tío ricky’s adventures
WRITTEN BY BR. RICARDO DÍAZ VARGAS T.C.
TRANSCRIBED BY BRANDON ANDRÉ GÜELL DÍAZ IN 2018
coco island
ONCE when I worked on Cocos Island National Park, I decided to take a hike around the whole Island. I left in the morning and I felt as if I were off to a great adventure. Just the thought of being there gave me the sensations of plenitude, encounter, and closeness.
I walked on the rocks along the beach and observed the little fishes in the intertidal. I directed my gaze on the horizon over the sea and I realized the place which I occupied. While walking, I found pools like those in movies; I reminisced on The Blue Lagoon, Flipper, and all those movies that created my dreams of living in such a place, and in that moment I was living it.
After walking a while the waves kept me from distinguishing sounds. I was absorbed in what I saw, in the sensation of the wind, and the feeling of the sun on my body. Suddenly, emerging from the sea, I discovered a rock that formed an arch. It was far out, but it invited me desperately to possess her, to catch her, to make her mine. I couldn’t contain myself, and without thinking, I swam to the base of the rock and started climbing. At first it was easy, but as I continued to climb, it became more and more difficult to the point where I was shaking just at the thought of moving a foot or hand. Looking down, I realized that if I slipped, this story would not even exist. Nevertheless, I couldn’t go back down so I kept climbing without a plan for how to descend. I felt my back scorching under the sun. Meanwhile, my body was drenched with sweat and the cuts on my hands made by the sharp rocks stung as the sweat dripped over them. Before I knew it, I was almost at the top but as I took my last step, quack! I almost died. I was face to face with the open and screaming beak of a huge ‘needle billed’ seabird that was brooding its eggs. I don’t know what happened next, but before I knew it, I was back on the beach and my legs had slowly stopped shaking. Years later I realized that guardian angels do exist.
“Well,” I thought, “I better get back to camp now.” It was already late in the afternoon, I was hungry, and I was a little shook up. I walked more quickly. I could sense something. I don’t know what, but I had butterflies in my stomach, and then… surprise! The pools I had passed before all “la-di-dah” were now huge swimming holes, deep and full of sharks! What was I going to do? I couldn’t stay there. I gave it little thought and then swoosh! With a sign of the cross, I dove in and swam, faster even than Sylvia Poll. I emerged on the other side and checked myself; I was whole. I observed the sharks. They weren’t that big, but big enough, plus they were a little rowdy. There were around 6 or 7 of them and surely they commented about the dashing beam that they had seen pass by.
This happened to me 3 times on the return back. When I arrived back to the beach it was late, maybe 4pm. I ran into a coworker who asked me, “Where did you disappear to?” and I replied, “Oh! I was just walking around a little bit.” I grabbed my line, caught a fish, prepared it, cooked it, ate it, and went to watch the sunset alone on the beach. That day the sunset was celestial.
Braulio Carrillo
ONCE I worked in Braulio Carrillo National Park. We were advancing the development of the park and we needed to become completely familiar with it. I had flown over the mountains of the park several times and from the plane, the trees resembled pompoms inviting me to jump on them. The waterfalls seemed to rise up to the heavens. I walked through the park many times and almost always there was a plethora of rain.
One day we decided to cross the park by a path no one had ever passed through before. We thought we could do it in about 5 days. There were 4 of us, two gringos and two ticos. We started our journey up on a high mountain where it was very cold. During the day we walked and walked and we kept walking. To traverse that park was to ascend and descend mountains in such a strenuous manner that after an hour you could no longer bear the exhaustion. Two days in, we had bruised shoulders from carrying completely soaked packs because it seemed to never stop raining. At this point, the unbearable cold had passed, but the “tabonos” (a mosquito that stings hard) came in swarms and my arms were stained with blood from killing them on my flesh. After four days, in order to take a single step, we had to slash away at vegetation with machete strikes. Of course, blisters didn’t take long to accumulate and I even had them on my fingers from pulling out my compass over and over again.
