RON SHOWS US THE DANGERS OF COSTA RICA CHRISTMAS – 2010

I am now writing of the early years of our retirement, and, in some ways, I am finding it harder to remember events worth putting on paper. Could it be that we had become boring in our retirement. Or, was it, that, the old clutch was slipping more as I aged. I think possibly, as we get into the more recent years, it is harder to write about events that no one else, has firsthand knowledge of. What I mean is, when I write about the 70’s or early 80’s, there are less people that remember the times and that can say bullshit to my stories. Now I find that anything I write about, is subject to skepticism, from people that were there, and who have far better recollection of events, than I do.

That fact makes it harder to “sell my poetry” than it did when I wrote about things that happened 50 years ago. Nonetheless, I forge ahead, but with a lot less “poetic license.” I am sitting here today, just letting my mind wander. Visions of times past and places seen, flit thru the void. I dwell on some, discard others and chuckle to myself. Sometimes I even have a good talk to myself. On this particular day, I have thought up one of our travels, that had me both giggling and talking at once.

This one is about, a once in a lifetime adventure, to Costa Rica. It will take us from the heartbreak of a stranded traveller, too being imprisoned in our courtyard, and then flying thru the top of the jungle, Tarzan style (thanks Deysi). Hold on tight, this will be a wild ride. It all started with a phone call from Ron, and like a snowball coming down a hill, just picked up speed from there. One day she asked Deysi if she would like to go on a vacation. Well, you all know Deysi. She does not even ask where, she just says, “hell yeah, we’ll go!” Ron goes on to tell us that she has booked a villa in Playa Tamarindo in Costa Rica, over Christmas. She adds that Ange will be coming from Scotland to join us. Now her mom is really pumped.

I must say, that even though, I thought I was done with travel, this offer, of some beach time, mid-winter, was very appealing. The added bonus was spending some quality time with our girls. I believe Ron was dating JMW at this time, but was not yet ready to expose him to us. I think she still felt that, a few days with JimboRed might possibly traumatize him, beyond repair. So he had to stay home, bummer! Much like everything Ron does, it was all organized, very well. The travel was first class. Before we knew it, our butts were on a sandy beach in Costa Rica. We landed in Liberia, rented a car and made a leisurely drive to Playa Tamarindo. It took us just, under, two hours. The trip was only 75 kilometres, however coupled with a 60kph speed limit and some questionable navigational advice………..

Once there, we found our way to the villa that Ron had booked for our holiday. I must say, it was spectacular. The location was about a mile off the town centre. It was a two story Spanish style villa. On the roof it had a full patio and hot tub. The master bedroom was on the ground floor, next to the private swimming pool. It came with full kitchen and living room. Ron and Ange’s rooms were on the upper floor. It was about as good as it gets. You may be thinking, now, what could possibly go wrong? Even Ol’ Jimbored could not screw up something that started this perfectly. Well let me correct you right there. Just as we are getting comfortably unpacked, Ron receives a call from Ange……….

Seems like some kind of volcano erupted somewhere in Iceland. Coincidently, just about as she was heading for London to get her flight to meet us. “So what”, you might ask? I had the very same question. What I found out was, as incredible as it may seem, this eruption grounded all air traffic from Heathrow. Geezus! How much ash and dust could there be? Not only that, after waiting around for another 24 hours, Ange was told nothing was leaving London for the next few days. Unbelievable! What fateful timing. In a few hours more they decided, that not only the UK, but all of Europe would be grounded. Therefore swimming to France, and then flying, was not even an option. Ange was well and truly stuck! She had days off, she had tickets and she had a destination. What she didn’t have was an airplane.

Obviously she and her mother were beside themselves. Ron was stoic, but deep down I know she was “gutted”. There we were, having the vacation of the century, and Ange’s butt was stuck in London. Although disappointed, Ange handled herself very well. Without question we all knew that Ol’ JimboRed, in a similar predicament would have been one swearing, cursing, slobbering, sobbing, pleading mess. Inevitably, it would have done about the same good, as did Ange’s passive acceptance. However, realizing that there was nothing we could do about her situation, we partied on.

Our villa was located on a beach south of the centre of Playa Tamarindo. In this area of Costa Rica, it seemed like the coastline was all golden sand beach. We could have walked the beach from our rooms all the way into town. It was all connected. It appeared that Tamarindo was 100 percent dependant on tourism for its livelihood. I did not see any industry around or near the town. However, not too far away, we had driven thru some areas of fruit bearing palms and orchards. Once in a while we passed a smallholding of sheep and goats. Occasionally there were a few head of cattle mixed in. This beach area was completely peaceful, quiet and laid back. Nothing we encountered seemed to disturb the quiet of this place.

