Waterfalls and Rope Swings

On our third to last day in Costa Rica, Nicole and I took turns waking up, looking at each and deciding that the other person was still asleep. This went on for a couple of hours until our host knocked on the door at 7:30am to let us know that he would really like to have his cafe back. It turned out that Nicole had not slept well at all and that she was itching to hit the trail and transfer over to Luna Llena, our reserved hotel for that night. We repacked our bags and were out the door by 8 and then had breakfast at one of the restaurants before making the short walk to our hotel.

Luna Llena (full moon) is owned and run by a Dutch woman and her American boyfriend. It is a wonderful collection of small cabinas set in the rain forest up on a hill off of the main road, within a five minute walk of Montezuma. There is a whole family of capuchin monkeys living in the trees and there are banana trees growing wild on the property. The main cabin, highest up the staircase from the road, contains the office, the lounge, the deck - with a rattan hanging chair, couches, and a book exchange, and the kitchen - with a pot of coffee always available and a fridge full of cold drinks for sale. The people there are fantastic and it is so peaceful and beautiful that we collapsed into a heap on the deck, enjoying the slight ocean breeze. However, the day was young and we were in Costa Rica. It was time to do some cliff diving!

The main reason that I zeroed in on Montezuma when searching for a beach location was the proximity of a series of waterfalls which offer great cliff diving. I thought that this would be the best end of our adventure in CR. Sun, sand, and waterfalls; Montezuma has it all! We had planned to go to the beach in the morning and the falls in the afternoon, but after talking to the proprietor of Hotel Luna Llena, we learned the the sun was strong and harsh on the beach in the morning and so we (being fair-skinned, light-eyed, reddish blonde haired women) decided to reverse the order of our day and hit the falls first. Interesting side note, all throughout the trip, a minimum of three times/day, Nicole and I were asked if we were sisters. I've never thought about it before, but our coloring is very similar, and especially to people who don't see people with our coloring very often, that would definitely make us look related. The really funny thing is that my actual sister has brown hair and eyes and darker skin. Genetics is a tricky business.

The Montezuma falls are reached by following a "trail" along a stream, jumping from rock to rock and climbing up tree roots for about half an hour. The first fall is about 25 meters high and tumbles into a gorgeous swimming hole. We continued past this fall, climbing up a sheer bluff by gripping and stepping on exposed tree roots. At the top, we followed the trail, took the wrong turn, ended up on a ridge line and then were redirected back to the trail. After crossing a stream and climbing down a section of trail that was traversed with the aid of a rope, we arrived at the next two waterfalls. To the right was a 3 meter fall into a beautiful deep pool, straight ahead was a rope swing in the same pool, to the left was the drop-off of a 10 meter fall into a pool that looked impossibly far away. There was a causeway of rocks dividing the first pool from the drop-off, with the fall emergining only in a small area at the end of the pool. Looking out from the cliff, the 25 meter fall that we had hiked past originated from the pool directly beneath us. It was definitely a movie moment. Surrounded by groups of happy locals and some tourists it was still easy to image oneself the only one to discover this amazing natural playground.

First, we tried the rope swing. Nicole grabbed on and was off, making a great splash and having fun. I was next. Hmm. I really have a horrible grip. I grabbed hold of the rope above two of the knots, pushed off, lifted my legs, and next thing I knew, had a nose full of water. I decided to try again. This time, I made sure that my grip was strong, I visualized my successful swing, I took a breath and pushed off...the only thing about the resulting swing that differed from my first attempt was my seriously sprained right middle finger which turned purple, swelled up like a sausage and started throbbing. Ouch.

I accepted that rope swings just are not my forte and decided to try the small cliff jump. The first jump off of the small fall was actually a little bit scary. It wasn't that high up, but was high enough to feel that little frisson of danger and the what if moment...as in, what if I hit a submerged rock? What if I slip while jumping and tumble down the rock face? What if my bathing suit falls off when I hit the water? etc? etc? Still, this is what we were here for and I had brought my underwater camera to record the moment. Wheeee! I came, I jumped, I giggled. It was fantastic.

