CHAPTER 13
Our time to leave the Island of Ometepe came as well- we had a soccer match to get to in Costa Rica! Tim, Amy, Kacey and I wedged ourselves into the truck, took the ferry back to the mainland, blazed through the Nicaragua-Costa Rica boarder without incident, and were driving the streets of old San Jose by that evening. We found a cheap hotel, and went out to find some food. Turns out that not too many restaurants stay open past 9pm on a weekday in downtown San Jose, so we settled for McDonalds. This wouldn’t have been so bad, but it was actually our second visit to the golden arches, and second double-quarter pounder with cheese on the day- a stop prompted by a delicious looking McFlurry advertisement right when we crossed the border turned into a full on greasy extra value meal.
San Jose surprised us by its modern feel. The center had none of the old cobbled streets lined with colonial buildings we had come to expect from most towns in Central America. Instead, it looked more like a busy section of New York or downtown Chicago, with tall office and apartment buildings and people bustling everywhere, albeit this zone of modernity was only a few dozen blocks wide, and the buildings were not quite so tall or distinct as you might think. The other thing that really took us by surprise was the absurd number of prostitutes walking the streets. As soon as you got a few blocks from the main center, every corner was clustered with scantily clad “women” indiscreetly letting you know what they were selling as you walked by. I say “women”, because most of them close to our hotel had deeper voices then me, and a five o’clock shadow. You might wonder why we would be out walking the streets in the middle of the night to witness all of this, but the truth is, those industrious Costa Rican transvestites where plying their trade at every hour of the day. This usually illegal practice in most places I’ve been, is not only sanctioned by the Costa Rican government, but I have to imagine even encouraged for economic reasons. A local we met at a restaurant told us that nearly 4 million people visit Costa Rica every year, and that almost a quarter of them, 1 million mostly middle aged men from the US and Europe, come to San Jose each year for what he tactfully described as a “sex vacation”.
Seeing as how we were in town for a very different reason, to see the Costa Rica vs. Trinidad World Cup qualifying soccer match, we avoided the scene on the street corners, and spent our time tracking down tickets and Costa Rican football team paraphernalia. With blazing red and blue team jerseys, our rain coats, and only some cash and our small camera in our pockets, the four of us headed off to the stadium a few hours before the match was supposed to start so we could soak up the festive atmosphere and see a Latin American version of tailgating. As we got closer to the stadium there were fewer and fewer people, and we began to wonder if it was the right day for the match. We rounded a corner in the street and could see the stadium… and it was utterly deserted. There were big cranes set up in the field, and half of the bleachers were missing! Rather frantically, we asked a security guard what was going on, and he explained that the main stadium was getting renovated, and that the match was being held at the old stadium on the other side of town. We had walked an hour and a half in the pouring rain, in the wrong direction, and were now very close to missing the match entirely! A quick taxi ride back to the center, and then a minibus overflowing with fans to the correct stadium, and we were in our seats with a few minutes to spare. The rain didn’t let up the entire match, but that didn’t stop the chanting crowd from standing on their seats the whole game and letting the Trinidad team know what would happen to them if they won. Fortunately for them, Costa Rica blew them away 4-0, and the crowd, and us, went home happy.
We dropped Tim and Amy off at the bus station early the next morning, and then said “adios” to San Jose. A four hour drive brought us to Monteverde, an alpine village known for its adventure sport opportunities, in particular something called a canopy tour. I knew what a zipline was, and knew that a canopy tour is made up of a bunch of ziplines through the trees of the jungle, but I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
Picture something similar to what Sean Connery sets up in the tops of the trees of the Amazon in the movie Medicine Man. Then picture what Evil Canevil would do with a similar setup if he was let loose on the jungle, and you might get an idea of what we had in store for ourselves. After donning a climbing harness, helmet, and a pair of work gloves with thick leather pads sewn to the palms, we took a short bus ride to the top of the mountain. We climbed a rickety metal ladder to a small platform in the top of an enormous tree. The guide quickly hooked me to a small pulley connected to a thick wire cable that was wrapped around the tree on our end, and disappeared into the fogy distance of the jungle canopy in the other direction. I barely had time to turn around to Kacey and comment on how high we were, when the guide tells me to keep my legs up, only brake by using my leather glove on the cable if I see the guy at the other end tell me to, and he pushes me off the platform into the abyss. It felt as if you were flying, literally flying like a bird through the jungle. The trees were whipping by on all sides, some coming close enough that the leaves slapped against your cloths. You probably would have been able to hear the screeching monkeys and birds frantically trying to escape out of my path if they weren’t drowned out by my own Tarzan yell. The fog was so dense, that you couldn’t see where you were headed or what was coming next. Then suddenly a giant tree materialized in front of me. The cable was attached to its trunk, and I was hauling towards it at a ridiculous speed. I could barely make out a guy standing on the platform, but I couldn’t see his single to slow down. He wasn’t doing anything, just standing there, apparently unaware that I was about to come crashing into him like a rocket. I frantically pulled down on the cable with my leather padded gloves, but to no effect- the wire was wet and offered no friction. Right about when I thought I was done for, and I was trying to decide which part of my body would be best to smash into the tree first, the guy on the platform pulled on a rope with a carabineer on the end that was attached to the cable I was racing down. My pulley hit the carabineer, which immediately tensioned the rope, and the guide let it pull from his hands at just the right speed so that I came to a screeching stop, legs and arms flailing, about a foot from the immovable tree trunk. It was a mini version of how they help jetfighters land on aircraft carriers using a cable to catch the hook hanging from the back of the airplane. When Kacey came flying in a few seconds after me, she had the same distressed look on her face, but when she was safely standing on the platform, we were both grinning ear to ear and jabbering about how terrifying, but cool it was. Two hours, and twelve more of these incredible rides brought us back down to the bottom of the mountain- the last cable was over a kilometer long, strung over a deep valley, and in the middle we must have been a good 200 to 300 feet above the trees tops. With our hearts still pounding from the excitement, we ran to the truck and drove as fast as we could down from the mountain village- we were trying to catch the 3pm ferry from Punta Arenas to the Nicoya Peninsula: it was 1:30pm and we were about 1 hour and 45 minutes away.
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