Dec 30
Don’t look now, but the sun rose today on the final workday of this year. Some folks in our neighborhood were already setting off fireworks last night in anticipatory celebration of the coming New Year’s festivities. We have mixed feelings about 2022, as we did about the two years that preceded it.
In a hilarious stand-up routine, Jerry Seinfeld pokes fun at the way we order and pay for food in restaurants: “Before you eat, money has absolutely no value,” but when the check comes, “people are mystified. We’re not hungry now, why are we buying all this food?” Coming back from a really good, long vacation has a similar touch of gaslighting to it. You return to a house that clearly hasn’t been lived-in and needs some clean-up; there are piles of dirty laundry to wash and no groceries in the fridge; maybe you’re sunburned or itching with mosquito bites (mosquitos, no-see-ums, AND fire ants all got us good this time — and on top of it all, we’re still recovering from the colds that brought us low at the tail end of our travels); bills need to be paid and, heavens forbid, you think ahead to the next workday and the thousands of unread emails awaiting in your dumpster fire of a work inbox. You survey this desolate landscape of unpleasant tasks ahead and think to yourself, “this isn’t what I signed up for when I took a couple weeks off to unwind.”
It’s Christmas Eve, there are a few more nights of Hanukkah left, and we’ve reached the tail end of our whirlwind trip around Costa Rica with D’s visiting parents. We didn’t hit all of our favorite destinations, but we did succeed in showing off most of this country’s many diverse natural charms: volcanos, hot springs, rainforest, beach, several national parks, some adventure water sports, and lots of amazing wildlife encounters. The only downside is that we’ve arrived at our final destination a bit unglued: D’s dad was the first to start coughing, sneezing, and wheezing a couple days ago. All of us minus Junebug have now come down with the bug he managed to pick up somewhere during our travels.
Resembling a Lewis Carroll creation in both name and appearance, the bare-necked umbrellabird — nicknamed the “Elvis bird” because of its over-the-top pompadour — is one of Central America’s rarest and most remarkable winged denizens. There are only an estimated 2,500 individuals left in the wild, surviving in the tropical forests of Costa Rica and Panama. In addition to its dwindling populations, the umbrellabird is also challenging to find due to both its habitat and mannerisms. It lives almost exclusively in dense primary forests and tends to sit stock-still for long periods of time, blending into the canopy. One could go to a known umbrellabird site, stand right underneath the bird, and still miss it. D had spent the better part of a year searching for an umbrellabird whenever we happened on a likely forest without the tiniest hint of success. So when a colleague of S’s told her he had seen this once-in-a-lifetime bird recently and shared that the location was not far from San Jose, D immediately called and arranged to go the following morning.
Dec 18
Having enjoyed immensely his birthday visit to Braulio Carrillo National Park, D cast around for a chance to return as soon as possible. The opportunity presented itself a few weeks later, somewhat improbably, after an evening trip to the emergency room with Munchkin, who had come home from school with a poorly splinted finger.
In one of the best SNL skits in recent memory, Adam Sandler — in his triumphant return to the show — plays deadpan travel agent Joe Romano who promises to show potential tourists the wonders of Italy while underscoring with painful sincerity that travel is not a cure-all. “Remember, you’re still gonna be you on vacation. If you’re sad where you are and then you get on a plane…the you [on vacation] will be the same sad you from before, just in a new place.” Travel can help one unwind (and see some different squirrels), Sandler intones into the camera, but it won’t fix deeper issues. “A day is a long time to feel happy…for all of it. Most of us get 45 minutes, if we’re lucky.”
Dec 13
We had driven through Braulio Carrillo — geographically, the closest national park to San Jose — many times without stopping to explore it. An expansive cloud forest sprawling across mountainous terrain north of the San Jose valley, Braulio Carrillo encompasses dormant volcanos to the west and lush tropical woods at its lower elevations to the north. Much of the park consists of undisturbed primary forest, but there is also an important roadway that cuts through it. We’ve driven this route to Limon, Cahuita, and Tortuguero on the Caribbean coast, the road splitting off to the east after passing through the park; to the west, the roadway leads to Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui and on toward La Fortuna beneath Arenal Volcano, both favorites of ours.
One of the many, many, MANY really nice things about Costa Rica – especially for an American living far from home – is the extent to which Ticos have embraced our holidays. We found this to be especially noticeable after spending a couple of years in the Philippines, which goes into full-on Christmas mode the moment the calendar turns to September. In Costa Rica, by contrast, we enjoyed a flurry of Halloween activity in October and moved naturally towards Thanksgiving last month, which one wouldn’t have expected to have any traction at all. And yet, the family who hosted us for Thanksgiving this year said they bought their turkey as soon as the birds went on sale because it’s a known fact in expat circles that turkeys sell out fast, and we spoke with more than a few local acquaintances who have no tangible connection to the United States who said they organize Thanksgiving meals as a good excuse to bring their families together.
We have spilled a lot of digital ink over the last year raving about Costa Rica’s wildlife and birdwatching opportunities. Fortuitously for D, pretty much the entire country is one giant birding hotspot. And that’s because literally more than half of the country is covered by rainforest – 51 percent to be exact – and a quarter of that forest is considered primary, meaning that it is untouched, immaculately clean vegetation that has been undisturbed by humans. This allows Costa Rica’s great diversity of birds and all manner of other rainforest dwellers to thrive – and for responsible birders and wildlife enthusiasts to experience some of the most magnificent wildlife encounters imaginable. For its size – Costa Rica is barely three-hundredth of a percent of the world’s landmass – the biodiversity is simply mind-boggling. A full 5 percent of all life forms known to man can be found in this tiny, wonderful country.
Descending from Triund, a bit more than halfway through their ten-mile stroll through the mountains, D and his companion paused to watch a Himalayan griffon soar overhead. “Is that a new one for your list?” D’s friend asked. It wasn’t. D had seen griffons in Nepal and, memorably, soared among them himself for a few magical minutes at the start of his paragliding adventure in Pokhara. A familiar friend, the griffon was nevertheless a majestic sight to behold, especially because the bird is considered near threatened despite being faily common in its limited range. A fellow Indian traveler stopped nearby, a look of utter rapture on his face. He was in the middle of a bike trip around his country and had come up to Himachal Pradesh from Goa. It was the first time he had seen a Himalayan griffon in his life. For that matter, it was the first time he had seen snow. The combination had taken his breath away.
towels packed, will travel 