After a few jumps from the small cliff, we swam over to take a look at the large cliff. We edged close to the drop-off and the oddest thing happened: I felt no urge to jump. Normally, when presented with a dangerous or pseudo-dangerous pastime, I feel giddy, my adrenaline pumps, I get light-headed and slightly queasy. All of this is what adds up to "fun" for me. It's the feeling that lets me know that I will regret NOT doing something and that inspires me to push my boundaries. However, sitting on top of that cliff, looking at the pool far far below, I just felt blah. It was a combination of a lack of the physical fear reaction and the realization that I really could get hurt - several people die each year making that jump. I was 99.999% sure that I'd be just fine, but that .001% chance of injury when weighed against the blah feeling of not even being excited by the idea meant that I just didn't want to jump. Very strange.

Since I was staying on dry land for this adventure, I was the designated camerawoman for Nicole as she prepared to jump. I took a couple of photos of her as she hesitated on the edge and then, just as I started to switch my camera to video - without even a 1, 2, 3 - she jumped! I had not caught it on video! So, like any reasonable person would, she had to jump again. ;) You can really tell how long that fall is by the drawn out scream fading off into the distance, only to be cut off by a muffled splash. She had a great time.

While Nicole was climbing back up the cliff, I headed upstream to explore more of the river. There were more pools higher up but I only found very short falls. After a 15 minute mini-hike, I headed back and jumped off the short fall for one last bit of fun. While I was off exploring, Nicole had also climbed up a tree, out on a branch and had jumped off, managing to injury both her upper chest and shins. The bruise on her shin was very impressive! So, between us, we had bruises, sprains and that was all. Not bad for a morning spent cliff diving! We hiked back down to the first fall and spent a little time cooling off in the large pool. I was able to climb up behind the waterfall, with the help of a nice man from San Jose, and loved looking out at the world from a blanket of mist and foam. The roar of the fall was matched by the sound of about 200 people playing and having fun in and around the water.

Next, I decided that I really must jump off of one more rock and managed to climb up the face of the cliff with the death-defying help of two teenage boys. The only problem: I was wearing my Keen water shoes to protect my feet. They'd done a great job for hiking and swimming, but were a bit of an impediment in rock climbing. I was traversing cracks in the rock that were about 3" wide, plenty of space for a bare foot, but my Keen's are about 4" wide and don't bend. Honestly, there was a point when I was frozen on the rock face, unable to go forward or backward without the risk of falling about 6 feet onto the rocks. It turned out that I did have some adrenaline left after all. I made the climb and the jump and felt very proud of my accomplishment and grateful to the two boys. While I was stuck on the rock, they actually tried to get me to grab their arms and risk taking them down with me. I didn't take them up on it, but it was sweet of them to offer! Nicole followed me up barefoot and had no trouble at all. Then we both dove off of one last rock and reluctantly started the hike back out to the main road.

Montezuma is a bit of a hippy town, lots of marijuana and handmade jewelry. There is also one of the best vegetarian restaurants that I have ever been to. We had a yummy lunch, consisting of a lentil and rice salad (Nicole) and a Thai veggie burger (Christine). Everything was wonderful and perfect after blowing so many calories on our morning hike. After lunch, it was already around 4pm. We stopped off at the internet cafe and then headed back to Luna Llena to check into our cabin. That morning, we were too early to check in and so we had left our packs in the storage closet and our passports in the safe. Now, we were ready to check in and then go for a swim at the beach.

Back down at the beach, we ran into Gabriel, Sara & Jill. Small world. They said that they had not been served dinner until 10:45pm and that our waitress ended up quitting that night because she was so frustrated with the whole evening - not just our table, but everything. Nicole settled in for a chat with our new friends and I went for a swim. The water is amazing in Costa Rica. The Pacific feels like a completely different ocean in Central America than it is in North America. In San Francisco, you really need to wear a wetsuit to be in the water for anything more than a footbath. Even in the LA area, where I grew up, the water is brisk and takes some serious getting used to. Here, it was like walking into a fountain. The water was warm and bouyant and the waves were churning. I positioned myself to lay on my back floating up and down over the waves, looking back at the shore. There was rainforest and volcanic rock and flocks of birds all shown in the ruddy colors of the setting sun. Perfection. I ended up swimming a bit with a young Brazilian girl, using the international language of facial expressions and gestures. We both tried body surfing and came up half-drowned and laughing. It was one of those perfect moments. Also, with two of us side-by-side, any sharf swimming by would have a choice of targets, reducing my risk of being eaten by 50%. No, I'm not proud of trying to throw a preadolescent to the sharks, but I do have that pesky phobia.