However, nothing, that is, until Deysi and JimboRed arrived. One afternoon, shortly after we settled in, shit happened. It seemed that somewhere during the course of our first and second day, Ron had ingested something bad and became horribly sick. Or perhaps she just missed JMW and Ange so much that she just lay in bed, pooping. One thing I do know, even the Peruvians with their Inca Two Step, and the Mexicans with their Montezuma’s Revenge, had nothing on the good old fashioned Chorro of Costa Rica. She was real sick! Her mom tried to nurse her, we even went to the pharmacy for a cure, but nothing had an immediate effect. She locked herself in her room and forbade me to enter. Thus, choosing to forego my cheerful and nurturing words.

So, while Ron is in a near death struggle in her bedroom upstairs, I convince Deysi to join me in our pool for a swim. And who knows, maybe a bit of frolicking. You think? It must be said, our pool was indeed private. There were two entrances, one off our bedroom and the other thru the living room. It was surrounded by a 10 foot wall. This wall was topped by wood spires overhanging the pool area and discouraging anyone from climbing in or out. In any event I coaxed Deysi out there, and got ready for some serious pool time. I could envision myself doing laps, and getting into some serious kind of shape. Well we played for a while, sunbathed on the lawn chairs, read our books, and told some tall tales.

After about 60 minutes of this, we decided to go inside and check on our girl. Deysi bops up and heads for the bedroom door. Oops, apparently it locks from the inside once the door closes. No problem she now heads to the living room door. What, the hell, same problem. It also locks from the inside. We check our stuff for the room key. Yup you guessed it. Our key is laying on the dresser in our room. We share a good laugh about our predicament. Not! I look around seeking another way out. It just so happens, that the owner of this complex, has taken great pains to make sure no one breaks in. Additionally, great pains have been taken to make sure that if anyone did get over the wall and into the pool area, that they were going no farther.

I look at scaling the wall. Immediately, I can see that climbing up and over that wall was beyond my capabilities. I contemplate stacking the lawn chairs to see if I can climb out. I realize, even if I even did get over the wall, I would just be in someone else’s villa. There, I might have been liable to be shot as a robber. I shook, rattled and wiggled the windows. Nothing. I pulled, pushed and leaned on the doors. Nothing. Deysi is about to go into full panic mode. Ol’ JimboRed, as cool as ice, is trying to keep her from losing it. Of course Deysi blames, our being temporarily locked out, completely on me. Knowing Ron was upstairs ill, we tried to make as little ruckus as possible.

However, about 30 minutes into our captivity, we decide that we are going to have to get Ron’s attention. In order for her to come down and let us in. I just knew we were in for a ration of abuse, if we did in fact, roust her out of her deathbed. At first we made a gentle knocking on the patio doors. It was much like an encyclopedia salesman, wanting to get your attention, but not wanting to piss you off, with loud incessant knocking. We would tap, tap, tap a few times, then put our ears to the glass to listen for her coming. There was absolutely no response to our polite tapping of the doors and windows. It was as if, the villa was completely vacant. You could hear the echoes tapping back at you from inside.

I remain steely cold, however I notice Deysi is about to lose it big. She would have been absolutely no good inside a jail. Increasingly, our knocking became louder and louder. I would boom, boom, boom on the door and hear boom, boom, boom echoing back. Then silence. We pounded, doors, windows, walls. We shook door frames. Then the floodgates burst. Almost in unison, we started yelling and hollering. Now, not just for Ron, but for anyone in Costa Rica that could hear us. However, we were met with an ominous silence. It was almost eerie. To think that a couple days before Christmas in a crowded complex, we could scream like banshees and not be heard.

I was starting to lose hope. You could read the headlines. “Elderly couple found starved to death in pool area”. “Daughter sleeps thru it all!” I’m now counting out Deysi’s snacks and water, in preparation for rationing, if that became necessary. Poor Desyi, she is a wreck. I’m desperately trying to keep her together, but slowly she is dragging me into panic, along with herself. At this point, we are feeding on each other’s desperation. We have yelled and hollered, banged and rattled, to the point of exhaustion. Still nothing. We are about to give up and resign ourselves to our fate, when like an apparition, Ron appears. Like a storm cloud she rolls in. Opens the door and says, “WHAT, is wrong with you guys?” “Don’t you know I’m sick?” With that she turns and storms off. In the distance you could hear her door slam behind her. Crash!

