The first 150

This is a very different hike than last year. In the 12 days I've been out, I've met 9 southbound thru-hikers. Northbound day 12? Probably 50. 

Katahdin was numbingly hard. The 100 Mile Wilderness? Here's an excerpt from my journal:

"Today, I ate wild blueberries and cried. I wept."

Now, I'm moving through rural Maine. 

Things are better, emotionally. Physically, I'm starting to get tired and my shoes are wrecked, but I want to keep going until after the Whites. Then I'll take a day off and be at peace about it.

Maine is water. Wide, shiny lakes and green drowned Ophelia ponds and orange pools and amber rivers. 

Maine is blueberry, bunchberry, clintonia and lichen spread thin over pockmarked rocks, and spruce and fir and deciduous invaders.

Maine is bogs, which are pretty in the cold thunder because you have nothing else to lose at that point; you can see the slimy inside-out-umbrella mushrooms and the Venus flytrap plants. Otherwise, they're just bugs, and you see nothing.

Mosquitoes, the used heroin needle of the insect world, are the dominant life form. Does anyone know if blood type factors in to how often you get bit? Because I get bit alarmingly often. There's not DEET enough. I also have been theorizing that southwest Maine may have a wormhole that allows every mosquito that ever was and ever will be to exist together; this to explain the size disparity of my hunters.

There are roots over the trail like octopus tentacles. There are climbs straight up, where you have to play a "Would I Rather" game:

Would I rather lose my trekking pole or die?

Would I rather break my ankle or die?

When it rains, the world is gone. There is nothing except the tree in front of you. I've gotten so disoriented that I've lost the trail and ended up hiking about .5 north.

I'm at mile 151. Maine ends at 280 something. 

And honestly?

I'm just ready for the Whites.

Katahdin

In a small cafe

Knees knocking, veggie omelette 

Katahdin today.

Of all the trips to have my luggage lost, it would be the one where my bag is literally necessary.

I'm staying at a lodge in Millinocket. My bag didn't make the same flight as me, so I waited in terror and tried to learn Rummy with Fairway, Sprout, and Trevor. My trail name this time is Toastface, a nickname given to me my freshman year in college because of how easily my face turns a toasty pink. I imagine it will remain that color until mid-October.

A man from the airport literally drove my bag out to me. What service, eh? 

I told all my old buddies about the hike, so you might see some cameos over the next few months. Hopefully Rooster, at least. Definitely Shepard (Garret). 

I'm nervous.

In Which Amalia And Chelsea Explore Monteverde: The Fourth And Final

That morning, at breakfast, I made an appointment with Allan (tattoo person) for the next day. And then we left for THE MONTEVERDE CLOUD FOREST.

This place! You guys! This is one of the most diverse places on earth. I encourage you to take a moment to google it.

Have you? No? I encourage you again.

Good. So. 

We were planning to take a bus up, but the bus wasn't running. One of our favorite (actually, the only favorite we mutually agreed on) hostel workers, whose name is Ro (Rrrrrrro. Ar oh. Eets very short.) -

Actually, a short pause. Let me give you some Ro.

Ro doesn't look Latin American. He's got sandy blonde hair and is, yeah, pretty tan. He is 57. He does not look 57. He's flamboyant and has ear gauges and wears punk stuff and has a something mullet haircut. He's very good at making you feel comfortable by teasing you mercilessly, if you know what I mean. We all know those people, right? Anyway, we love him. His running joke with me- because Chelsea is engaged, he wanted me to propose to him. Whenever I'd walk into the hostel, he'd tap his ring finger.

Where's my diamond? I want one so big I cannot lift my hand. When are you getting it?

And I'd make up some story about being mugged or a hawk stealing it and he'd pretend to cry. 

Anyway. Ro drives a... Hm. A... Well. It's like a scooter with... How do I describe this? It has three wheels, it's covered like a rickshaw. With a roof. I... Picture a tiny, tiny red car with three wheels and a roof that appears to be made of plastic-coated sheep bladder and no doors. That's roughly it. 

