Costa Rica and Nicaragua

My Journey in the Spring of 2004

Do you love frogs? No, I do not mean frog legs at dinner, but frogs in nature, alive and ready to jump. Then, go to Costa Rica, a country with at least 150 of known amphibian species. May be, you will miss one or two, don’t worry, the rest is available but, for sure, very difficult to find by day. And, furthermore, I can assure you, there is more to see. Think of the volcanoes, the cloud forests and tropical beaches. This variety of landscapes makes it difficult to choose where to go, although it is not really a big country. The capital is in the middle, a crossroad of overcrowded highways. So, you can go all directions but the capital. If you are interested in frogs go to mountains, leave the city to consumers, people who prefer to be entertained. By the way, it is a cultural city and offers a lot of things to do, I heard from a lady in Cahuita, who went every weekend to San José for concerts, she said. At least it is a five hour drive, so I guess she stayed there overnight. She was an attractive woman, I remember. And what about Nicaragua, the northern neighbor country, even closer by than Cahuita on the Caribbean shore?

If one really likes history and culture,- and of course you do - one will enjoy the old colonial towns of Léon and Granáda, their small alleys, churches, squares, bars, catholic processions and the little boys who play music and carry giant woman-puppets through the streets. And students show you how they study and the whereabouts of nightlife. Sorry, I won’t talk about the civil war and what it has done to the country, the people. They earn more knowledge, analysis and debate. During the civil war, I did not do anything but reading the newspapers about it and feeling myself indignant. So, I lost my rights here. For the best, it is over now or almost over apart from maybe some far off pockets in the mountains and some vagary groups of former soldiers or other enterprising men. There are still rumors and it is perhaps not  safe in all parts of the  this rugged country . When I see soldiers in countries I travel, it remains difficult to distinguish between the feeling of being protected or threatened. I did not, however, notice any danger or insecurity during my travel by public bus in Nicaragua. I felt at ease. And for nature, the landscape is even more amazing, say tantalizing, than in Costa Rica. A long ridge of active, smoking volcanoes and sulfurous hot springs, in the south a large lake and a marvelous volcanic island called poetically Ometepe. The name reminds me of the word onomatope with a tiny difference of spelling and meaning. Sounds live their own life in the human mind. And beautiful it is, this island. As if one comes back in a small, traditional world of a bucolic rhythm, cows, horses, birds of prey, farmers and fishermen.Take the ferry and a public bus, it is okay. The hostels are picturesque, sometimes still of colonial style.The people are relaxed. Time is fading out.

To be honest I did not really prepare for the travel to these countries in Central America. At least not the way I did when I traveled to Yucatan and Guatemala, along the Ruta Maya. So, no travel guides, no stories, no maps, no friends over there, just a little booklet in a secondhand bookstore. I bought it in the Dog Ear bookshop at the corner of the Valencia Street, a parallel street of the Mission in San Francisco. Outside the store, every morning, not too early, I think about ten o’clock the shopkeeper put some boxes with second/third hand books on the sidewalk.  It is one of the many stores, but a good one, cozy and intimate as a bookshop should be. I remember its name from the brown paper bag I got, a bit too large, for the books. I’m not a lover of dogs neither of dog ears. A book should be stainless even a second hand book. And dog ears remind me of swine ears, a delicacy here on the island of Curacao at Christmas. ( I am vegetarian) The title of the booklet caught my eye ‘tracking the vanishing frogs.’ In those days the topic was already outdated. Frogs came back all over the world – without warning or explanation – from nowhere? All by themselves silently or loud out. The title, however, intrigued me, a memory of the seventies, when the first alarming signals of a world wide expanding pollution became loud, clear and urgent but untidy. Chapter 2 was called the Costa Rica Gold in which a golden toad was charmingly compared to Marilyn Monroe. An exciting comparison particularly for somebody who doesn’t know the difference between a frog and a toad – something for a herpetologist not for a common hiker. I liked the colored pictures of toads and frogs in the booklet and of course the photograph of the golden toad of Monte Verde in Costa Rica and the subtitle: ‘This stunning toad hasn’t been seen since 1989.’ That is what was meant by vanishing frogs. Something strange and mysterious, that triggered my imagination and sense of adventure. Something that sounded like a challenge, possibly a new duty. Tracking the vanishing, a vague similarity to the finding of the Grail. Who would not loose track? A peaceful enterprise, when I take into account that the pacifistic Quakers started the community in Monte Verdi and laid the basis for this Natural Reserve. Do you here the Beatles?

So I bought the booklet, that brought me to Costa Rica and Nicaragua in the spring of 2004. And that was all I prepared for the hike to these two countries. Fortunately, I have a more or less metaphysical mentality and do enjoy all kind of unsolved questions. It helps me to return to a form of basic life free from luxury and solved problems.The travel starts when I start the travel. As the Chinese say a long march begins by the first step.This time I had a digital camera to put my brains to a standstill and to witness at the same time I was hiking in Costa Rica and later on through Nicaragua. Maybe, it doesn’t matter which places I hike. Of more importance is, how I look at the landscape, the volcanoes, craters, cloud forests, towns, cities, statues, beaches, cities, people and horses, swine, vultures, ants and not to forget the toads and frogs hiding by day but caught at night. I like them all as I do dislike them all at times. A metaphysical view?
Too big a word for keeping distance to the world around in order to connect myself intensely, better and even more directly to her. l try to keep my mind open, not hampered by bookish wisdom or knowledge. Rather difficult for a desk man. Implicitly, I hope to feel better equipped for the concrete and the particular, and to stick to that level of experience. I do not turn away from information and knowledge, but I know ‘enough’, I think, to go for this way of traveling. When I show here as a first picture a marvelous tree in the cloud forest, I know of course frogs live up there more safely from predators – apart from snakes - between the water carrying leaves of the hanging Bromelia.

And talking of amphibians, the terrain becomes water and land, their history goes far back to the geological time called Carboniferous.To know this, I admit, makes one even more patient to look for a while at pictures of frogs, animals with amazing back legs which enable them to suddenly jump into a fairy tale or a poem. The best way to loose track?

Anyhow, here I do present a small collection of pictures and a guiding text in a frame in order to make the images autonomous, creating and becoming in this way a world in itself. Enjoy the miniatures and go yourself to create a world of your own. Good luck.

Traveling in Costa Rica and Nicaragua

Derk Cools