The closest I get to being adventurous most days is pulling the beds away from the wall to see what nose candy might be stored there. Or maybe I walk on the wild side by buying the 50% off meat. (Hey, we might get really sick! This is so Crraaazzyyyy!) The ultimate in wild? A walk at night. There could be bears! Lurking anywhere! They could chase me! But the truth of the matter is the bears are only looking for garbage, I never get sick from the meat (I only get a deal) and after several talks about “the walls not being a tissue” I don’t find aging green boulders anymore. Actually that’s worse because no one knows where they are now. Best not to think about that. Cliffs scare me. Large ski hills scare me. Foreign alleyways scare me. Basically I am not donning a pack and venturing into the unknown anytime soon. Unless, that is, the adventure ends in air conditioning and nachos. From recent experience, this is the best kind of adventure.
We were lucky enough to find ourselves in Costa Rica over the break, and it was an amazing place to visit. The first seriously cool thing we did was stop at “Crocodile Bridge” to look at…you guessed it… crocodiles. Huge ass crocodiles. Basically floating cars. Our driver assured us that he would be parked at the other end, but we had to walk the bridge on our own, and to be careful. So we were as careful as we could be, considering highway traffic was on one side, man-eating crocodiles on the other. And when I say man-eating, I mean, they are the vehicle with which the Costa Rican Mafia dispose of people. No trace of anything. (This was confirmed for me by a local). As I was trying to take pictures of the huge ass crocodiles, I noticed that parts of the bridge were crumbling, the guard rail missing etc. My husband kept shouting at the kids. “Watch your step! Be careful!” And I largely tried to ignore the danger; the need to step off the sidewalk to let others pass but yet try not to get hit by cars moments, the pings of doubt I had about taking my kids (one who is notoriously clumsy) to such a place. As we made it to the other side I saw a Dad who looked very much like my husband, pale and immobile. “Did you see them?” I asked him. “Once was enough,” he said. He’d obviously been there, assessed the danger, and wasn’t doing it again.
“Let’s not stop on the way back, maybe,” I mentioned to my husband, who wholeheartedly agreed. Amazing to see! So incredibly cool! So… Pants-Crappingly terrifying!
We found ourselves immersed in a world of beauty, animals everywhere we looked, foreign plants, bugs. My tidbits of Spanish saw us through, most of it me apologizing for how bad it was…I knew I was saying things like “Children, Bathrooms immediately please?” But oh well. My theory is as long as you can say “two beers” and bathroom” in a foreign country you’re ¾ of the way there.
Our next adventure was a mangrove tour. It was akin to the safari boat at Disneyland only without the elephant spraying you with water. There were bats, and monkeys, and crocodiles, and spoonbill birds in bright pink, and, even though it had to be pointed out to us until we were almost on top of it, very poisonous snakes.
‘Do you see it now?” The guide said, as we floated dangerously close. He explained how the Fer-de-lance can strike from three meters away. We were two meters away. I asked the kids to move back a bit, and suggested we push the boat away as he put his iPhone almost on its face to take a picture. It moved slightly and then he jettisoned himself into the boat and backed it up.
On the drive back home, we had to slow for a police car and an accident. I tried to tell the kids there was a bird just over on the other side, did they see it? In the hopes that they didn’t notice the smashed motorbike and the car glass broken in and the large amounts of blood everywhere. The driver went on to explain that cars don’t see motorbikes and I had to think, wow, look how many motorbikes there are on the street here. Huh. Note to self: no motorbikes. Maybe ever.
Our third great adventure (yes also a tour, we fully understand our forays into a third world country are a mere toe-dipping, fully insured experiences) was a night tour in the jungle. I’m not sure what we thought it would be, maybe a few tree frogs nailed to a tree or something, but no…we each grabbed our flashlights and headed into the jungle. Like, the real @#$@ jungle, howler monkeys hooting and things croaking and creaking and at one point, my daughter yelling “Mom! Don’t move!”
So I didn’t move. Until I saw a snake moving past my right foot at which point I moved very slowly away, even though I was supposed to stay still. Just in case it was you know, one of those seriously effing poisonous ones. (The guide looked alarmed momentarily, then said, “oh, that’s just a cat eye-d snake, totally harmless). Adventure with danger! And Oh shit there’s a banana spider, the worlds deadliest type! Oh there’s a tarantula! And another! Oh wait, there is an even bigger spider! Hey there’s a cockroach the size of my phone! and as we are staring at the cockroaches, my husband steps on a nest of fire ants. Then we are running and stomping along in the jungle and it’s a bit like the Blair Witch Project only with bugs. I tried to tell the kids there was nothing to be scared of, that wasn’t it awesome to see toads the size of small cats and stick insects and..and… and yes, we were all thrilled to bits. It s was a true adventure. Danger! Possibly stupidity! Most definitely stupidity. But as soon as it was done, I’d have given anything to do it again. Later in the hotel room my husband looked up an even BIGGER ADVENTURE.
“Look! If we go south next time, we can go even further into the jungle, maybe see the big cats.”
He then pulled up a few reviews on Tripadvisor.
One mentioned that he and his buddy stayed in a shack near the Panama border and he awoke to a machete pointed at his chest, as they were being robbed.
“Nope, “I said. “Nuh-uh.”
I will stick to nachos and a drink after any near-death (but not really) adventures, thank you.
Left to right…a “Ground Spider”. Can I rename that for you? Really Big-Assed Scary spider. My daughter scared it back into its hole by shrieking as loud as she could.
A Howler, which sounds really scary in the dark. They also like to throw their crap at people, because that is really what they think of you and your kind.
Here’s our wayyyyyy too close up snake picture. I’m still getting over this.
And oh yes! Who’s that in the reeds! Oh hello! At least this one wasn’t bigger than my car.