Stranger Than the Dream

 

8-24-00 Th 4:03 PM 15 minutes Tamarindo, C.R.

I haven’t written in two days. There’s so much to catch up on. I’ve got blisters on my fingers from reeling in so many sailfish this morning, and my back is sore from riding a horse to the waterfall south of Montezuma; I’m sunburned; My lungs are clogged with fumes; The bugs on the bar where I’m sitting keep crawling over this page; My pina colada is not strong enough, and Arenal, our next destination, blew its top, burning three tourists and necessitating the evacuation of the area.

Two days ago, I took a dirt road north(?) of Monteczuma toward Cabo Blanco, across dos puentes—there are two—the old one is unsafe to cross. A guy in town told me if I turned past the barbed wire fence there and followed the stream, I’d come to a waterfall. I clambered over slippery boulders ascended nature-made, tree-root staircases through the jungle, crossed the stream on steppingstones in the persistent din of cicadas. Sweat poured from my brow. I came a small falls cascading down to a pool in which a young woman in a bikini frolicked with her lover. I pressed on. Over the river and through the woods. Vines hung in the way. After about twenty minutes, I came to a pool where whitewater gushed over a cliff two hundred feet into a blue green pool. Two mermaids performed a water ballet. Supermodel Elle McPherson swan dived from the rocks. A steep-walled crater nearly encircled the entirety of the pool but for where the stream flowed out the way I had come. A couple of stormtroopers informed me that if I were to scramble up the cliff, an even better waterfall awaited down and up a few small jungle mountains. They said tree roots growing out of the cliff worked like a ladder. I heard Indiana Jones music and considered scaling the wall to the second sacred pool, but the thought of my wife back alone in our room tempered my enthusiasm. She would be worried if I was gone long. It seemed that the second fall was an additional two hours, round trip. I decided to head back. I filmed most of the hike back. A first-person video hike. A virtual jungle stream video hike. I stopped at the first pool. The bikini and her lover had gone. I stripped to my undershorts, put the camera on a rock, and took a cool swim. Ahhh. A brief break from sweat. I sat on a rock and rested. I felt good. Then I continued back. I had to really crawl through the brush when the trail vanished on me at one point, but eventually I came again to the two bridges where the stream opened to the rocky ocean. I walked up the dusty road, past chickens and pigs, back to town and the room where my wife was.

 

Tu 8:46 PM 8-22-00

I dreamt of Shirelle last night. I think it was the first time since she left. We were in some weird dorm-style building in a strange city (not unlike the Hotel Bienvenido in San Jose), and she was with some shadowy guy. I missed her, and I was sad and wanted her back. I saw her through an open doorway, and she saw me. I crooked my finger to her, and she came to talk to me. I told her I loved her, and she said she did not love me. I felt loss and grief. I pleaded with her to come with me, but she refused. I followed her up to the top of the building and she jumped off to get away from me. I woke up her and confused. My waking life seems stranger than the dream. I was bathed in sweat. I pulled aside the mosquito net and went into the bathroom. I splashed water on my face and brushed my teeth. I brought the Miami Herald out to the veranda where the maid had left a pot of coffee. I read the paper sitting in a cushioned for-post chair, the legs hewn from tree branches. About an hour later, Rochelle woke, and we walked down the dirt road to the little restaurant and had scrambled eggs, potatoes, and fruit for breakfast. Rochelle has a hard time making up her mind. I wonder if it’s because she is pregnant. After breakfast, we decided to see if we could find a waterfall we had read about in the Frommer’s book. We packed water, towels, and cameras and headed south, we thought along the beach in search of the mouth of the stream.to head up to the waterfall. We went slowly. Rochelle’s not a good walker even when she’s not pregnant. She has one duck foot that sticks out at a forty-five-degree angle left of street ahead. We walked maybe a mile along the beach past crab-filled tide pools and onto a trail in the jungle running along the beach. We saw some different lizards on the trail, scurrying under brush and hanging onto vines. Eventually, the trail opened up to another wide beach, and we came to a creek that flowed down through a jumble of volcanic rock. We started over the rocks. It was difficult even for me, so you can imagine the time Rochelle was having. After a tough two hundred yards or so, we stopped, and I scrambled up ahead to scout the way. There was a drunk passed out up there using his shorts for a pillow. But other than that, it looked arduous, if not impossible, for a gal seven months pregnant with a gimp foot. We turned back.