Excerpts from 'The Globe Toddler'
... Imagine the lush green highlands of Scotland roaming with small antelopes, gazelles, lions and elephants. I couldn't give this spectacular park a miss, the famous Aberdare National Park, where Queen Elizabeth learned of her accession to the throne while she stayed at the luxurious Treetops Lodge. Needless to say, Her Majesty's trip would bear no comparison with our experience, for better or worse. First of all, our car got stuck in the tire-gobbling mud only two miles away from the park, near a remote entrance that I had never planned to go to. Had it not been for the four brave park guards who happened to pass by on their way home from work, Miles and I would have had to spend the night in the car and call upon our guardian angels to get us out of that mess by the following morning.
The park ranger at the lonesome gate entrance was more than surprised to see us. We entered his office, a concrete room with an old desk and an old radio. I paid the entrance fee and urged him to give us directions to the nearest bandas, simple huts that serve as accommodation for park visitors. Sunset was imminent, therefore he convinced me to stay at the much closer campsite. We would be fine, he said, and wished us a good time in the park. He walked us to my beat-up vehicle, said a cordial goodbye, and returned to his solitude.
The road took us up and down the undulating Afro-alpine moorlands. Here and there a duiker skipped across the road. Just before we reached the campsite I saw the shadow of a cheetah disappear into the dense bush that fenced off the road. I knew then that I wasn't looking forward to the night. I certainly didn't appreciate the sight of a cheetah shortly before I was going to pitch our tent on a lonely grass opening without any other campers around. I looked back to the hill where we had come from and wondered if the park ranger was watching us with his binoculars. For no particular reason I waved.
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Fiji - United States - Costa Rica. We gained a day flying over the date line, a day we could have happily done without because we spent it on planes and in airports. Our flight from Nandi left four hours late. We missed connecting flight after connecting flight down to Costa Rica. It took us days to even get close to Central America. Finally we landed in the Central Valley at the Juan Santamaría Airport, twenty minutes outside of San José, and I felt home. I had tears in my eyes, some sort of a belated homesickness mixed with the melancholy of an aging person who realizes how quickly time flies by. It was almost six years ago that I had left Costa Rica. After all this time I returned, able to show the country that I love to my son and husband. I sobbed to myself. It was a happy sort of sobbing that makes you think of people who listen to opera music and can't help it but cry.
We stayed the night in San José. I forgot how polluted the city was. Fumes from cars that would be illegal to drive in our cities blacken your hands from whatever you touch in the streets, the switch at the pedestrian light, the T-shirts that are sold, and the fruit. Starved from the trip we entered a soda, a basic Costa Rican restaurant comparable to a diner in the States, and after the first bite of my dinner I remembered how greasy the food was. Later, Miles escaped his death by about an inch when a violent taxi driver, no rarity in Latin America, raced toward him as he was crossing the road. Fresh off the plane, San José was too much to be taken in for long. We decided to have a very early night.
The next morning we woke with the plan to take the bus to the Caribbean village of Puerto Viejo. Once a sleepy village of turtle hunters and cocoa farmers, today a surfer's, backpackers', and environmentalist's haven. I was looking forward to seeing the few good friends that I still had in the village and who hadn't met my family yet. As we bought our bus tickets I was told that we could only travel as far as the Caribbean port of Limón. In Limón, we had to change buses. Hopefully there would be a bus to Puerto Viejo, since the Caribbean rainy season had brought more buckets of rain than usual and had flooded the streets. Entire bridges had disappeared. Would we make it to Puerto Viejo? There was no guarantee. There never is in Costa Rica.
For Mike and Miles, an introduction to the chaotic life of the Caribbean lowlands came fast. The bus, with more people in it that it should have had, swerved around enormous potholes halfway down the coast to Puerto Viejo. Potholes, a common feature of Costa Rican roads, remind me of a radio competition that ran one Christmas. The person who could find the largest pothole, in diameter and depth, would win a prize. The winning entry was a pothole you could have made a chair disappear in. It's good news that at least the Costa Ricans laugh about their government's inefficiency.
The road we drove on was close enough to the beach that you could see the waves break through a row of palm trees. It is an attractive ride, besides the swells of tropical heat that enter the bus as soon as it stops to let locals on or off.
All of a sudden the bus came to a halt. We were told to get off, all of us with our luggage. There was no town, no gas station just road. The black Costa Rican who had sat next to Mike and was now getting up mumbled something in English about the bridge being down. The river had flooded the road in front of us. The only way to cross was by foot along the beachfront, where the water wasn't as deep. Still, we would have to wade through knee-high waters to the other side. Everyone grabbed his small bundle, except for us. We had heavy backpacks and additional daypacks, including Miles, who carried seven pounds of his belongings. There was only one other tourist on the bus. He was lucky enough to have had his backpack stolen out of the outer luggage compartment in San José. A few Costa Ricans saw it happen. They stirred up the crowd at the bus terminal by talking fast and loud, throwing their arms in the air. But nobody actually did anything. I believe that the only reason why this backpack-less tourist continued his journey was to show travelers like us how idiotic it is to travel heavily loaded.

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