Costa Rica

Costa Rica... where I am a Chica. Where the sun rises and sets, Central America, monkeys, sloths, and iguanas,  where the Rainforest is threatened, where rice and beans are married, bromieliads, pineapples, and tangerlimes, Nissian Frontiers, and big black vultures. San Vito. Mot Mots, Makaws, and hummingbirds. Where the tucannon sits on the tree tops calling out, where palm oil is made, where banana trees thrive, where we try to speak Spanish, the place where coffee beans grow, and chocolate is sacred. Las Cruses Biological Station. Rio Java, 7 miles hikes, lunches to go. 14 mile hike just to find the head waters. Species diversity, and species richness is high everywhere, adventures around every corner, malissa trail, water trail, gamboa trail, ridge trail was the hardest, crazy drivers, and beautiful people, where the ocean reaches out and grabs the coconuts from the trees, plants that race to the top to bless themselves with the sun. Mosquito bites and itching cream. Soccer fields and jungle trail. King Kong and benches with views. Species on species until they fall to the ground. Where trees strangle each other from the top down. Where you can see a different species every day. Butterflies, dragonflies, and huge moths. San Jose. Restaurants along the roads, high mountains, mud slides, and crocodiles, where life is pure, and cost Rican natives live. Waterfalls and clay rock streams, leaves that are bigger than you and I. Poisonous snakes, frogs, and caterpillars. Rubber boots and rain jackets. Where... when is pours it rains. Sugar cane and dead people are not buried, but lay above the ground. Cattle is cattle but does not look the same. The sky is still blue and the clouds still white. Hot in December, dry season. People wave down buses and walk along roads. Trinkets are made and trinkets are sold. Motorcyclists with no helmets, mangos, and watermelons, tent bats, and agoodies. Shampoo ginger, bamboo, are visitors to stay. Plantain, and Imperial. Papayas, the ocean, lobsters and fish. Where you can feel the misty heat cover your body in seconds. Cool showers, Wilson House, and botanical garden. Fibers are made from leaves, woven by the women. Indigenous cultures we shared. Smiles and laughs, learning, and observing, singing and dancing. Calones, and kilometers, toll roads, banana-pineapple-coconut smoothies, frutas, frutas, and more frutas. Swindlers and jewelers making their pay. We buy them up making our day. Memories we shall hold in our hearts until we are old and gray.... we shall forever remember the Ngabe Bugle way...