Ro doesn't have a driver's license, so he had to call to make sure no police were patrolling. Then, we were off.

There was an ever-present awareness of our own mortality as we slowly chugged over the rough, torn road, looking straight out the doorhole and into the green canyons. At one point we ran out of gas. Ro showed us some flowers we could eat. I think mustard. Do you guys know of people who do this in the US? Who can just drop flora/fauna knowledge bombs on you with no preamble? I don't. I love that about Costa Rica.

We made it to the top and gave Ro a hug (little did we know it was the last time we'd see him!), then headed into the cloud forest.

First, we stopped at the hummingbird gallery just outside the park. THE BIRDS!!!! The numerous, iridescent birds!! Purple and green and electric blue, jousting and feeding and flitting around. I thought I was going to get hit a few times. 

But then. Then the forest.

Like pictures, words aren't going to do it any justice. I'll just say that we could barely take five steps without having to stop and stare open-mouthed at some gooey plant or practically tangible stream of sunlight through leaves or clouds so thick you can feel them in your hair or caterpillars the size of your index finger that are orange with white tufts of fuzz spiking out... It was humbling and awesome in the most literal sense. 

After a while, maybe in a subconscious attempt to normalize our experience so that we wouldn't fall off the planet, we started making up jokes. One would set the circumstances, the other would add something, the first would add more, the other would tie it up with a punchline. And they were all Russian themed. Don't... Don't worry about that part.

This was the best one, punchline by Chelsea. Feel free to use it when at the 1950's dentist's office.

A woman was walking down the street in Vladivostok when a young thief ran past and stole her handbag. The woman chased after him until she saw a police officer. 

"Officer, that boy just stole my bag!"

"I know," said the officer.

"Well, aren't you going to stop him?" She demanded.

"I would, you see, but it looks better on him."

After the cloud forest, we blearily rode a literal school bus back towards the hostel. On the way, I recognized the turn-off for the giant strangler fig I'd gone in search of the previous evening. We hopped off the bus and made our way up the hills and through the vines, wondering if every strangler fig we saw was the famous one.

But when we saw it, we knew.

It is several stories high. Inside, it's like someone braided wet tree limbs into a loose jungle gym. It's just a cylinder of lacy tree.  

I climbed to the very top. It was scary and invigorating.  

Back at the hostel, Allan was giving a tattoo to David, the owner. He asked if we could move the appointment up to that evening, since all his gear was set up. 

While we waited for him to finish David's, we went back to the Herpetarium to see the night snakes. 

First of all, WHAT A COOL THING TO DO, HERPETARIUM. 

The snake house was dark. We were given flashlights and set loose. Most of the animals were just chilling in the same positions as before (which is one of the many tragedies of captivity), but some of the frogs were out and bouncing. 

As we watched the boas, an employee came by. We asked a few boa-related questions and he got a little excited with us. He told us one of the boas eggs had just hatched.

Stay here. Just a second.

When he returned, it was with a large red plastic tub. He opened it and we peered inside. There, slithering thick on the bottom, were forty baby boa constrictors. They still had pieces of egg and hatching slime clinging to them. We just stared for minutes and minutes. BABY BOAS. 

Oh! Also, this was the day we saw the baby sloth! But it was pretty low-key.

Okay, so we leave the snake house and head back to my impending tattoo. 

Why did I decide to get it? I don't know. I liked that the hostel had a resident tattoo artist, I wanted the tattoo, I had had a profound moment during canyoning when I realized how deeply I love the natural world and I wanted to memorialize that somehow, and I guess the fact that my tattoo artist had been making our breakfast for the last three days sat well with me, as opposed to the clinical meet-stab-pay relationships you get with most tattoo parlors. 

However. I was feeling just slightly uncomfortable with Allan. The getting of the tattoo itself was fine, although there was a slightly awkward moment when I was asked for a down-payment to cover "materials" (read as: cocaine). The good hostel dog, Sacha, sat beside me the whole time to make sure I wasn't too scared. For which I am extremely grateful.