We are free. I might say, Deysi is free. I’m still getting crap rained down on my head for, apparently, forgetting the key! Ron now makes a miraculous recovery and by morning is ready to rock and roll. Apparently, the Chorro has not wreaked too much havoc on her system. I start to wonder what all the whining was about. The next day she had a plan. Her idea is to take us to see an animal prison (zoo). She explained that it housed all sorts of native birds and animals. She added, later, we would go for a short drive in the jungle and look at some other sights. I’m good with this. Obviously, it’s not a morning on the beach with mint juleps in hand. However, it was some quality time with Ron, more or less a prisoner in the car, subject to my unending stories.

I am not going to dwell much on the zoo. Other than to post a small slideshow of the beautiful animals and birds. The place was only a few miles from town, but was built right on the edge of the jungle. Or at least it looked like it was in the jungle. It was beautiful. We spent an hour walking around the compound, until Ron signalled that it was time to move on. Looking back, I must say, that seeing the prisoners was good. However, it left me a bit saddened to view these magnificent spirits caged inside of wire. I suppose, I have felt this way all of my life. Probably never really putting a finger on what was causing a melancholy in me, until I visited these caged animals. SEE SLIDESHOW BELOW.

For the next part of our adventure, I must set the scene. It all came about very smoothly and without any indication of planning. In the guise of a short tour, Ron lead us into the jungle to a parking lot with a couple of wood buildings. She didn’t say much, but wandered off into one of the buildings. After a short time she reappeared and signalled us to join her. It was only then that she revealed what it was, that she was up too. She explained that she had just signed us up for a zip-line adventure. At this point, I am positive that Deysi, had no more than a vague idea, of what a zip-line was. Undoubtably, had she known all of the details, she would never, in a hundred years, have bought into this program. Had I suggested it, she would have said, “are you crazy?”

Because it came from Ron, she was a little less vocal with her criticism. Ron guides us into a barn type building. Here, a couple of young male adult Costa Rican’s started passing out harness’s, belts, gloves and hard hats. Deysi is now looking quite concerned and I might say, was starting to turn a whiter shade of pale. She is still not fully aware of what she is into. Without question, she knows her daughter would not make her do something beyond her capabilities. About ol’ JimboRed she did not have the same confidence. Anyway they harness us all, like a team of novice Himalayan trekkers and herd us into a 4 wheel drive chariot. A couple of the young guys jump in and off we go.

From where we started, we took off thru the jungle and straight uphill. In about 5 minutes we have climbed to the top of a mountain, overlooking the canopy of the jungle below us. Deysi now has a green tint shading her otherwise pale skin. It is now starting to sink in. The guides lead us onto a platform looking down on the canopy of the jungle. A thick wire cable is hooked on pulleys above us, and disappears into the jungle in the distance. Still not much is being said. I think Deysi is praying that we are only up this high, just to take pictures of the jungle below. With us all standing there, one of the guys starts to give us a safety lecture. The other one grabs hold of a strap, and with a yahoo, he slides off toward the jungle.

The sound he made was zzzziiiiippppp! At, what looked like, one hundred miles an hour, he disappears into the jungle. It is now very clear where the name zip-line came from! I feel Deysi shrinking away from the edge. For a moment she was too paralyzed with fear to say anything. Now the floodgates burst. Out comes, “there is no way ever, that I am getting on that rope and flying into the jungle!” “You hear me?” There is no question, that this is not a “maybe” from her. It is very clear, that you would have to pry her fingers loose from where they clutched the platform. It would have then take all of us to attach her to the zip-line. And indeed, for sure, a few of us would have suffered wounds in the process.

Without question, had it been me organizing this little adventure, I would have never, ever, have convinced her to get on this platform. Ron, steps in and tells her, not to be such a wimp, and things like that. And like a miracle it worked. She stepped right up, knees shaking and lips trembling but she did get on. They hoisted her up there, hook her up and with a zzzziiiiippp, she flew off thru the jungle. The whole time I stayed in the background, with my mouth shut, for once. There was no way, that I was going to get this blamed on me. And like a trussed up turkey ready for Christmas, she went flying down that line. I sent my camera with one of the guides. I could hear her loud moan, and maybe some cuss words, fading in the distance.

Next Ron got up and with a loud “Yahoo”, followed her mom off into the jungle. Inevitably, my turn had now arrived. I was the picture of confidence, my sleek well tuned body, ready to show these locals how it was done. Suddenly, I was off. A small scream of pleasure, escaped my clenched teeth. Then the canopy of the jungle approached, much faster than I could have imagined. It must be said, that, this wild free fall, into the forest, got my attention. Previously, during our travels, I had been on a parachute pulled behind a boat, over a lake, in Africa. Additionally, I had the experience of being sling-shotted over the largest sand dunes in the world at Huacachina in Peru. Also, I had been on the backward Roller Coaster from hell in Paris. None of these compares to flying into the jungle suspended from a wire cable.

