Dusty Adventures: Costa Rica
It’s cool in the rainforest. The temperature around you drops as soon as you walk under the canopy, like the A/C was left on overnight.
We had been walking up the mountain for awhile, in and out of the crisp canopy air. The sound of the ocean waves crashed on our right, slowly fading the higher we climbed. As we hiked, we watched red macaws fly overhead, screeching their ugly sound as they flashed their beautiful feathers. We saw golden orb spiders weaving metallic webs, ferns that curled closed if you brushed up against them, and tiny frogs so poisonous that you dared not touch them at all. We saw many wonders as we climbed the mountain, but none of the beautiful creatures were what we had travelled so far to see. After a few more hours of unfiltered nature, hiking past moment after moment that stole our breaths, we finally arrived at our destination.
She was beautiful. Gnarled and massive, winding and thick, the ancient fig tree had a trunk that was many times too large to wrap my arms around and so tall that it had long ago burst defiantly into the sunlight. She didn’t move, the towering fig, but every part of her seemed to be alive. Insects and amphibians crawled all over her, and birds swooped in and out of her flowing branches. Vines hung from her massive limbs like lazy snakes, and smaller trees had begun to grow from nutrient-rich grooves in her bark. I looked at our guide, smiling so hard that my cheeks began to hurt.
He laughed, “Are you ready to climb?”
In a few moments, I was strapped snuggly into a climbing harness, a huge safety cord stretching for what seemed like miles into the air.
“Ready when you are,” the guide said.
I reached up, running my hands over the smooth bark of the fig tree while I searched for a finger hold. From where I was standing at the tree’s base, I couldn’t see the top of the tree or the bell swinging gently in the breeze.
“Remember,” said the guide. “Once you reach the bell, give it a ring and then take a moment before you come down.” I nodded and pulled myself up into the tree.
As I slowly climbed the living giant, the entire jungle came to life around me. Huge ants ran over the tree’s bark, and birds and monkeys called out into the branches. The air became warmer, and the smell of damp, decaying vegetation became mixed with the smell of salt and sand. The higher I climbed, the more I felt connected to the tree. I reached out my hand and felt hundreds of years of life pulsing under my fingertips. Before I knew it, I was using branches covered in thick green leaves to support my weight, and sweat was dripping off my face to the forest floor below. Out of breath and full of joy, I twisted and curled, stretched and slithered my way up the tree.
Then it appeared, just out of my reach: a large brass bell swayed in the canopy breeze. With one last surge of energy, I pulled myself up until I could feel cool, damp metal and rang the bell. The sound echoed out into the symphony of rainforest. I glanced down from my perch to see the tiny specs that were my wife and our guide. I had made it to the top of the tree.
“Turn around!” the guide yelled.
As I turned around, the fresh ocean air hit me square in the face. I had climbed so high that I was now above the canopy. From my place in the ancient fig, I could see all the way down the mountain to the rolling ocean waves below.
“It’s amazing!” I yelled back. “It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen!”
“I know!” yelled the guide. “Now, jump!”
I took one last look at the emerald ocean, breathed a deep lungful of warm ocean air, turned around, spread my arms open wide, and leapt from the tree into the cool jungle.
The moment of free-falling to the jungle floor seemed to last forever. I hung in the air like a floating leaf frozen in time. The beginning of a million scents washed over my skin, the forest floor rushed up to meet my feet once more, and yet, I felt completely weightless. I felt like the joy of the experience had transformed me. I was no longer a tourist, no longer an eco-adventurer, no longer a husband, a brother, or a son. As I dove towards the carpet of leaves below me, I had become one with the jungle. I had transformed into a molecule on the wind, a heartbeat in the breeze, a fraction of a story that would forever exist inside the soul of an ancient fig tree.
When the cord at my back finally reached its end, I was violently snapped into myself once more. I swung back and forth, pushing lazily off the fig tree’s grizzled trunk as the guide lowered me to the damp earth below. I twirled and spun, hanging upside down so that the blood rushed to my head, trying desperately to trap the memory of the moment deep inside my mind.
When my feet finally touched the ground, something deep inside of me had changed. The jungle was no longer filled with trees; it was filled with towering creatures, each made up of memory and life. Every leaf, every branch, every insect, bird and beast was so much more than it was just a moment before. I was no longer standing in a jungle; I was standing in life itself. I was surrounded by sights, sounds, smells and textures that each carried a lifetime of experiences within them. I had travelled to Costa Rica to see nature; instead, I discovered what it felt like to become part of nature. I was given the opportunity to truly see the world around us for the beautiful living being that it is. Climbing a tree had changed my life, and my world would never be the same again.
