I devour a typical Costa Rican breakfast consisting of black beans and rice, carefully named ‘Gallo Pinto’ and shortly after having finished the heavy and nutritious meal , we drive to Florencia to visit one of my friend’s family businesses and relish on freshly picked starfruit served with a pinch of salt.
The landscape in Costa Rica changes from lush to lusher. The plains are replaced by banana and pineapple plantations. Green, aromatic and humid, their scent inundates the windy road that punches right across the Arenal Volcano, where the GPS lady tell us we are close to the border with Nicaragua and a detour towards a dirt road is needed.
We rent grey wellingtons and walk through a muddy trail across pure untouched rainforest. On the last leg, the roaring of a distant waterfall announces a mirage. A river of light blue waters, a river of water as blue as the sky, divine as only nature can be.
Rio Celeste owns its colour to a combination of minerals upstream. At a point called “El Tenidero”, clear waters combine with calcium carbonate and sulfur from the nearby volcanos, giving the water a rather turquoise tone, even on cloudy days.
At the waterfall, droplets trickle down everyone’s wet clothes and the almost deafening roaring makes it impossible to gather words to describe this immaculately beautiful place in nothing more than silent awes.
The afternoon consists on a long drive across the country. From the Northern valleys climbing up the mountains towards the capital, the sun setting shortly before the road becomes dizzy under the moonlight.
Once home, I write:
The next morning, I am in the mood for a challenge.
In Central San Jose, the heat emanates from the recently rain washed buildings like sulfur-peppered clouds. Buses fight their way with taxis across crammed boulevards and colonial buildings rest shoulders against brand new glass apartment towers.
I grab a banana and a sliced pinneaple before boarding a bus at ‘Estacion del Caribe’ and sit on one of the last rows of a rather empty bus.
The valley climbs up in lush green mountains and the road claims victory on each hill, on each curve, like a solitary explorer extending its long arm looking for the sea. The descend ends on a long esplanade where we stop for almost an hour with no apparent reason. A woman smiles at my impatience and exclaims: ‘this is Costa Rica, we are never in a rush here’.
At the beehive-like town of Puerto Limon, I transfer onto an old and noisy bus heading South, towards the border with Panama.
I stand up for most of the one-hour journey, sharing my personal space with fellow passengers, luggage and tied hens. At times the road swerves left and a piece of the Caribbean can be seen in between the banana plantations, the noise of San Jose or Puerto Limon a mere memory by now.
In Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, signs in different languages sell colourful hammocks, announce surf lessons and sell food.
I step off the bus and inhale in big gasps. I run towards the sea, drop the backpack in the golden sand, take my top off and dip straight in.
First leg of the challenge complete. I have visited the Atlantic and I have reset the clock to twenty three hours to reach the Pacific.
I lay in the sand and nap for a few minutes. An American and a German girl join me in my patch of paradise and smoke weed under the canopy. We chitchat and play with three puppies digging shallow holes in the sand next to us until we are hungry and venture into town for gallo pintos.
Stuffed with food and memories of a few hours in the Caribbean, I hop on the bus to Puerto Limon, where I have a large cup of coffee before transferring onto a larger bus bound for San Jose.
Once at the desolated Terminal del Caribe, I take a taxi to Escazu and I am surprised by a family meeting.
‘My friend is having a family meeting, as her grandma passed away a few days prior to my arrival. I am sitting here presented with an assorted buffet of Costa Rican delicacies and “picadillos”, each one kindly presented by her uncle like a proud chef: chorizo, papaya, cornbread, beans and a superb “budin”.’
Early the next morning, I wander around the house when everyone is still asleep. I touch the wooden details embroidered in the door frames of well-lit large rooms. It is a bungalow with pure Central American character, a jewel in the heart of Escazu. Time left to complete the challenge: six hours.
A modern dual carriageway descends from Heredia like a fighter jet. Trucks slam breaks in the soft bends and the tall eucalyptus of the mountains surrender to the palm trees of the Pacific Coast. We cross the most contaminated river in Costa Rica, now home of several hundred overgrown crocodiles, and enter the town of Jaco, emerging from behind the trees as a carnival of cafes, souvenir shops and holiday homes.
The almost clouded sky is blue like the sea, and the sand, from volcanic origin, is black like melted lava. I change into my trunks and dive in the Pacific Ocean, reaching both Oceans when the clock marks twenty two hours and two minutes.
I rent a surfboard and spend the day with my stomach rubbing against the hardened wax. The waves softly crash and the manta-rays compete against me on who catches a better wave, unaware that I have not reapplied sunscreen and my skin is about to feel the burn of it.
I do not recollect the return journey to San Jose. I fall asleep shortly before we cross the croc-infested river in Jaco and wake up near Escazu.
Showered and laden in aloe vera, I order my last ‘casado’ , downed with a large glass of guanabana juice at the local restaurant.
We converse about the current visit, about bygone days in Guayaquil and about future visits in Europe. The night in Central America is warm and quiet, charming and natural. It is Pure Life.
THE FLYING CAMBA 