Up river without a paddle

"Don't refuse to go on an occasional wild goose chase

- that's what wild geese are for."

Author Unknown

I have to admit to being a little skeptical of taking a tour upriver to see animals and birds. It wasn't that I didn't think we would see any, quite the contrary I was certain we would see lots. It was just that we had seen so many animals just wandering around in our neighborhood I wasn't sure that we would see anything much different. However, early one morning the kids and I left Chris and Greg to their surfing delight and headed over to Palo Verde boat tours. I countered that even if we saw minimal fauna, the flora would be worth it and I would spend enjoyable time with Doug and his wife Sheri. Furthermore the kids were all for it as it gave them a legitimate non school day.

"I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river

Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable."

T.S. Eliot

With another o'dark thirty start we were headed up river on the 8am boat. A good choice as the animal activity was at its busiest and the human activity at its quietest. I really didn't expect to see crocodiles quite that size or quite that close.

“If you're going to live by the river,

make friends with the crocodile”

Indian Proverb

Oh pick me pick me..not. Remember I lived in Africa, I know all too well about monkeys or more specifically what monkeys often do on humans. Yet it would seem that these Costa Rican white faced monkeys were somewhat house trained.

After walking all over us I had to agree they were gentle with the softest hands and feet. Even if a couple of the did get into it over the last banana. Lunch back at the restaurant was a traditional Costa Rican fare and delicious too.

“One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.”
Luciano Pavarotti

After lunch we headed over to Guaitil, the village famous for pottery. The biggest smiles of the day of course had nothing to do with indigenous wildlife or historical pottery techniques but a cute little puppy.

"Never work with children or animals" W.C.Fields

The kids managed to pound a little of the rock that is used for the clay and they even helped etch out some of the patterns.

Compared to the high octane of our last adventure, this field trip was definitely at a more sedate level. Yet I think the experience of learning about the animals and the local Tican traditions gave us all much more to think about. There is so much to see on this planet, don't you wish sometimes you could just keep going and traveling, seeing and experiencing?Just have the world swallow you up. This trip has had its difficult parts: the bumpy dirt roads, the hot uncomfortable journeys, the dragging heavy luggage and boring delays. I only hope these adversities are compensated for by the moments of discovery, the awakening of the senses and the making of some awesome childhood memories.

“Growing up happens in a heartbeat.

One day you're in diapers; the next day you're gone.

But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul.”

Wonder Years

Adrenal fatigue

"have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

They somehow already know what you truly want to become.

Everything else is secondary.”

Steve Jobs

The only thing my heart and intuition were telling me were to wait behind in the cantina with a nice cup of tea and send the kids on the adventure alone. I was already exhausted from riding the dirt roads and it was only just after 8am. We'd had to leave the house at 6am just so that we could make it to Rincon de la Vieja and have enough time before nightfall to horseride, zipline, rockclimb, water tube and soak in hot springs. Quite the full itinerary for an uber adventuresome day. Doug, our fearless tour guide picked us up in the jeep and within 3 hours of crawling from our beds the kids and I were whizzing down a canyon on the side of a volcano.

I really wasn't sure what to expect. I mean I have been on a zip line here and there, I think I've even been on one that was called a flying fox. My expectations were pleasantly exceeded on the first line. Zipping through the greenery of the forest was actually an easy slide through the beauty of nature with the wind in my hair and the sun on my face. No manic jaw clench or stomach tensing type of fear, more a bemused widened eye, heightened senses sort of edginess. On the second slide the ground far below disappeared completely into the steep drop of the river gorge. I started to scream on that one, then turned the noise into a sort of wahoo triumphant yell to cover up being uncool and hiding my moment of sheer terror. The kids were behind me, I was crash test mom I had to bbbbrave. Did I mention I don't like heights? Particularly the kind of height where you balance on a bridge or metal platform of mesh where one can clearly see what is below. I tried to keep my sights skyward, high above me towards the impressive magnificence of the mountain which cloaked the volcano.

