Hiking Through the Clouds

Adam Sievering My brother and I were fortunate to get a seat on the bus from San Jose to Monteverde. Unlike our first bus ride, this four hour haul exposed us to Costa Rica’s open countryside, which is distinguished by dangerously steep hills and mountains spotted with grazing cows. The bus ride also exposed us to a handful of memorable spectacles on the road – YouTube fail videos waiting to happen. As we discovered within ten minutes of traveling in Costa Rica, traffic laws are weakly enforced, resulting in a road experience that is somewhat reminiscent of Mad Max. Imagine cruising down the highway and watching a guy fly past your bus on the wrong side of the double yellow with three propane tanks haphazardly tied to the back of his dirt bike. If that wasn’t impressive, his buddy past the bus in the same fashion with a chainsaw strapped around his shoulder, then pulled a wheelie at about forty miles an hour to seal the deal. What did I learn on that bus ride? Just about anything goes on the roads in this part of the world. The gravel road that leads to Monteverde winds switchbacks up the side of a mountain and took nearly an hour to climb from the base. The bus driver furiously downshifted and the bus groaned like some prehistoric animal as we made our ascent. By the time we made it to the top, the bus needed some time to cool down and the bus driver was well overdue for a nicotine fix. As my brother and I aimlessly wandered away from the bus in search of Cabinas Vista al Golfo, a place I booked from the hostel in San Jose, I heard someone calling my name behind me. “Are you Adam?” a guy with a ponytail asked me as he approached. “Uhhh, yeah,” I skeptically admitted. “Good, I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “I’m Carlos. I work at Cabinas Vista al Golfo and saw your name on the booking list. Let me show you the way.” Still a bit suspicious of Carlos’ unbeatable customer service, my brother and I followed as he walked us through town. Monteverde is comprised of a few commercial roads with bars, restaurants, souvenir shops, a church and a grocery store. The whole town is surrounded by humid, misty forest that annually accumulates 118 inches of rain, which is three times the amount back home in Cincinnati. There were numerous gravel roads lined with hostels and tourism agencies that branch off the paved roads and cut through part of the forest, which is where our hostel was situated. In the check-in office, there was a menu of prepackaged adventures in the area for visitors to choose. Our first selection: a hike through the Santa Elena Cloud Forest. Guides are available for an extra fee, but my brother and I chose to venture through the forest alone out of egotistical defiance. The trails were short and easy to hike, but the forest was so cloudy and dense with vegetation that it felt as if we were strolling through a wilderness akin to Jurassic Park. Although we didn’t encounter any raptors, we were warned about pumas and jaguars that are allegedly rampant in this region. We looked hard for one of these cats, pretending that our pocket knives would be enough to defend ourselves in case it attacked, but we only discovered a family of howler monkeys migrating from treetop to treetop, along with handfuls of prehistoric-looking insects and exotic butterflies. My brother convinced me later that day to go on an ATV tour through a forest outside of the park, which allowed us the opportunity to check out the rugged backcountry of Santa Elena and experience a cleansing adrenaline rush as we traversed rocky creeks,  uncleared jungle terrain and boulder fields. Once we were back at the hostel, Carlos helped us book a jeep-boat-jeep transport from Monteverde to La Fortuna for the next morning. After a quick rice and beans dinner embellished with a local hot sauce, it was time to get some rest for what was still to come. 2010-02-04T14:36:18-08:00

2010-02-05T04:21:28-08:00

Winging it in Costa Rica 731

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Arenal Volcano as seen from Santa Elena Cloud Forest.

Adam Sievering / RumBum.com

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Costa Rica, Monteverde, Santa Elena Cloud Forest, Winging It, Hiking Through the Clouds