Allan had had a little trouble with the gun, so he seemed pretty relieved when it was over and asked Chelsea and I out for drinks with the rest of the Tico entourage. Chelsea declined, but I went. 

Things I learned while at the one bar in Monteverde with people who actually live there: 

I guess shots aren't a social thing. People kept taking shots alone. I don't know if that was specific to this group or if it's cultural, but I definitely prefer social shots. Otherwise, it's just weird.

Cocaine. That IS a thing. My friend group at home definitely smokes weed, and although I don't personally, I'm comfortable around it, but this was the first time I'd ever seen a hard drug. It went like this:

Allan: Hey, we're going to get high. Want to come?

Me: What kind of high?

Allan: The other kind.

Me: (some inane response and a retreat into the bathroom)

I don't know a lot about coke, but it seemed like these people were doing A LOT of it. I just danced and lurked near the Swedes we'd met before until it was time to leave.

Chelsea pointed out that hard drugs could explain the construction of the hostel's bunk beds and bathrooms, which did seem to never have known a professional builder.

The next day, we took a bus to San Jose (AND IT ALMOST FELL OFF A CLIFF. The driver got out and measured the distance and the whole bus applauded when we made the turn), spent a peely night working off our sunburns, and flew home the following morning. Right now, I'm sitting in an airport in Philly, with hair severely shorn in an effort to avoid Lyme disease, awaiting a transfer to Bangor, Maine. Tomorrow, I'll start my southbound crack at the Appalachian Trail.

Costa Rica is a beautiful and sad place. I wish I could go as a non-tourist. Countries that rely on foreign moneys break my heart a little, but as tourism goes, I think Costa Rica is walking the line between tacky sellout and genuine artifact in an impressive way. I hope if it falls one way or another, it falls towards Screw The Northern World And Do Our Own Thing.

And I really want to learn Spanish now.

  

In Which Amalia And Chelsea Explore Monteverde: Part 3 of 4

We were a little banged up from canyoning, and there was the World Cup final, so we decided to postpone our hike through the cloud forest until the next day. We checked out the Herpetarium, which houses probably 30 species of snakes, as well as frogs, toads, lizards, turtles, and tarantulas, all native to Costa Rica. A lot of the slithery residents are nocturnal, so the snake house stays open at night and you can reuse your ticket to come back when they wake up. More on this later.

Chelsea made a friend in Monteverde. Our first night in, we stopped at a taco stand called Taco Taco and Chelsea ordered our food in decent Spanish. The woman taking orders/making food was totally charmed by her. We ended up going to Taco Taco every day, and whenever she'd see Chelsea she'd say,

Oooooh, mi amor!!

And giggle. It was darling.

So after some yummy Taco Taco, we went to watch the game. There's only one bar in Monteverde (that we're aware of) and just about everyone was there. We sat at a table with Swedes and Canadians, next to ROARING Germans that kept singing the national anthem (which, for the record, should have been changed after WW2 because some of us have seen Holocaust-era stock footage and yes, it's the same song. May I add a hearty cringe?).

Aaaanyway, I think we just crashed early that night. I attempted to find a strangler fig - Hm. Let's do an explanatory tangent.

Strangler figs are members of the ficus family. They're parasites. They attach to the tops of trees and their roots grow down, down, down, around the trunk of the host tree, and the strangler embeds itself and sucks the nutrients out, eventually killing the host. Then, the original tree rots away, leaving eerie structures that look like enormous Chinese finger traps. Remember me talking about the trees that look like lattice? Strangler fig.

Anyway, there's a really really big and well-known ficus in Monteverde that you can climb. It's pretty hard to find and not owned by anyone, so you just do it on your own. I got directions from a lady at the hostel, but it was getting dark by the time found the hill after the bank around the corner from the blue house after turning left up the sharpest of three hills (...), so I postponed. 

