Dunbar, one of the memorable characters in Joseph Heller`s ”Catch 22,”
was right. He spent vast quantities of time lying in his hospital bed staring at the ceiling. He said he was ”increasing his lifetime by cultivating boredom.”
I agree with that philosophy. But didn`t live it until our second trip to Costa Rica.
Our first trip was a year ago in April. My wife and I talked with several friends who had visited this Central American country, just above Panama, and got the same feedback from all of them:
They all would go back as soon as they possibly could.
That`s the best recommendation for an unexplored country, so we booked an eight-day trip from Los Angeles. And we landed in the capital city of San Jose, in the center of the country at an altitude of 3,000 feet.
The street life there could be a duplicate of the opening scene in
”Treasure of Sierra Madre.”
Cast of characters
We stayed at the Gran Hotel in the center of town, which has a wonderful open-air bar and restaurant that faces the main plaza. A visitor can sit for hours surrounded by shoeshine boys, lottery vendors, marimba players and various shifty-looking sorts who might have been sent in by central casting.
Our first trip out of San Jose was to Tortuguera National Park on the Atlantic Coast, a 25-minute flight from the capital. The park area is home to the green sea turtle, which hatches its eggs in a protected beach each summer. The fishing is legendary here, and the jungle is reputed to be home to monkeys, alligators, sloths and birds.
The plane ride takes about 25 minutes from San Jose. We had reservations on a tour to Tortuguera for 9 the morning after our arrival, but when we returned from our first night`s dinner there was a note from our tour group to the effect that the tour was starting at 5:30 a.m.
I don`t know about you, but on vacation I don`t get up at 5 unless there is a fire in my room. I called the tour agency and told them that we were leaving at the scheduled time and that I would expect them to pick us up at a decent hour.
They, of course, came by at 5:20 anyway and woke us up. We sent them on their way.
We got out of bed at 8, called the tour agency to pick us up and got sent to Tortuguera in a plane filled with the day`s beer ration for thirsty travelers.
Critters stay away
Tortuguero is hot, moist and occupied by tour guides with wry senses of humor. Upon arrival, we were encouraged to take a walk down the nearest jungle path, stop and wait a half hour quietly. The animals would come out and we would be amazed.
At the end of a long wait we saw nary a mosquito. (Anyone else remember snipe hunting?) We surmised that all the animals were lurking in the woods, scratching and musing on the behavior of humans who stood still for 30 minutes at a time and weren`t that interesting to look at anyway.
Our tour through the jungle by boat the next day was relatively tame compared with the jungle tour in Disneyland. There seemed to be one of each animal and one only, as if each had been staked out by the visitors bureau so that viewers might not be disappointed.
The Tortuga Lodge, where we stayed for two nights, was as laid back as a commercial enterprise can be. Notable features included communal tables for dining and a help-yourself bar run on the honor system: You keep track of your own tab.
The next portion of our first trip was to the opposite side of the country, to Quepos, a small town on the Pacific coast and the entry point to the Manuel Antonio National Park. Our trip lasted four days last April, and after the first day there we were already making plans to return for a longer visit.
Monkey business
Manuel Antonio is a small park, home to white-faced monkeys, three-toed sloths, iguanas and tourists. It is bordered by three swimming beaches in the form of small bays, everyone`s dream of a jungle paradise, warm and humid and in a lush tropical setting. There was little to do but swim, sun and sleep. Each day went by as slowly as a week.
(In April we had stayed at the most expensive hotel in the area, the Mariposa, an elegant hotel owned by Americans and so perfect that we felt that we weren`t in a foreign country.)
Our preference for our return trip was for something a little funkier. So when we took a walk down to the park we looked for something more laid back. We made reservations at the Vela Bar Hotel.
The place, a real find for the relaxing life, is an eight-room hotel-bar- restaurant (phone 506 77-04-13) about 100 yards from the beach and two blocks from the entrance to the park.
Modern jazz can be heard in the open-air bar, and the staff is as friendly as if you were the owner and not the guest. There are plenty of eating places within a short walk of the hotel, and we tried to sample as many as we could.
Fish stories
One evening, for example, we were eating at a local open-air cafe and decided to order a dish that we had eaten two days before, uno pescado grande, a big fish. Enough for two for about $12 at the then-current rate of exchange. We waited an hour and a half and still hadn`t been served. When I questioned the waiter he said, ”Senor, it takes a long time to cook such a big fish.” And he was right!
We eventually were served a 6-pound, 3-foot-long red snapper, which had been fried. It was more than enough for the whole restaurant.
When six burly surfers saw the size of our order, they ordered uno pescado grande and in just 10 minutes, they each got a 1-pound fish.
Another day we decided to take a boat tour along the coast and booked passage on the 25-passenger Byblos, advertised as a 55-foot pleasure cruiser. It was 40 feet long and 15 feet wide, so you could say it was a 55-foot boat. There were no other passengers. We were treated to our own private yacht, a crew of four and two 18-year-old finalists from the Costa Rican Bikini Team. The girls were along for the ride, and to amuse the crew.
We spent the last few days at the Monteverde Rain Forest. A botanist`s dream atop the continental divide, it was donated by a group of Quakers who settled the area in 1951 and noted quickly that the area was being deforested at a furious rate.
Interested parties still can purchase land to add to the reserve (phone the Monteverde Conservation League at 506 61-29-53).
Road warriors
The road from the paved highway to the rain forest was 21 miles of the worst road of our nightmares: rocks, ruts, ominous oil slicks and a constant feeling that all of our tires were going to shred at once. Take a bus tour and leave the driving to anyone else.
Once we safely reached the rain forest we immediately spied a three-toed sloth in the tree outside the bathroom window of our hotel. That was the only animal we saw in the rain forest. We had made a four-hour slog through the mud of the cloud forest, but we saw nary a jaguar, tapir, monkey or quetzal.
If you are interested in exotic plants this would be your destination, but I doubt that we will return to Monteverde.
We will come back to Costa Rica, however, because the people are as friendly and warm as you could want. The food is plentiful and tasty and the water drinkable. And our 10 days spent at Manuel Antonio seemed like several months.
Dunbar was right. We felt as if we had had a yearlong vacation, all for the cost of a two-week holiday. And I feel as if we have increased our lifetime. In Costa Rica you believe you could live forever.