The Rincon de Vieja volcano has a macabre folk legend. The name roughly translates intoThe Corner of the Old Woman. The story is of an Indian princess who fell in love with the chief of an enemy tribe. Her father disapproved and threw the man into the volcano. The princess, broken hearted,stayed on the mountain and gave birth to a child which she threw into the volcano to be reunited with its father. She then lived out her life as a recluse on the mountain and became a healer. Too many references to old women and throwing kids in volcanoes to make a joke about that one. I'm sure International Child Services is already monitoring me for abusive homeschooling infractions. We'll just file the fable under another gory story from the ancient Indians.

By mid morning I was hanging upside down being the star of my own gory story. Soon after I slid head first down a rope to the water level, we made our way downstream by swinging from rocky outcrop to rocky outcrop until we reached the climbing wall. The guides kept checking that I was aware the rock wall was strenuous, then another one would check again. So much so I was starting to doubt my own abilities. I came to the conclusion that either the early morning had aged me well beyond my years or I just looked pathetic. Anyway, the guides all looked like they had just left elementary school, perhaps I shouldn't trust a boy with acne to clip my carabiner and rattle my resolve?

“Adventure isn’t hanging on a rope off the side of a mountain.

Adventure is an attitude that we must apply

to the day to day obstacles of life.”

John Amatt

I am happy to report I threw myself up the sheer rock face at breakneck speed to show everyone what a mountain goat I could be. My silently wide smile, upon conquering the summit, allowed me to suck in extra air and catch my breath while pretending it was nothing. Whats that about pride and a fall? There was no way I was falling back to the bottom and have to climb back up again.

“A man does not climb a mountain without bringing some of it away with him, and leaving something of himself upon it.”

Sir Martin Conway

Once my nostrils had flared their way back to a normal oxygen consumption, I stomped onward to the hanging bridge. Indeed, it would seem I had left my illusions of youth on the side of that particular mountain. I'm not too sure what I took away apart from a grazed knee and a refreshed sense of mortality.

“Don’t die without embracing the daring adventure

your life is meant to be.”

Steve Pavlina

Okay, so now I needed to embrace the horse adventure which looked like something of a cowboy operation to me. Why was it I was having a feeling of being herded?

"A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"

William Shakespeare, King Richard III

Meet Frank the rapido caballo. He didn't really have a name but Josh christened him as he struck up an immediate affinity with his steed. Upon leaving the stable yard, they rushed off to the head of the line with Josh talking loudly to Frank in broken Spanish. Frank was clearly in control and liked to be one of the lead horses hence his desire to trot all the time. This of course would set off a chain reaction to all the other nags who would stampede off at breakneck speed leaving me kicking and yahooing at the back of the pack. Needless to say, those pimply faced youths from the zipline must of tipped off the cowboys I was an old maid and thus required a slow donkey to keep up the rear. I say rear and not ass because by the time we reached the half way intermission there was not much keeping my ass up there in the saddle.

"It is not enough for a man to know how to ride;

he must know how to fall." Mexican Proverb

What I lacked in speed and mobility I feel I made up for in style and panache. I went for a Germanic Little House On The Prairie style look - bonnet style hat with white socks and trainers. I don't think my horse (who shall remain nameless) really opened its eyes, it sort of rested its head on the quarters of the beast in front and followed its nose. On about the 8th stumble I feared he was lame.

“Somebody ought to tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying.

Then we might live life to the limit every minute of every day.

Do it, I say, whatever you want to do, do it now.”

Michael Landon

I fervently hoped that my half dead horse would at least make it to the waterfall for the midpoint break. I hadn't seen the kids for much of the ride so it was nice to check in and make sure they had figured out the braking system. Arrival at the waterfall felt like an entrance into Shangri La. Apart from the fact we had to share it with the stragglers from the previous horse riding group.

“if we have not found the heaven within,

we have not found the heaven without”

James Hilton, Lost Horizon

“Romance often begins by a splashing waterfall and ends over a leaky sink”

Author unknown..