I remember that to eat we would cut giant leaves and put them over our heads to use as umbrellas. Our meals mainly included peanut butter, condensed milk, and other things that gave us a lot of energy. As if that weren’t enough when night fell, although we were dead tired and could’ve slept standing, we cut and cleared leaves to pitch a tent that would float and when you laid down, it would bubble because water spilled into it and filled the groundsheet… we were so tired!
The rivers supposedly guided us, but since our maps were made using aerial photos and the vegetation there was so dense, some rivers didn’t appear in the photos and thus were left out of our maps. Crossing them was a serious endeavor. We would look at each other as if we were saying goodbye for the last time before throwing ourselves into the river and in all seriousness, we would exit the river some 100 meters downstream and a little banged up. When we reunited afterward, we would catch our breaths, and we continued.
The 5 days had passed and we were lost. Neither the map, nor the compass, nor the sky could help orient us. I felt like screaming, crying, running away; but to where? Two more days went by knowing that in each of our next steps there could be a snake because they abounded and we couldn’t even see where we put our feet while we walked. At last we began to see fields, fences, and civilization. Lord how great you are, how you take care of us!
We left our excursion massive and presumptuous. The four of us barely fit walking down the street. We had become wide, large, and the look of our faces and general appearances were frightening. People in the first houses that saw us hid, but we were happy. Before arriving into the nearest town we were surrounded by firemen, policemen, and other cars which arrested us and took us to the Guápiles police station where we identified ourselves. They recommended us a hotel, we showered, and the gringos fell asleep before finishing. We went dancing at the disco “El burro armado.” It was madness, clearly, but it was expected. We had to celebrate.
The next day on the train I observed the forest which seemed so welcoming and peaceful as it actually is. This was perhaps the toughest expedition I ever undertook during my time in parks and today I thank God for it.
Santa Rosa
ONCE when I worked in Santa Rosa National Park I was posted at the entrance of the park to keep watch. The entrance station was 8 kilometers away from the house where I lived. I enjoyed it a lot because I would gaze at the stars until I got tired and I pondered life’s mysteries and those of the night. Although of course, the horrible thing was the inescapable hordes of mosquitos, but regardless I enjoyed it. The thing was, after a night posted at the park’s entrance, we would get the next day off. For me, that was the best. I would take my horse, which was named “Everyone loves me”, a can of tuna, some tortillas, two water bottles, and he and I would head off towards the beach. I had never walked so much; it was 12 kilometers to get to Naranjo beach. On the way, I entertained myself by imagining stories of adventure and seeing the many animals; kawatis, monkeys, peccaries, and deer that greeted me along the way.
When we reached our destination, the world would change. The beach was very long, flat, and solitary. In a place so open, so immense, and so clear, I could only feel as though I were in heaven. I searched for a shrub to place our things on, but not everything. I would keep my horse’s reins on, and just the thought of that memory brings me nostalgia.
I rode my horse which was as white as clouds and galloped along the shoreline where the waves crashed onto the beach. The horse’s legs kicked up water that wet my face and little by little my whole body. When we were both completely soaked, I got off him and we walked out into the ocean until the water reached the middle of his stomach. There, I finished bathing him and after he would happily wait for me on the beach. The water there was clearer than transparency itself, and I was so deeply immersed in it that I could hardly distinguish myself.
I almost always swam in front of the “Peña Bruja”, a huge rock sticking out of the sea. While I was there, it seemed like God was speaking to me; saying that He was my friend, my companion. At that time, I didn’t understand it, but deep in my heart, I knew it was true. We ate lunch, put on our clothes, and went back to the house. I left the horse in the stables next to the house, played with the snakes I had in my room, and then climbed a small mountain behind the house and savored the sunset, which in Guanacaste, looks like a summer fire. There I sang… I sang a lot.
