Finding Treasure

The natural world is always nearby in CR,  wildness reaching its fingers always into civilization, as if trying to take it back. Reclaim it. The jungle sings all night. Rain falls on my jacket in sheets,  the tendrils of hair that escaped my hood soaked and sticking to my face. In the pool a massive toad sits, enjoying  a night time swim. He is displeased when we disturb him to get in ourselves. Within the rainforest, life exists more vigorously, more intensely, than anywhere else on earth. Every square inch is carpeted with layer upon layer of organic material, living and dead. Leaves, bugs, butterflies, birds and mammals and strange lizards, hibiscus so big they could be worn like hats, heliconia flowers and birds of paradise in bright candyshop colors.

Walking back to my hotel room one afternoon, I see dark shapes in one of the trees. Climbing silhouettes. I ask the handyman if they are monkeys and he smiles at me, a gaptoothed grin that cracks his leathery face in two, eyes twinkling.

Si, claro. Monos. Yes, of course! Monkeys. As if this is the most ordinary thing on earth. They jump and swing with a strange sort of grace. I stand there in my bikini watching them, and the handyman chuckles and heads off to finish his work, amused by the American girl transfixed on the lawn.

Not just monkeys, in fact, but howler monkeys. They call to one another loudly, dolefully, and their noise is the most savage and bizarre thing I have ever heard. The Costa Ricans are unfazed, because to Ticos, nature’s glory is part of the everyday. They take great care in protecting it, respecting it. There is no place the monkeys are not allowed to howl. A few days before the end of my trip, I saw a young man not much older than me, maybe twenty, in faux gangster clothes (beanie, long gold chain) take off his flip flop, put a land stranded puffer fish in his sandal and hand deliver it to the ocean--fully clothed.

The result of this stewardship is a country filled with tropical wonders, amazing discoveries hidden behind each bend of their rocky unpaved roads. IIn two weeks in CR,  I  walked on a suspension bridge above the rainforest canopy and saw thirty shades of green beneath me. Swam in a thermal river, warmed by forces beneath the earth so that the water is as hot as any jacuzzi. The water was colored by jewel toned algaes, torqiouse and emerald.  I  rubbed  thick gray mud on my skin, and when I washed it away,  felt my face  smooth and soft,  made new. I   hiked to the top of a mountain and saw before me not one but two volcanoes, distinguished and strong. I flew over the jungle on a zipline 700 feet in the air, and  felt what the birds must feel. I have swum in the clear Pacific, watched the palms sway and the children play in the sand, bathed in sunsets painted in red, gold, lavender.  Every day, I found something new in Costa Rica, that little country endowed with so much to share. I became rich with memories, and each night I fell asleep to the sounds of the cicadas in the dark, and I dreamt of the beautiful things that little paradiso had to show me.

Little Gringa in the Inca Heartland

Nosotros no nacido a ser triste. We are not born to be sad. I heard a Peruvian priest  recite this to children in a Cathedral in the country's bustling capitol, Lima, and have since regarded it as a prime example of the Peruvian attitude---a sort of determination, dogged and unrelenting, to make joy, make happiness. They are not bubbly people, per se. They are not like, for example, Brazilians, whose dispositions, in my experience, have always been sunny. No. They work at happiness, and they do not allow it to sip them by. They are polite and friendly.  I, the little gringa with the skin white as a cloudy day and a digital camera hanging from my wrist, I watch them and learn from them and their country. I have found a new piece of myself in their beautiful spanish and their quick smiles and the Inca legacy they hold.

I like to watch the women and the children. I think babies and mothers are often the key to a culture, the essence of it distilled. The women here are small and often delicate, but still they carry their babies tied to their fronts in slings of colorful cloths, the children looking oversized against thier chests. They dress them in thick, warm footed suits, better suited to the arctic than Lima's moody white fog. This seems to me a message to their infants: I will prepare you and protect you against all weathers, and with me, you will be warm, safe and perhaps a lite smothered. I will not let the cold winds f the world touch you even if it means you stride out into the day looking like a misplaced Eskimo.  The babies are beautiful, dark eyed, smooth skinned, chubby cheeked. They cry very little, because there are always aunties and mothers and papas and siblings surrounding them, ready to soothe their fears and worries before they even know they are there. They are precious.

Peruanos do not consider old age to be a sad thing, like we do in the States. It just means they have had more time to do the work that needs doing. They are an active and busy people and well into their golden years the women still dance the salsa, knit alpaca wool sweaters, hawk their wares to tourists in the Inca capitol, Cusco. Their long black braids knock against their backs and tall bowler hats sit on thier heads. They stuff their round old lady feet into alpaca stockings and practical brown loafers. They seem to live forever.

Peru is not a wealthy country and poverty is always on the edge of the tourists’ photos, grubby children holding out cheap hats and mate candies, calling, Senorita, Senorita. When I tell them no, their eyes go liquid and sweet  and they ask me, “Porque no?” I find it hard then to resist buying their silly souvenirs or their pineapple or their chewing gum, whatever it is.

The past is everywhere here,  the  ancient Incas as much a presence as the living Peruvians. The streets of cusco are lined with their canals; one of its largest cathedrals once housed the Inca spiritual center, the most important temple in their vast empire. Walls of it still remain, and tourists come to see both.  One famous set of ruins, a citadel on a hill outside the city, sits opposite a huge, open armed statue of Christ.  Children slide irrevrently down one smooth, curved wall in the fortress, laughing, slipping, tumbling down, playing on the bones of the past. The Peruvians do not mind the ghosts of the Incas lurking in every corner. They welcome them. They are proud of them.  This is one of many things I admire about them.

They have much to be proud of.Upon seeing Macchu Picchu I felt an awe so deep it made my heart leap to my throat. It is so beautiful it beggars belief. It is also brilliantly designed, like so much the Incas did. In Inca architecture and culture, patterns are everywhere. The whole world is full of hidden wisdoms if you view it through their lens.  Everything has a  purpose,  a reason, a story. It is a remarkable way to live.

This country has inspired me. It has made me realize yet again that I must always travel, always see the world. It has also made me see that my soul is fed by the Latin world, that the sounds of Spanish being spoken around me and the sight of corn vendors on the street and colonial cathedrals in the sun make me feel joy rush through my body like a drug. I am a different version of myself.   I am Maria. You see, my name makes no sense in Spanish. Casey doesn’t translate--at best, it sounds like a mash up of que, meaning what, and si, which means yes. At worst, spanish speakers cannot even pronounce it at all. For this reason, my mother suggested I use my middle name, Marie, here, and go by Maria. I like this idea. I need a spanish name, because I have realized that my soul just might be Latina. In my heart there is warm bread, cobblestone streets, plazas and green jungle and tall Andean peaks. In my heart I am Maria.