George Tucker You might think of them as eye-sores, but professional and amateur urban ecologists see beauty in the humble utility poles that reach up toward the sky, their wires stretching out from them like tangled vines, their "skin" pocked with scars made from staple guns and utility workers' boots. Utility poles are almost impossible to miss and yet virtually invisible to passers-by. Why bother to pay them any mind? The utility pole canopy hosts an electronic ecology as complex as any you'd find in the Amazon. To the untrained eye, the web of cables, anonymous gray boxes and ceramic spindles seems random and meaningless. Urban ecologists look up and see, if not beauty, purpose. <h2>What's the big deal?</h2> Utility poles are made from mature second-growth Douglas firs, southern pines and red cedars. The poles are pressure-treated with creosote and other compounds that are toxic to fungi and insects (and, some argue, humans). Beads of creosote will weep, like black sap, from utility poles for years. And, because the average service of a wood utility pole ranges from 30-40 years, you can look up to try to determine its age. Typical poles stretch 40 feet high. At the top, there are three separate and distinct zones. The power<img class="none" src="/images/postattachments/1928/medium/strollers-UtilityPoles.jpg?1265129501" alt="" width="240" height="180" />© strollers company owns the highest zone. Industry insiders call this realm the supply space. Telephone and cable lines, sometimes dismissively collapsed into the category "communications," inhabit the space below the crackling electricity cables. A safety zone separates communication lines from power lines so that untrained cable company staff can troubleshoot without serious risk of any mishap worse than a bad fall. A simple rule of thumb: the higher up you go, the more dangerous the cables are. Up to 12,000 volts sizzle through the highest cables. Bucket-shaped transformers step down the electricity to the familiar residential trickle of 120 volts. A single wire runs across the tops of many poles. This static wire attracts lightning and protects the rest of the array during storms. Three thinner wires, called A, B and C phase wires, feed power into the transformers. The more important a particular pole is, the more densely it's networked. Just like people. Charged as they are, songbirds can alight on uninsulated 12,000-volt wires unharmed because they aren't grounded. That is, no part of their fragile bodies forms a bridge between the charged wire and the ground. Bald eagles, great gray owls and other large birds are big enough that sometimes their wings sometimes fatally brush two wires at the same time. This allows electricity to arc between the wires, electrocuting the birds. So, make no mistake, small birds (and other small earthly creatures) may be just fine running along, or resting on, the wires, but there's a lot of power coursing beneath them. <h2>Signs of Life</h2> The lowest zone, the one typically right in front of your face, is reserved for announcements of yard sales and lost pets. A close look at the pole reveals decades of rusting staples and fragments of weathered paper. On busy streets these flyers and remnants completely cover this urban bulletin board. Casual anthropologists use these as contemporary totem poles to gauge a community's health. Lost pets and live music announcements, or paternity testing and cash advance loans? A quick survey can tell you the character of the neighborhood. Like so many other wonders in our world, utility poles are slowly going extinct. Underground cabling lacks industrial aesthetics and resists storms and other natural disasters more readily. We may be among the last generations to appreciate the humble utility pole. So lift your eyes to the sky and greet the ubiquitous herald of the age of electricity while you still can. 2010-02-01T14:42:28-08:00

2010-02-04T04:21:06-08:00

Urban Ecology 717

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Utility pole at sunset.

GyakornokPotyautas

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utility poles, urban ecology, creosote, power lines Just Look Up

Adam Sievering The first few days my brother and I spent in the valley allowed us the opportunity to become well-acquainted with the family and neighbors. It also gave us the chance to brush up on our Spanish before having to converse with bank tellers, bus drivers, street vendors and so forth once we left the comfort of Atenas, a place that one American neighbor described as “the Mayberry of Costa Rica.” In a few days, we already had enough experience in the local bar, Los Mangos Cantina, to successfully order una cerveza Imperial, tequila con limón and un guaro con Coke. As bourbon is to Kentucky, guaro is to Costa Rica – an essential for any cultured local. It tastes similar to vodka with an extra touch of sweetness and can be mixed with just about any soft drink or juice, although there are some boozers who prefer to swill it straight. We would practice phrases that the family taught us while conversing with the bartender and other patrons. I quickly learned that a few drinks will strip the self-conscious edge from the struggle to speak a new language, which ironically made our conversations much more fluid and personal. If guaro was served at the beginning of every Spanish lecture in college, I might have already been fluent. Armed with our improved Spanish vocabularies, my brother and I decided to leave Atenas for the first time and venture out on our own. On day five, we were bound for San Jose on a bus packed full of people in ninety degree weather. We were dropped off in the center of downtown and left to our own device to find our way to a bed. I heard of a place called Hostel Casa del Parque that was located somewhere near the national park in San Jose, so I hailed a cab and we headed in that direction. Unable to create small talk, we cruised in silence aside from Christmas songs on the radio to which the driver would occasionally sing along in a horribly off key melody. He dropped us off on the west side of the park, which is quite small, but pleasant to walk through during the day. At night it is a popular place to find drug dealers and prostitutes, as we were warned by a gentleman from North Carolina who welcomed us to Hostel Casa del Parque. His name was Jim and he had been living in various spots across Costa Rica for the last seven years. Before then, he was touring with the Grateful Dead across the United States. He was forty years old and still partied like he was twenty, never being caught without a lit cigarette and a 40 ounce of beer somewhere nearby. He seemed hell-bent on never conforming to the American standard for a man his age, which is probably why he left the United States. I couldn’t help but admire and appreciate his stubbornness. As we drank on the rooftop terrace, Jim explained that the hostel was one of the few aristocratic homes in the center of downtown that hasn’t been purchased by the city. Although the outside of the place looked slightly rundown with graffitied walls and barred windows, the interior was impressively decadent, embellished with oak floors, skylights and a spiral staircase. The terrace offered an awesome view of the park and the mountains that encircle San Jose. It’s also a great place to watch clouds pass above the city a night, as though the city were a steaming cauldron.  The hostel turned out to be an excellent place to meet people who gave us insight on what to see and do during our stay. A French artist named Alex suggested that we check out Monteverde, a small town in the mountains of Puntarenas that is known for great hikes and tours through surrounding tropical rainforests. Without much further ado, my brother and I decided that we would be leaving for Monteverde the next morning. 2010-01-27T12:56:20-08:00