The water was crystal clear and ice cold, deliciously refreshing and numbing on the parts of my body that already felt numb. Of course the kids were instantly swimming under the waterfall while I worried what parasites lived in the suspiciously clean water and how many were being swallowed as I watched. Swimming around, I tried to clear my head of thoughts of gastroenteritis and enjoy the moment. As the kids asked if they could leap from the rock above the waterfall I felt my anxiety gland swell and compromised by having them jump from the side. When did I become such a worrier?

"Worry is a misuse of imagination." Dan Zadra

“We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand

and melting like a snowflake.”

Marie B. Ray

The H2O hiatus was all too short lived and now we had to remount in damp clothes and ride slowly back up the dry river bed. At least lunch was waiting for us on our return.

"Riding: The art of keeping a horse between you and the ground."

Author Unknown

Lunch seemed an all too brief interlude into the world of non-thrill seekers. Watching the other diners I noticed that not everyone seemed to be hell bent on using up a year's supply of cortisol in one day. Some seemed positively well dressed and relaxed as if they were merely here to take in the therapeutic qualities of the volcanic waters. No time for me to envy the way they languished over lunch. We had 30 minutes to spare before the white water rafting so we had just time enough to fit in a quick tour of the snake garden. I point blank refused to have a python draped over me in a rebellious last ditch attempt to keep my pulse at normal levels.

The heat of the day was definitely rising as we boarded the old yellow school bus and bumped over to the start of the whitewater tubing. The way the guides fretted over my bare feet you would think the river was laden with jagged glass shards. Suspiciously I wondered if the zip line crowd had forewarned them of my elderly and infirm status.

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet

and the winds long to play with your hair.”

Kahlil Gibran

Kitted up with helmets and life jackets, we were soon clambering down the steep canyon to the Rio Negro. During the one minute safety briefing I did start feeling the first flutters of anticipation. As we lined up ready to launch into the waters I made an assessment they were definitely rushing way faster than a "Class 1". After a few minutes I started to wonder what the holdup was. After another 5 minutes, I realized that the lady who had been in a wheel chair at the top of the hill was slowly crawling down the stairs carved out of earth and rock. The guides carried her in a innertube the last part of the way. I felt a huge lump in my throat and in a croaky voice offered to race her to finish line for a beer.

"Success is not measured by what you accomplish

but by the opposition you have encountered,

and the courage with which you have

maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds."

Orison Swett Marden

Sometimes it takes someone with a heart so full of courage to pass by before you can realize your own good fortune and how your own idea of what is risky can pale into insignificance when compared to the perspective of another.

“It is never too late to be who you might have been.”

George Eliot

This was it the piece de resistance, the final feather in my adrenaline soaked helmet. Summoning up the last remnants of my bravado, I launched off into the foaming white water.

"Living at risk is jumping off the cliff

and building your wings on the way down."

Ray Bradbury

With a large multicolored tyre as my water wings, I felt increasingly like I'd jumped off that cliff and was now stuck up the proverbial creek without a paddle. I felt a couple of large boulders graze the underside of the tube through a layer of thin lycra which was the bottom of my raft. I decided I'd have to go for a Kegel lift every time the water got shallow so as to avoid bruising my coccyx. Unfortunately, due to my bare feet, I had to keep my knees bent to avoid wacking my toes on the large boulders littering the river banks. It was a delicate balancing act to avoid getting injured. It left me looking like I was precariously perched on a toilet seat.

"I am always doing that which I cannot do,

in order that I may learn how to do it."

Pablo Picasso

During the brief briefing we were warned to just sit and wait in the inner tube if you happened, on the unlikely event, to get stuck. I had set off at such a helluva pace I was quickly so far ahead of the kids I just had to hope Doug was being the responsible non parent and watching them from behind. Sure enough, Josh got stuck and caused a bottleneck of tubers leaving me as the lonesome lead flotsam on the Black River. Luckily before the pile up turned into complete gridlock, Doug bent the guidelines and waded through the current to push him on his way.

“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.”

Katharine Hepburn

“If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough.”