When I got back, the hostel's resident muralist/visual artist started asking me about my ankle tattoo. He said he had worked as a tattoo artist and was just starting to get back into it. 

Jesse, our friend from canyoning, had gotten an Allan tattoo. I've been loosely wanting a scarab beetle, but since tattoos are a zillion billion dollars, I figured I wouldn't get it. But I like supporting nice people and this is an artist without a studio, so I'd rather give him my money than someone that doesn't need it. Was my logic at the time. So I told him I'd been wanting a tattoo and he said to think about it and get back to him.

Then, sleep.

In Which Amalia And Chelsea Explore Monteverde: Part 2 of 4

We woke up at 6:30 to the sound of rain. Chelsea had a canyoning tour planned for 7:00, but since the only thing we really knew about canyoning was that it involved walking in a river and repelling down waterfalls, she decided to cancel. She left a note for the guide and our friends, since no one was at reception. I fell back asleep.

At 7:30, there was a knock on our door. The tour guide, a totally charming man named Emel who had checked us in the night before, was outside. And angry. I was in and out of sleep, but the gist of the conversation was that Emel had gone way out of his way to get ready for the tour (he told me later that he typically only gives one tour a week) and that he would be giving one to Chelsea and that she needed to get dressed right then. So she did, but the Texans were nowhere to be found, which meant the tour would be Chelsea and the guide team and a father/son group who lived in the hostel. Emel wanted more people to come. Chelsea told me all this after getting mean-mugged by everyone in the establishment. She looked like she was going to cry. 

Everyone hates me now, Amalia.

So fifteen minutes later, a very grumpy Amalia was shoving eggs into her mouth and resigning herself to an activity that sounded like her least favorite day of Appalachian hiking.

But how wrong she was.

We drove out to Santa Rosa, which is a teensy hamlet outside Santa Elena (the main town connected to the Monteverde Cloud Forest). Emel, who was now in high spirits, told us that tourism wasn't an industry in Santa Rosa. The people were mostly farmers, raising fruit and livestock.

This was my first time in a vehicle with an uncensored Tico driver. The regular tours usually crawl around curves and potholes. Eduardo, less so. Pretty much just blasted across the mountains.

We pulled into a little cottage. Emel picked manzanas de agua, or water apples, from a tree. It tastes like a pear/mango hybrid. 

Our companions on the trip were Jesse and Connor. Connor is 9. They're Americans who've been traveling for a few months. I adore them. Jesse is a very low-key guy and he and Connor are obviously best buddies.

We got geared up and were deposited on a dirt road. Me, Chelsea, Connor, Jesse, Emel, and Emel's friend who only spoke Spanish.

It was a gorgeous day already. On the walk down the hill, Emel and his friend found some ripe guava. There's such an immediate taste difference between hothouse and wild fruit.

Costa Rica is very hilly, maybe even mountainous, but this doesn't seen to phase livestock. Cows and horses graze precariously on the 70 degree slopes. We saw a horse on a neighboring hill. Emel put his hands to his mouth and made a perfect imitation of a horse's whinny. The horse answered. We died. 

We reached the creek which was to be our path and started out. It was amazing. We hopped from rock to rock and splashed through the water. Emel pointed out morpho butterflies and glass frogs and blue shrimp and peeling indian trees and strangler figs. He told me about the politics of Costa Rica - that the government is very corrupt, that there is a lot of unaddressed poverty. It felt like a cool new friend showing us his favorite local spots.

And we repelled down waterfalls! I never really got the hang of it, but I loved jumping into the pools at the end. Chelsea, less so. She was eventually threatening to start a travel show called Bewilderness that features herself, a non-outdoorsy academic from Evanston, doing high adventure activities. If only she would...

We were pretty worn out after canyoning, so we hung out in the hostel that night. We had intended to go to La Fortuna for a few days to hike up the volcano, but neither of us wanted to be stuck on a bus for that long, so we revised our plans and decided to stay in Monteverde for a few more days. Which is ultimately how I got my new tattoo. Stay tuned.

