Writings By Location| None More Wet: Four Days at Corcovado | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
And we played cards. We probably spent more time at this than we did at hiking or anything else nature-related. We'd play hearts or rummy with a set of cards laying on the unused bar, assembled from three different decks. Sometimes it would just be the three of us, other times, we'd include our only other guest — or at least the only other guest that would talk to us — Antonietta.
Etta was an Italian woman, probably in her early 70s, who had been working on a writing two-man play, a story about wrong numbers and unrequited love. But as we got to know her, she turned out to be much more interesting than we'd ever suspected. She travels a lot — at least a few weeks every two or three months — and usually alone (because, as she put it more or less, her friends tend to be "whiners"). Not only that, she's also a certified scuba diver, who had just finished her advanced certification a few months earlier. Gotta love that.
But sometimes, despite the rain, we went out anyway. On our first day, we walked along the rocks for a while, admiring the crabs and other animals that were smart enough to avoid being out in the rain. We later turned around and headed into the woods, to observe a whole family of white-faced capuchin monkeys, darting from limb to limb, scavenging fruit off the trees just outside of the tent camp. (There's something to be said about seeing monkeys in the wild for the first time.)
On the second day, you could tell we were desperate for activity, as Erin and Kim made an attempt to get up at 4:30 am to go birdwatching. Everything looked good, and the sky was even clear...for about half an hour. Just moments before they were scheduled to set out into the woods with Fernando, the rain came down again.
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| Macaws on Beach |
But we were still eager to keep moving, so moss wouldn't grow up our ankles. So we donned our raincoats and Chacos after breakfast, and hiked further south, in search of what we were told was a beautiful swimming beach, although by now, we'd have been satisfied if there was a garbage dump there, just so long as it wasn't raining. We followed paths along the beach, or beside it, trying our best to take routes that were only minimally muddy and puddle-filled. Usually, we were able to wind our way around trouble spots, although each of us managed to sink into mud at least once, with Erin sinking up to her knees in one place. The rain had subsided to the point where it was more of a Seattle-like mist, but that didn't keep us from being wet from head to toe after about an hour and a half. And after all that, we never did reach the beach, because we ran into a river that we couldn't figure out how to cross, or whether the path even continued on the other side. But the soaking trek didn't go unrewarded, as we saw more monkeys, and even a small group of scarlet macaws, one of the most beautiful (and, sadly, endangered) animals in the country. And, more importantly, we at least saw — even if we weren't positioned under it — blue skies in the distance, with just a hint of sunshine trying its best to poke through the clouds.
But, of course, back at the tent camp, it was still raining.