Mario Andretti

There were a couple of choke points that took my breath away they were so fast and furious. During the final speed section, hanging on grimly in my inverted crab position, I realized that I just had to be Zen, let the moment literally wash over me and surrender to having no control over my fate. After I survived each rapid I just had to hope that the kids would cope with it when they came upon it.

"To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily.

To not dare is to lose oneself."

Soren Kierkegaard

I can't even tell you I felt any jubilation as I hauled my sad and bedraggled being from the river. I waited for the kids and Doug and silently breathed a huge sigh of relief. Zipline - check, horse ride - check, tubing - check, ah all that was left now was to soak in the curative thermal hot springs, the real reason I had agreed to all this in the first place.

"The old ox ploughs a straight furrow"

English proverb.

Just time for a quick vault onto the ox. I had to get a little forceful in telling the ox keeper to leave me alone and not to pick me up and swing me astride. Hadn't he heard how decrepit I was? It was straight to the hot spa for me. Unfortunately we were running out of daylight fast and the hot water comfort which had been beckoning all day would be a short lived experience. No time for healing mud facials, just a quick soak in a few of the 40 degree rocky pools alongside the river. Still, it was enough to ease away the aches and pains of a most adventuresome day and soothe the thought of our 2 plus hour drive home.

“If we all did the things we are capable of doing,

we would literally astound ourselves.”

Thomas Alva Edison

She's gotta the gas

Fueling up in this place is something of a culture shock. Leave the car running while using a sprite bottle funnel to guesstimate when the tank is about to overflow. But keeping our dollar spending at this local level did allow for me to meet new friends. Alex was happily able to return to his hammock once the dumb blonde adventure wagon was on its way once more.

I, on the other hand have taken to fueling up on beer. I have taken it into my head to survey michelada mixtures (beer, lime juice, salt, ice and tomato juice) in each different place I visit.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder." Kinky Friedman

Wait! Who's this riding in?

"I prefer a bike to a horse. The brakes are more easily checked." Lambert Jeffries

There's a new bandito in town. He don't need no stinkin offshore wind.

“The best surfer in the water is the one having the most fun.” Duke Kahanamoku

As I've said before seeing old friends together is such a pleasure. A companion to share the incessant watch of wave and water.

"A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents

of one’s heart,chaff and grain together,

knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it,

keep what is worth keeping,

and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."

Unknown

Now for every photograph you see of me and the kids in the waves, Greg was also there taking a wave on the head in the pursuit of that photo. He is obsessed with going into the water 3 times a day, we too are more than keen to hang out in the surf with him.

This arrangement is great for the kids who have to log at least something down each day as a Physical Education activity. I share no such excuse, boogie boarding for my 40 year old body is like slamming repeatedly into concrete.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again

and expecting different results." Albert Einstein

Perhaps the only wave I should consider is one of goodbye to my new sport? How ever did I talk myself into such foolishness? It sort of mentally goes like this:

Oh oh big wave coming…ooh, under or over?

Hey maybe I can catch this one?

Yes I can, c'mon Andrea, I'm sure I can….

Turn, start swimming, come on kick, kick, look over my shoulder….

Argh, shoulda gone under.

Too late now, oof I'm riding it…

Nooo... now its riding me.

If I throw my lips into a sort of goldfish expression I'm sure I'll suck in the last gasps of air.

I'm under, way under, which way is up, open your eyes, ah thats up…

Gulp…salty….where's my bikini bottom, phew, good still there.

Stand up, blink blink, snuffle, snort, pull my hair out of face, straighten up...

Would ya look at me…a boogie boarder, a sponger, 'sponge mom'.

"Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool

or you go out in the ocean." Christopher Reeve

Before you start making some wild assumptions and blaming Greg for unkind photos of me, this is Lolita. She belongs to Lola's restaurant at Avellanas, talk about surf hog.

Lots and lots of wildlife here, just hanging around in the garden, on the beach and in the fields. Think its time I went up river to see some crocs or maybe up to the volcano....