding. Each of us deep in our grief.
Then, a reprieve! A call, a sound, like a strange frog - but in the trees! We search, suddenly seeing two toucans, close and colourful. We watch and once again whip out our cameras. We are heartened. There is life where death has intruded.
Further on, near the entrance to the park, near the end of our journey, a sharp break of a branch, a drop of an unknown object on the forest floor. A series of rustling leaves and unknown noises bring us to a large tree, a wild banana tree perhaps, with white and black and brown occupants, no more than 10 meters away. A troop or a barrel of white faced monkeys, travelling along the forest canopy, finding food, eating and moving on. We watch, we try to photograph, but the light is wrong, so we just watch, and admire and appreciate. And get bitten by bugs.
Gracefully, they manoever among the branches, using their prehensile tails to agilely eat the fruits above. I see a mother with her baby on her back. This is incredible. They pause for a moment as they swing from tree to tree right above us, their faces looking directly at us, and I wonder if they know what we are. Then, they have moved on. We exit the park and work our way back to our temporary home for a well deserved shower. My legs are red and blotchy and itchy and I do not care.
This is mid afternoon, and over a cerveza under a tin roof, we decide we must go back to the beach before the dusk hits, to see if we can find some more baby turtles making their initial foray into the sea. We all feel we have to see success, since failure looked so grim. So off we go, arriving, suddenly running down the beach towards a group of like minded tourists, with a guide, and he's waving to tell us to hurry, and we run faster, arriving in time to see many small energetic baby green turtles reaching the sea. I am elated, and in awe. Their single-mindedness, their tiny flippers propelling them to the surf, where the receding wave takes them into the sea, only to deal with countless more dangers. Such is the life of this creature. I am filled with pathos, with acceptance of this great world, the danger and the beauty, the vicious and the sublime. We are all pleased and it blunts the grief.
A wonderful dinner followed by a sharing of photos, stories, emails and blogs. At 10pm that night, after spending almost every minute of the day together, we bid goodnight and in the morning before I wake, they were gone to their next destination. We may have an overlap in our plans next week, and I do hope we will be able to once again cross paths and enjoy another day filled with simple pleasure and discovery of nature and humanity. Friends perhaps forever, based on the adventures of one fateful meeting.
It was a day of wonder.
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