"Behind the clouds the sun is shining,
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life a little rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary."
- Longfellow
As a photographer few things strip life to its barest necessity like chaos. Images seem to emerge from what hours or days before seemed, as my Costa Rican friend Rudy Zamora would say, "tranquillo". Chaos comes in all forms, some predicted, some thrust upon its victims - be it war, famine, natural disaster, or in this case a little too much rain.
The past couple weeks in Costa Rica were the great yin-yang of traveling that makes traveling the wonderful experience I crave. The first nine days were near perfect - well, from a photography and bird-watching point of view. The chronically rain drenched Tortuguero N.P. was clear and hot. The surf rolled onshore and lured hatching baby sea turtles to sea each night and dawn. Scores of migrant song birds decorated the trees. Basking basilisks. Quiet paddling in the backwaters of the "baby Amazon."
In La Selve the rain came only one afternoon. In classic form. The sky swelled in humid heat and loomed with steely-hued cumulus. The rainforest cicada ratcheted up their mechanical rhythm and then the firmament exploded with a blinding flash and a thunderous clap - seconds later the downpour was on. We escaped and took refuge in the open bar, and toasted the tropical deluge with cold indigenous libations. Afterwards watched Aracaris share tree-ripened papaya with stingless bees.
In the mountains along the Continental Divide from Arenal N.P. southwest to Monteverde Biological Reserve light showers drift in and out of each day, as expected, this is the tropics, this is rainforest.
Even at a young age a baby Guan knew this rain wasn't going to be fun
and stuck close to mom.
The last week it was time for the other reality. The one where "...a little rain must fall,"
Over the past coupe decades of travel I've discovered most chaos slips in subtly, silently. The few contradictions being bomb-blasts from rebel factions or political protests, but even then the place had been compromised long before, you knew in your heart it was a rising tide.
The road less traveled - from Quepos to Manuel Antonio
- at least the day after 16.3 inches of rain in 24 hours made it impassable.
The wonderful British travel writer Colin Thubron wrote, "You go because you... crave excitement, ... the need to understand something before it's too late. You go to see what will happen." I would add experience, not just see, what will happen. We always want to survive that place we go, but were or when we tip-toe that tightrope of survival we step into a new reality that never leaves us.
The tail of hurricane Thomas visits Costa Rica and out-stayed it welcome, turning the Pacific Coast into waterworld. A place where virtually nothing was high enough to escape the flooding waters.
Clarity, empathy, concern, global awareness, perspective, ownership, responsibility, Earthliness are all facets of the new reality. You finally emerge from the place where things happen and your days change. You check the news, surf the web, wonder why your chaos isn't news. Why where you know things happened it doesn't concern the rest of the world.
You learn sluggish sloths may die with full bellies, unable to digest in the soggy cold. You fear for friends, and all for the homeless you drive past, left sleeping on the road. You feel a refection of guilt because your wealth secures a life boat - this time. Your world has shrunk in all the rain. It has also become more lush. Rising waters have pushed up your experiential fecundity. You do it enough and soon the whole world is your street, your town, your neighbors. Your parochial blinders washed off - you see the world with your heart and soul.
My thanks to Rudy Zamora for making the past couple weeks a brilliant experience.
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