In Which Amalia And Chelsea Explore Monteverde: Part 1 of 4

We stayed an extra day in Playa Samara, splitting a hostel room with the Texans, but only shortly after learning that the Texans themselves are splitting. We felt like kids stuck between parents, until later that night, when we felt like parents trying to keep their drunk toddlers out of traffic.

The next day, we drug our belligerent new travel companions onto the bus headed for Monteverde. 

Monteverde is an apt name. There are greens I haven't seen in nature. Looking out the bus window was like watching a Planet Earth panoramic. The hills are soft and rounded, with occasional trees crouching low against the skyline. A lot of the summits are bald, though, presumably because of deforestation. 

As we gained altitude, the heat faded into chilly, misty breezes. And may I add a hallelujah? Samara reached stagnant body temperature. 

About thirty seconds after getting off the bus, we were set upon by a hoarde of hostel and lodging representatives. They followed us down the street, yelling prices and shepharding us towards their establishments. We finally broke away and Chelsea found a well-rated hostel on TripAdvisor (which had NOT sent minions to hound us), and the Texans found room nearby. 

We immediately signed up for a night hike, because most of the coolest animals are nocturnal (it's what it sounds like - guided hike through jungle at night). Chelsea also signed herself and the other two up for canyoning the next morning at 7:00 am, which was too expensive for this dude. What is canyoning, you ask? Oh, dear reader. Just you wait.

So that evening, Sarah, Chelsea and I boarded a night-hike bound van (Eli didn't come; he and Chelsea had a tiff which apparently was friendship ending as we've seen neither since bidding Sarah goodnight a few hours later).

There's an oft-repeated expression in Costa Rica. In Spanish, it's "pura vida," which I assume literally translates to "pure life" but seems to be (when not slapped on every souvineer that will hold still long enough) the rough equivalent of "right on." 

Our night hike guide, however, used it as a punctuation.

This is a tarantula, found only in the mountains of my country. Pura vida. It will move when it feels vibration. Pura vida. 

It must be stressful to have a job that is only successful with the cooperation of unwitting wild animals. Our guide seemed to be feeling this pressure. He kept darting off into the jungle, alternating between shouting "Don't get off the trail!" and making a kinkajou mating call. 

We saw a tree frog and two distant porcupines, then a toucan (sleeping), then a green toucan (sleeping), then another brightly colored bird (sleeping). The kinkajou noises increased, full of desperation. 

The guide left us again to examine some trees. We stood around, shining our flashlights at leaves and each other's faces, until Sarah inhaled sharply.

What's wrong?

I think something bit me.

Five or six flashlights panned down. Sure enough, we were standing on an anthill. Sarah had pinky-nail-sized ants crawling on the legs of her pants and over her feet. We were trying to brush them off when the guide appeared. He looked at us quietly for a moment, scanning the group, then landed on me.

My friend, you have many ants on your feet. I will help you. Pura vida.

I hesitantly looked down. Tiny red and brown ants completely covered the toes of my shoes. We got them off as best we could, but ants had progressed up Sarah's pants by now, so we had to get moving before things got worse. I would find ants on myself as I got ready for bed, three hours later.

So the hike continued, with only the occasional panicked slap.

The guide was very peculiar and insisted repeatedly that we stay very, very close to him. Every animal's description fit this basic formula:

This is the beautiful (animal/insect), native to the mountains of my county. There are (number) species in the world and (number) species in Costa Rica, my country, and only (number) species here in Monteverde. (Then, usually, "it is asleep.") Pura vida.

We were getting tired. At first, it had been thrilling to tromp around in the dark after tarantulas, but now we wanted to go home. We were seeing a lot of the same animals and at increasingly distant intervals.

But then he found the sloth.

All the individual groups had seen sloths already, separately, and the sloth in question was difficulty placed. We would have been happy going "oh, cool, a sloth" and continuing our hike. But no. This man had promised us nocturnal animals, and by god, we were going to see this sloth.

