Experiencing... Costa Rica

My Costa Rican adventure began with musings over dinner between myself and a fellow friend with MS, Linda McGowan. We both had wanted to take a holiday together. Despite the usual warnings of "it’s not accessible" repeated by every travel agent we talked to, we decided to go to Costa Rica. After all, if I expected every place I went to be accessible, I’d never leave home! I would find an attendant, since I’m not able to travel without help.

We landed in the capital, San Jose, in November, 1995, at the tail end of the rainy season. As I suffer in the heat, I had borrowed a cooling vest from the MS Clinic in Vancouver in anticipation of temperatures in the 80-90 degree Fahrenheit range coupled with high humidity. Manufactured by an American company, the Steele Vest comes complete with freezer bags that fit neatly into a nylon shell.

Armed with the vest and my trusty Samson that converts my manual chair into a power chair without the added weight, Tamara (my attendant), Linda and I were ready for a jungle adventure.

Arriving in San Jose, however, was a letdown. It’s a dirty, ugly city that, fortunately, does not reflect what’s in the rest of the country. The airport is accessible, although the toilet I used, cockroaches and all, was not.

We decided to use our hotel, the Corobicci, as a base for the first three days and take tours out from the city. The hotel is adequate but over-priced. A much nicer and cheaper alternative is the B&B; El Sesteo. One of the units has a full kitchen and accessible bathroom with wheel-in shower. El Sesteo has a pool and a delightful open-air patio with a view.

Our first tour out from San Jose was on an aerial tram through the cloud forest of Braullio Carrillo National Park.

At the entrance to the reserve I was lifted off the bus and onto an open-sided shuttle truck that took us to the visitor’s centre, where we watched a video and were briefed on canopy exploration and the construction of the aerial tram, brain-child of scientist Donald Perry. Perry’s mission is to stop the destruction of the rainforest by using the tram to show people one of the most complex communities of life on earth. The tram is a two-mile excursion into the rainforest, home to two-thirds of all rainforest species, many of which never see the jungle floor. Traditionally, the difficulties of reaching the forest tree tops had always inhibited its study. Now, the aerial tram allows visitors (including those using wheelchairs) and scientists to "fly" through this hidden canopy of life.

Our guide, Jose, also took us on a hike, pushing and pulling our wheelchairs along part of the forest trail while explaining the fascinating symbiotic relationship between plants and wildlife. (Note: It is advisable to make your way to the park when it opens at 6:30 a.m., as the local tours reach the site late in the morning when there is a lesser chance of seeing wildlife.

The next day, we opted for a tour of Tortuguero on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. We were advised that the most accessible hotel was the Ilan-Ilan, named after the pungent yellow flower that grows there. We were picked up at our hotel at 7:30 a.m. and began a marathon journey by dirt road and boat into the jungle.

After a drive in an old Bluebird school bus that had seen better days, our driver, Tobias, carried me off the bus, down the steep bank and onto the boat.

Our cruise took us 65 miles up a unique series of inland canals to the mouth of the Caribbean. We made many stops along the way for wildlife viewing of crocodiles, caymans, howler monkeys, toucans, snowy egrets, vultures, a pink spoon-bill and sloths. Gradually, our city eyes "learned" to see the animals along the bank behind nature’s expert camouflage.

Accommodation at the Ilan-Ilan was suitably rustic; because the area has been declared a wildlife reserve, development has been kept to a minimum. Tortuguero is accessible only by water. Linda and I were carried off the boat and up a bank of 10 steps to dry land. Tortuguero is the largest nesting area in the Caribbean for the green sea turtles. If you get up at 3:30 in the morning, you’ll see the turtle hatchlings on the beach as they make their hazardous journey to the sea.

Back in San Jose three days later, we rented a Suzuki Sidekick four-wheel drive (low enough for me to accomplish a standing transfer with help) and headed west through the central valley to the Pacific. The roads in Costa Rica make our logging roads here in British Columbia seem like garden paths. Because vehicles, including semi-trailers loaded with logs, swerve to miss the volcanic craters in the middle of the road, they often end up in the oncoming lane -- too bad if you’re in the way. Drivers must be continually on the alert. Dodging pot holes, stray cattle and oncoming traffic is strictly a daylight activity, so be sure to find your resting place by six p.m. when the sun sets.

Following the winding roads, we made our way to the small town of Sarchi, home of Costa Rica’s traditional, brightly painted ox carts. The best place to buy handicrafts is at the artisan’s cooperative, a modern complex with a mall-like atmosphere. It’s easily accessible, if somewhat commercial.

For more of a traditional village atmosphere and for exquisite pottery, the small town of Guatil near Santa Cruz in Guanacaste province is the place to go. Here, artisans have their pottery booths on the side of the road so you can drive by and literally pick the piece you want, thus avoiding the hassle of loading and unloading wheelchairs and transferring in the 90-degree heat.

The next day we headed for Tamarindo on the Pacific side. We stayed at Cabinas Zully Mar in the "downtown" area, where the dirt road ends in a clutch of bar-restaurants on the beach. $30 US per night pays for ceiling fans, a refrigerator, a clean, large bathroom with just a six-inch lip into a big, cold-water shower. (Note: when it’s 80 degrees outside, you don’t want a room with hot-water showers!)

Tamarindo is all relatively accessible, and everything is connected by dirt road. Tamara went off to do some scouting around and came back with the news that a local American named Tom made the best meals in town. That night we feasted on a delicious meal of freshly caught tuna and "gallo pinto" (the national dish of beans and rice with hot chilies) served from a large fry pan laid on the rough wooden plank tables under the starry night sky.

The next day we decided to drive to Playa Grande and Las Baulas National Park to check out beach access. Tom had assured us that his Costa Rican friend (or "Tico," as the Costa Ricans call themselves) Edwin, who was studying for his master’s degree in turtle biology, would get me down to the beach to witness the nesting of the largest reptile in the world, the "baulas" (leatherback) sea turtle. But I had my doubts.

Around 80 leatherbacks, some weighing over a ton, come every night to nest on the beach at Playa Grande from October through February, making it one of the most important nesting sites in the world. The area has only one hotel and Costa Ricans are learning to protect the turtle by allowing very limited harvesting of the eggs. Admission to the beach is 75 cents, no flashlights are allowed, and only small groups are allowed access at night when the turtles are laying.

That night we picked up Edwin in Tamarindo and he directed us to drive along a road close to the beach. A turtle was soon sighted. Edwin piggybacked me along the sand. From my perch I could see the wide, tractor-like paths made by the turtles as they left the sea and moved slowly up the beach. The bright stars overhead and an infra-red torch gave off a strange, otherwordly glow as we plodded along the water’s edge.

Ten minutes later, he dropped me in the sand just inches away from a 500-pound leatherback. I watched in awe as the turtle laboriously dug a three-foot hole in the soft, brown sand with her back flippers and laid over 60 large, white eggs by the light of the full moon.

As the turtle covered the eggs and began her slow journey back to the sea, this primordial ritual somehow gave meaning to my own life. The reproductive instinct that drove the turtle from the freedom of the sea to her slow labours and land seemed like my own life journey. My wheelchair, as useless in the sand as the reptile’s hulking body, could have put an end to my instinctive curiosity to explore the world around me, had it not been for the help of another. Edwin would take no money for his labours.

The next day, with a multitude of memories, we left Costa Rica.

(Lynn Atkinson is a freelance writer living in Vancouver, B.C.)