2010-01-28T02:52:55-08:00

Winging it in Costa Rica 708

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Mural in San Juan, Costa Rica.

davebrenner

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Winging It, Leaving the Valley

Adam Sievering I woke up around six o’clock the next morning, which typically only happens about every other summer solstice. Sunlight was already beaming through the windows and I could hear countless bird calls that were totally foreign to me. I could also hear the family talking in the kitchen. Their Spanish was far beyond my level of comprehension, so I listened to the conversation as the consistent rhythm of familiar syllables linked together beautifully. I walked out the patio door to find myself looking at the most tropically lush property I had ever seen in person. Franco’s land was situated near the bottom of a mountain bowl, where fruit trees, wild orchids and tons of exotic animal life flourished. It looked and felt like the Krohn Conservatory back in Cincinnati, only without walls. As I absorbed the scenery, an old woman carrying a machete walked outside from the opposite side of the house. She looked a bit shocked when she saw me and I’m sure I looked equally shocked, if not terrified, when I saw her. She smiled. “Buenos días,” she said. “Yo soy Jackie. La madre de Franco. ¿Quiere su desayuno hoy?” “Uhhh,” I replied, trying to stall long enough to remember something from my three quarters of elementary Spanish. I smiled in return, nodded my head and just said “Sí,” completely ignorant of what I was committing to. She went back into the house and promptly returned with hot coffee, mango juice, a huge stack of toast<img class="none" title="A little groggy" src="/images/postattachments/1905/medium/Breakfast.jpg?1264113143" alt="A little groggy" width="240" height="179" /> © Adam Sievering / RumBum.com A little groggy and two different kinds of fruit jam. I thanked her for the deluxe breakfast and thanked myself for having learned enough in those 100 level Spanish courses to get hooked up. After serving my brother and me breakfast, Jackie resumed her business with the machete by hacking huge bundles of plantains out of a tree that was no more than twenty feet from the house. That afternoon, she made us a typical arroz con pollo lunch, embellished with fried plantain with cinnamon. This meal would become a staple of our diet during the course of our stay in Costa Rica, as well as Jackie’s signature French-influenced pasta dishes. In addition to Franco and his mother Jackie, there were four others living in the house: Franco’s nephew, his nephew’s girlfriend and his two young children. The family of six was extremely patient with our poor Spanish and actually seemed to take pleasure in helping us improve. They allowed my brother and me to explore their property at any time, where we discovered mango, banana, plantain and orange trees, in addition to wild bamboo. Franco explained that in the course of his twenty years of living in Atenas, he collected a motley variety of plant life from all around the country to grow in his backyard, which I found to be an isolated paradise perfectly suited to casually stroll through and find some peace of mind. These walks became part of my daily routine. After breakfast, before the scorching sun was beating down on the valley like a smoldering hammer, I walked the grounds of the house in Atenas. As I relaxed amidst the company of toucans, morpho butterflies and agouti (imagine a squirrel-beaver hybrid), I realized that I was living in a tropical Walden, miles removed from any tourist destination and separated from everything I knew in the United States by a giant body of water. I was finally off the grid with no one to answer to and nothing to burden me. I felt liberated for the first time in a long while. At the risk of making a clichéd travelers’ allusion, I found wisdom in a few lines written by Thoreau: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation…From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats.” In essence, I had finally made it to the country and had all the time I needed to console myself from my routine back home. 2010-01-21T14:07:43-08:00

