Isolating beaches, II: understanding

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Five days of serenity, though, and I started feeling the superficiality of my experience: barely a local spoke to me, kids playing in the street didn’t even flinch as I flashed a smile and my newfound hola. No one called out good-day on the beach, no one wanted me to buy their necklaces, an occasional pelican provided entertainment, a radio thumped instead of a djembe, a whole week without one single marriage proposal…where was my Africa?

For all of its seaweed and seafood, these beachy waters, along with their rotting coral reef apparently, were dead. In a country with rich natural resources (one organic ice cream/coffee shop run by an American boasted flavors whose ingredients all came from the country - everything from coconuts to strawberries), with monkeys howling me awake, unidentified mammals spraying around my bungalow and dendrobates kamakaziing my wobbly steps, I still found Costa Rica, lifeless.

Being a “tico” or “tica”, the major identifier seems to be a pride in enjoying what they call the “pura vida” - pure life. And with abundant, lush natural resources, they have pura vida surrounding them. One thing that has had me fixated on Costa Rica for years is its strict, appreciative environmental protection laws (something like 60% of your land must remain undeveloped). While I was self-selectedly and handicappedly restricted to one small square of this country, I’m aware that its landscape offers volcano to valley to Viejo, the coastal area we yoga people were sharing with the surfer dudes.

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Photos

dendrolicious
my favorite rainforest inhabitant! years of teaching little kids about these little suckers - and here they were kamikaziing my feet...errr, foot + cast.

true colors
as if the gradients of green weren't astounding enough - these provocative flowers lined the paths at the retreat...hummingbirds fluttering at chainsaw decibels...

what's wrong with this picture?
no kids. no hawkers. no fussballers. not even the lonely djembe player...