He sprinted into the woods, off the trail, and tried to highlight the sloth from different angles with his flashlight. When this failed, he encouraged us to follow him. So we grumblingly tripped through the long grass and hidden logs and clumped as we had been taught.

This sloth is a two-toed sloth, only native to the mountains of my country. It is not fat, as it looks! It only has long hair, just like my friend Amalia (here, he lifted a chunk of my hair as proof that it was, in fact, comparable to a sloth's). The sloth only comes down once a week for poop and peep. It will not poop and peep from the tree or big cats will smell it. It will come down once a week to bury it's poop and peep. Pura vida. Why are you laughing, Amalia? 

Finally, the moon high in the sky and cicadas deafening us, we made it back to the van and were carted home, heads nodding in time with the rocky road. We bid our final goodnight to Sarah and fell asleep to the whistling mountain winds.

In Which Amalia And Chelsea Avoid Sun Exposure

Yesterday.

Our sunburns are comical. We slathered ourselves with aloe and watched the Argentina-Netherlands match in the shade of a bar. 

Costa Ricans (who refer to themselves as Ticos and Ticas) are notoriously vague with directions and addresses. Our second night, staying with Jesus, we were given probably a cumulative hour of verbal directions of this nature:

Drive until you see a bridge with the second bridge. There is a For Sale sign and house construction. Turn there and follow the road until you see a woman. She might not be there. Turn at the woman and drive 80 meters but if you see a fork, you've gone too far.

(real examples).

Once, a man gave us very specific, excruciatingly detailed directions to a laundromat, only to finish with,

But it's closed right now.

We warily asked for directions in town and, after wandering for about 15 minutes, found someone who just walked us to the bar we were looking for. 

We were rooting for Argentina and the Ticos were just rooting against Holland, so we had a pretty good time. The bartender invited us to hip-hop night. We were thrilled to see what that meant. 

We walked home via road instead of beach, through little pockets of real towns (a welcome change from the resorts and hotel compounds). We saw a girl almost get smashed in the head by a falling mango. We saw a flattened snake in the road. 

About halfway through our walk, we came up to a little grove of trees. There was a deep, throaty echo coming from above us, and rustling. 

I looked up and probably six feet above my head, locking eyes with me, was a monkey.

There were nine total, counting a baby. They were suspicious of us at first, but eventually went about their monkey business. Their calls were eerie, bouncing against the rocks and trees.

After a shower, we walked beachside back to town for hip-hop night. Hip-hop seems to be a very loose term here. I would have called it, "generic English-language music night." I think I heard three technical hip-hop songs, total.

Hip-hop night's population was the DJ, the bartenders, and ten or fifteen other people, all sitting and talking pleasantly. Not exactly a rager.

A very strong-smelling man in his fifties asked me to play darts. His name was Amir. He told me Amalia meant "the labor of God" in Hebrew and that he was from Israel. He asked for my star sign. 

Chelsea noted that his pants looked like a rug that was made of pieces of other rug. She sat with us and mocked me for being bad at darts, which was a huge help as it stopped Amir's prolonged hugs.

After we escaped him, Chelsea said,

Wow. He was as creepy as he looked.

We were then set upon by a really young guy named Diego. Chelsea made the point that it's hard to speak English, even bad English, with a Latin accent and not sound sexy, but Diego definitely managed. His words were so strange and confusing, and his attempts at picking us up were impressive feats.

-How old are you?

-I'm 24, Diego.

-(Pause) Oh. (Pause) You don't know how old I am.

-I would guess 19.

-(Pause) No, I'm 24, too!!!

-That's great.

-(Long, thoughtful pause) Yes, my birthday is 1989!

Finally, we got bored of not hip-hop and no salsa (it had been implied that there would be salsa) and left, Diego in hot persuit. He met us on the stairs. 

Amalia, I need to stil.

What??

I need to stil. Like at bank, give me all your money.

Steal?

No! Rob! I need to rob a kiss.

So we literally ran away. 

Today is our last day in Samara. Monteverde up next.

Monkey Count: 13