After the sun had definitely set, we headed back for showers and then out to a restaurant for dinner. We picked a restaurant looking over the beach, at the end of the main street. It was also a hotel and a bar, and was the first place that we'd tried to get a room when we arrived in Montezuma. First things first, we ordered cocktails! Nicole had a bitter lemon cocktail and I had a Cocoloco banana rum drink which was a little odd. Then we split a complimentary shot of cacique - the local liquor. Ugh! It is stronger than vodka and tastes slightly rotten. I can't say that I wanted to rush to the duty free and buy a bottle to take home.

After cocktails we stuffed ourselves on salads and entrees, going all out since this was our last night in Montezuma. I had another heart of palm salad which was a bit disappointing, but still yummy and some gorganzola pasta (just a gigantic heaping pile - really it was barely more than 3000 calories). Nicole had a salad and a seafood clay pot dish that looked great. After dinner, we looked for an internet cafe and briefly went online. The place that we went had some old photos up from the 1930s. Today, Montezuma has about 400 permanent residents, plus a steady stream of visitors and a number of service workers who bus in from other towns; back in the '30s, it was a population of about 20. There was a family from Germany who had come out and bought land and farmed there, and the photos were of the family and the area. It was fascinating to be able to see how the area has changed and I was interested to learn that Costa Rica has attracted expatriots for such a long time.

After dinner, we were meandering down the street when we stopped, shocked to hear...ABBA! One of the restaurants had pulled down a movie screen and was showing Mamma Mia! Seriously, they were showing Mamma Mia with Spanish subtitles. We just had to stop. We got a prime table right in the center front and settled in with some decaf coffee to enjoy the show. There was only about a half hour left of the movie, but it was just as fun as I remember. Colors, singing, gorgeous scenery, silly plotline - all this adds up to a just-plain fun experience.

Now, we continued our wanderings, by chance picking up Gabriel, Sara and Jill again and we all headed out to the beach. I'd worn my bathing suit as a just in case, and was ready for anything. There were a number of bonfires on the beach, and I spied a likely one to approach. When asked, the 2 Costa Rican men and 2 Austrian women were happy to share their fire. We all sat or stood around talking about life for at least 30 minutes when suddenly, Gabriel stepped on a sea turtle. While we were all absorbed in human affairs and while our eyes were accustomed to the light of the fire, a giant sea turtle had crept up behind us and dug herself into the sand. Sea turtles always return to the beach on which they were born when they are ready to lay their eggs. While this turtle was quietly contemplating the parturition process, Gabriel accidentally stepped on her. We were in an uproar, shining our flashlights, snapping photos, surrounding her. She flapped her feet frantically, throwing sand three feet in the air in all directions and then accepted retreat as the better part of valour and headed back to the sea with the 8 of us (one of the CR guys was off buying beer) trailing her and filming her the whole way. After it was over, we castigated ourselves for keeping her from laying her eggs, but I have to say, if you were there, I bet that you'd have done the same thing. It was just so unexpected and exciting. How many of you have ever been ambushed by a four foot long sea turtle???

Clearly that was the highlight of the night. After a few lingering conversations, we left the original four people to their bonfire and headed home. The sky was filled with visible stars, planes, satellites & meteorites. The Milky Way was as clear as I've ever seen it. The air was balmy and my muscles were pleasantly sore. Other than my throbbing sprained finger and the absence of my husband, I was in paradise. Back at the cabina, we fell asleep to the sound of monkeys and insects enjoying life.