2010-01-23T03:44:25-08:00

Winging it in Costa Rica 691

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Mayan idols outside the house in Atenas

Nick Sievering

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Winging it in Costa Rica Home Away from Home

Patricia "Patti" Poulin The car was packed, dog loaded and tentative plans mapped out yet the reality of my newfound vagabond lifestyle had still not sunk in. Headed for Phoenix, I was making a brief stop to pick up Doug, my partner in adventure for the next couple of weeks. As I pulled up to the front door, nerves sank in. Not only was I headed into the unknown and open road, but I was about to embark upon it with the added pressure of being with another person 24 hours a day. Being a fiercely independent person, I began to wonder what the next two weeks would bring; I wondered if I would be able to break through, or at least muffle, the stubborn streak that plagues much of my life. I even pictured one of us ending up on the side of the road with bags in hand and thumb high in the air. Yet before I could give it another thought, we were loaded up, dog crammed in with our ridiculous amounts of camping gear, and headed to New Mexico. <h2>Outside in the "Arctic Blast"</h2> <img class="none" title="Welcome to Gila!" src="/images/postattachments/1885/medium/gila.jpg?1263604454" alt="&copy;&nbsp;Patricia Poulin / RumBum.com" width="240" height="150" /> © Patricia Poulin / RumBum.comAfter spending our first night in the warmth of southeast Arizona, we arrived in the Gila Wilderness after  driving 40 miles down a winding, desolate, two-lane road dodging ice patches and hurried drivers. The sun had set hours before our arrival and temperatures quickly began to drop into the teens. When we originally started this tour, we accepted that the temperatures would be cold, but the aptly deemed "Arctic Blast" that was sweeping the nation had never been a consideration. It felt as if my body froze instantaneously after arriving at our campsite for the evening. Starving, we quickly set up camp and I proudly pulled out my hand-me-down Coleman stove, deemed my "super stove." I was anxious to cook my first meal on this single burner and grill combo. As I fumbled to assemble the stove with frozen fingers I began to realize something was missing. Taking inventory once more, I began to realize the connection from propane to stove was missing. Both in denial, Doug and I scoured the box it came in; we checked the car and after much frustration, finally accepted the fact that we were relegated to using our less powerful backpacking stoves. Shaking off my frustration, I went back to preparing dinner and grabbed a bottle of water only to realize that it had already began to freeze after pouring it into the pot. Hungry, cold, and tired, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into; maybe I should have listened to the smarter people in my life and waited for spring. Dinner was devoured quicker than it was made and I was off to bed in hopes of sleeping off the evening's events. I curled up in the tent with Sienna; she shivered through the night and my face began to freeze as temperatures dipped into single digits. Morning light could not come soon enough and even as the sun rose over the surrounding cliffs, the little doubtful voice continued to fill my thoughts. <h2>Our New Years Eve</h2> It's difficult to get up before the sun when you lose all feeling in your face overnight. After Doug slept in much later than expected, he got up and prepared coffee. The campground was relatively empty of campers, and day-use visitors drove by us in their warm minivans and sedans looking at us as if we were sideshow freaks, crazy for camping in the bitter cold. Yet even with the brisk evening, we remained hopeful that our plan to bring in the New Year from the backcountry of the Gila Wilderness next to Jordan Hot Spring was within reach. As we prepared our bags, my spirits lifted, or maybe it was just the coffee buzz. Either way, we were on<img class="none" title="Hiking into the New Year" src="/images/postattachments/1886/medium/hiking.jpg?1263604462" alt="&copy;&nbsp;&copy;&nbsp;Patricia Poulin / RumBum.com" width="187" height="250" /> © Patricia Poulin / RumBum.com the trail and headed out around noon on New Years Eve. It was not until close to four miles in that we once again faced with a challenge. A challenge that made me realize why the visitor's center attendant at the Gila cliff dwellings looked at us as if we were crazy when we mentioned that we were heading to the hot spring for the night. Sure, six miles into the backcountry is not so bad; 15 river crossings are also not so bad; but when it's 20 degrees outside, and the river is too wide to cross without getting your feet wet, it gets to be pretty bad. We had a mere two miles left after already traveling a solid four miles; how badly did we really want to spend New Year's Eve by this elusive hot spring? Not wanting to be the one to give up, we egged each other on like two grade school children, about how far we would actually go. Warm hiking boots removed, pant legs rolled up, we finished the last two miles in flip-flops, walking across packed snow and through freezing water. By the sixth crossing my feet began to turn bright red. All I though about was the hot spring, and hoped that it actually existed. Each step sent pins and needles up on my legs. I stumbled over algae-covered rocks in the river as Sienna bounded past me with ease. After what felt like a number of miles, the evening's darkness began to fall, and that not-so-sweet smell of Sulfur filled the air. I wondered if I was starting to hallucinate, or if we really made it. I could see Doug smiling up ahead and I began to believe it was going to be a great New Year's Eve after all.  Not only had we made it to our destination, we somehow did so while working as a team and without too much complaining in the process. I wearily threw my backpack to the ground and we pitched our shelter in record time. Stillness blanketed the valley and cliff walls around us. The cold set in, yet somehow the sweet victory of our trek made it not so bitter. (Or it could have been the celebratory champagne flowing into our classy enamelware cups.) We made it in one piece with smiles and humor still intact. Now all we had to do was hike back. 2010-01-15T16:58:47-08:00