In some places, we are about 30 feet off the ground, whizzing along, listening to the sounds of the jungle. I silently prayed for that cable, to hold my weight. I just knew, that, I would not fare well if I plummeted into the canopy at this speed. Somewhere along the way I think I caught sight of a monkey or two, sitting in a tree watching me. At a certain point, you break free into an opening in the forest and could see a platform approaching at light speed. The two guides were waiting to stop your flight. They said just stick out your feet and aim to hit them right in their midsection. I probably had a bit more speed than they expected, so I think 220 pounds of gringo flying across a platform and kicking them in the stomach was also quite a surprise to them.

Without a doubt, that first landing left me breathless, and questioning my sanity. Finally, I had been given reason to ask myself, one of Desysi’s age old questions, “are you crazy”? Before I could unhook myself and scramble out of the tree, they hooked me up, once again, and kicked my butt off the platform and back into the jungle. At this point, I do not know how the girls are fairing, but I can hear their high pitched screams piercing the silence of the jungle, in the distance. I did not know, at the time, ahead of me, Ron had come sailing down the line, and lost one of her chic sandals in the jungle. I think she was so paralyzed with fear that she just lost control. Hell, maybe she even fainted dead away.

When Ron reached the next platform, she told one of the guides that she had lost a hiking boot in the forest. He very gallantly offered to climb down in there and find it. Of course, Ron was not going to let him do that. Instead, she just kissed that shoe goodby and, in her mind, donated it to whatever Monkey happened to find it. Often, I have tried to remember how many stages we went thru before reaching the bottom. Each and every one of them was as scary as the last. Perhaps, my old mind just went blank up there. However, we finally reached the end. I am unsure of how far we had travelled. Perhaps 1km? The girls were now laughing and chirping and talking of how brave they were.

Obviously, they thought it was over. However, the “piece de resistance” had not yet been displayed. As the ultimate adrenalin rush, they now coaxed us into climbing a big, big tree. Again up to a steel platform perched high above the ground. Undoubtably, ol’ JimboRed, has been known to stretch out the truth a bit. Sometimes, things just seemed bigger and better as I aged. However, I’m here to tell you we were up at least 30 feet in the air. Hell who knows, let’s say 40 feet. It felt like 100 though! The only, other, apparent way to reach the ground was the skinny little ladder attached to the platform, that we had just climbed up. The guide then unwinds a bungee cord and connects it too my harness. He says, “now go ahead, just jump off”.

I look over the edge, to see if I would rather climb back down. I didn’t care what names they would call me. No way in hell I’m going to jump out of a tree, with a rubber band hooked to my butt. Especially not knowing if these guys had even considered my weight, how much the cord would stretch, or my chances of it breaking loose half way down. I’m just about to mount a protest when suddenly, I am airborne! To this day I am not sure who pushed me off the platform. Hell, it coulda been anyone of those gathered up there. Deysi swears, that, it was not her. In any event I am plummeting for the ground, praying that this band will stretch tight before I am planted into the jungle in Costa Rica.

Suddenly, within inches of becoming a grease spot, the cord snaps tight and I am sling-shotted back up to the level of the platform. Once again I head straight down for the ground. Then up again, down and finally one of the guys on the ground catches hold of me and stops my bouncing. Aaaahhhh, free at last, now I can watch the other two jump over the edge. Next comes Ron and somehow makes jumping out of a tree attached to a bungee cord, appear somewhat graceful. I am now looking for Deysi to come flying out of that tree. However, we had finally reached her “line”, that she would not cross for anyone. There she came, making the long and tiring descent back down the ladder. I notice no one called her names for not jumping! Well maybe Suegra a couple of times!

Finally, it was over. We gave back their gear and in return were handed a slice of pineapple in celebration. The “gallant” guide now sidled over to Ron. He said, “miss if you have no need for your other shoe now, may I please have it?” She thinks about it and asks “why?” His explanation was that he would, then, go walk back into the jungle too find the one she dropped. Then with a pair, he would make a present of them for his girlfriend. With that, Ron pealed off her remaining shoe and gave it to him. He was delighted. With that our jungle adventure ended. Ron was not overly impressed with the zipline. I think she figured it was not near scary enough for her. Deysi on the other hand had just done something more dangerous than she had ever done in her life!

We still had days left to lounge on the beach. Inevitably the girls found time to visit the local shops and buy treasures, that, apparently, we just couldn’t live without. We visited the local town for sunset dinners, we tanned, we had a few beers. At this point, I could write on and on, but for the sake of everyone’s sanity, I will now call it a day. This is another long and tedious memory, but it just had to be spilled from my mind. I’m now thinking I should just attach another slideshow to the end and capture some of the other precious memories of this once in a lifetime adventure. SO I DID, SEE BELOW. Enjoy!