2010-01-18T03:22:28-08:00

Dirtbagger Diaries 680

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Hiking through the Gila Wilderness.mp i

Patricia Poulin / RumBum.com

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Dirtbagger Diaries, Hiking, Gila National Forest How Low Can You Go?

Adam Sievering We met our host for the first time outside the airport in San Jose shortly after our plane landed around 11 p.m. A few days prior, I sent him a picture of me via email so that he knew for whom to look. Within thirty seconds of walking out into the warm, humid night, a man with a shaved head and a tarantula tattooed on his right bicep approached me. "Are you Adam?" he asked, thankfully in English. "Yeah," I said, "Are you Franco?" And just like that, I had found my one and only contact in Costa Rica. My brother and I loaded our packs into his jeep and he took us on an exhilarating cruise through the decrepit outskirts of San Jose on the way to our new home. I quickly learned that traffic laws do not apply in this part of the world as Franco passed one vehicle after another at blistering speeds on the wrong side of the double yellow. Franco nonchalantly chain smoked Derby Lights as he narrated the cruise like a tour guide, making us aware of which areas nearby are dangerous or drug infested. He also explained the corruption of authority in Costa Rica and gave us pointers on how to avoid trouble during our stay. Franco drove us about forty minutes outside of San Jose up the side of foggy mountain, where we eventually pulled into the driveway of his ranch style home. He asked us to be quiet as he pulled back the curtain in the front doorway and showed us to our room, which shared a wall with the kitchen. It was furnished with a bed, a cot, a TV and plenty of shelf space. In addition, the room had a private bathroom with every amenity except a door. Franco went to bed after giving us a few bottles of cold water, leaving my brother and me alone for the first time since we arrived in Costa Rica. Unsure of how soundproofed the walls were, we didn't say much as we unpacked our stuff, but it was clear that we both had one forefront question on our minds: What the hell are we doing here? The unfamiliarity and slight uneasiness of the situation was exhilarating. In this moment, our total lack of preparation became a joke and we were forced to accept the fact that we had absolutely no idea of what would ensue in the next 25 days, or even the next few hours. With plenty of time for reflection at the end of our first night in our new home, the possibilities of this retreat were endless, ranging from beautiful to tragic. Regardless, I knew that this would be an experience that we wouldn't forget. Stay tuned! We will be running Adam's Column, Winging it in Costa Rica, every week on RumBum.com. 2010-01-14T13:48:37-08:00

2010-01-16T03:45:38-08:00

Winging lt in Costa Rica 676

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Stranger in a strange land. We were picked up and taken the home that would be our "home base" as we explored Costa Rica.

Bahugala

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Winging it in Costa Rica Finding Our Way