REPOST: What I Learned from Howling Monkeys

Due to a family medical emergency… will be back to regular blogging in a couple of weeks. Thanks for reading my blogs. This week, I decided to re-post my most popular all-time blog post circa July 2012.

Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica is located on the Osa Peninsula in southwestern Costa Rica. It is a gem that I was most fortunate to discover in the early 80s, less than ten years after it was first established. National Geographic has called it  “the most biologically intense place on Earth in terms of biodiversity.”



My trip to Corcovado meant three weeks of sleeping on rocks, dancing around deadly snakes, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and listening to howling monkeys every night. By the end of each day my colleagues and I were roasted and rank. About as close to paradise as one could get.

I headed up a film crew that was part of a group of photojournalists invited by the Costa Rican government to explore the park and (hopefully) write or create television programs about it. 

The lessons began the first day of our arrival. It was a wonderful group of journalists, magazine editors,  writers and one eccentric professor from out east. This is before the Internet. Our focus was on film, photos and note taking to capture the true beauty of the country and its park. There were two women in the group who (it quickly became apparent) could hold their own with the men.  We were all young (relatively speaking) and eager to explore town and country.

San Jose is the capitol of Costa Rica and a bustling economic driver for the country. We were anxious to see what it had to offer. But first we had to tackle three weeks in the jungle.

I chose cut offs and a t-shirt instead of the more jungle attire of cargo pants, long sleeve shirt and boots. I was cooler in the jungle and didn’t look like a field hand from the Coachella Valley. I also figured ‘what the heck.’ A snake can bite through pants as easily as it can directly to skin. If I was going to get bit, long pants wouldn’t be much of a help.

Time is What You call It
We were supposed to fly into the park that next morning. We got to the small airport early and piled up our gear for three weeks of jungle camping. Then we waited. And waited. And waited.

What I didn’t understand back then was American time vs. South American time. Foolish me thought that 9:00am meant 9:00am or maybe a few minutes late. Actually in Central and South American countries 9:00am means never before the allotted hour, of course and perhaps up to: 45 minutes or longer after the appointed time. And in their world that was perfectly Ok.

My frustration must have been apparent because one of our trip leaders pulled me aside and informed me that the pilots would arrive when they felt like it. He said that I’d better get used to that attitude or else I would be the one getting frustrated for no reason at all. I took a deep breath and toned it down from A to B to C. Very mellow from then on.

Our fly-in was simple enough. We flew into the park at treetop level. Then dropped below the tree line onto a narrow strip of grass that had been cut out of the jungle. Our pilots were like cowboys. They loved scaring the heck out of Anglo tourists with their macho landings. Some planes hadn’t made it down safely in the past. Quite a sight as we taxied by.

 

Don’t complain about the Accommodations
Our base camp consisted of a park rancher’s station and separate bunkhouse carved out of the surrounding jungle. The bunkhouse was full so we opted to sleep on the ground nearby. In retrospect it was the right decision. After a couple of days we all adjusted to the hard ground, the howling of monkeys, sounds of strange animals nearby and the constant drone of insects all night long. It became our white noise and certainly beat the thunderous snoring rolling out of the bunkhouse each night.

Know Your Neighbors
There are three simple rules for hiking in the jungle. 

Jungle terrain is seldom flat. That only happens in Tarzan movies. It’s hilly, rugged and laced with jungle vines that can send you sprawling down a slope in nothing flat. Caution is the word.

Secondly, watch out for spider monkeys. They love to pee on you as you pass by underneath.

The third rule is also pretty simple. Watch where you step or be prepared to die.
Never step over a log or object on the ground. Never lean up against a tree. Always step on top of the log then step over to the other side. Look at the tree first before you lean against it or sit next to it.

There were many species of venomous snakes in the park. The Fer-de-Lance and Bushmaster were tops in their game. One bite…thirty minutes…hello, heaven. Even the poison dart frog could do you in. 

Supposedly a snake can hear your footfalls a long distance away and will move away from that sound. Theoretically, the snake is more scared of you than you are of it. But ‘theoretically’ doesn’t really help if a snake bites you. Then you have theoretically twenty to thirty minutes before you die. Unless you have snake serum that you can inject into the puncture wound immediately.

Our guide was a wonderful, always cheerful park ranger whose grasp of the English language always left us with the question: ‘what did he say’ or ‘did he really say that’ or ‘Ok, whatever.’

 

On the first day of a long hike, I casually asked our guide if he had snake bite serum with him after he described the numerous poison snakes that abounded in Corcovado. He said no, he’d left it back at base camp, a four-hour hike away. I guess when your time comes, it comes. We all walked a little more gingerly back to camp that day. And made sure he had it with him every time we went out after that.


Haste saves Toes and other Body Parts
Almost everyday, we’d have to ford some river or inlet to the sea. Always at low tide since the currents were so strong at high tide that it was very easy to get swept out to sea no matter how strong a swimmer you might be.



Then there was the matter of the Bull sharks, American crocodiles, and spectacled caiman that liked to swim up those rivers from the ocean. Our guide would watch carefully for any sign of our unwelcome visitors. Then with a wave, we’d roll up our pants (usually didn’t matter) and begin wading across the river or inlet. Looking down for any sign of a snapper usually didn’t matter. The water was brown with churning sand and silt. It was a guessing game if any one of us would be toast that day. Or the next. Often times after crossing the inlet someone would spot a fin or smudge on the water. Damn, made it again.

I’m not a Nudist
It wasn’t a fear of stepping on glass, or sitting on a steel chair or swimming across a pond full of snapping turtles, I just never pictured myself a nudist. Grant it, skin is skin is skin. And there’s a plethora of  ‘Oh, my gosh’ on the Internet if you’re interested that sort of thing. I’m not. I just never pictured myself, sans. clothes, among other people.

So when we came upon that backwater pool, in the middle of the jungle, five hours into our hike, taking off our clothes for a dip seemed surprisingly logical, rational and very appealing. I can’t remember who suggested it first. Probably the eccentric one. He always had great ideas.

The men took off their clothes first…boring. Then the women…no Brazilian trims there. One kept her panties on for a short while but then decided ‘what the heck, everything was visible anyway.’ Suddenly I felt very foolish hiding behind my sunglasses. It had quickly became apparent that the soothing coolness of the water, that magical pond in the middle of the jungle, and the lively banter going on was more interesting than body parts seen or imagined. And after a few glances, seriously, who cares?

It’s true that clothes make a woman sexy. Take those away and what you’re left with is… Ok, pass the lemonade. Maybe that’s the secret nudists have discovered; that after the clothes come off, your attention is drawn to more substantial and interesting things.  Who knew? It took a cool pond in the middle of a Costa Rican rainforest to teach me one of life’s great lessons.

Seemed Logical at the Time
The end of our gallivanting in that backwater pool came with an announcement from the eccentric one. It seemed that he had a rubber raft in his backpack and was looking for someone to float with him down the river to the sea, approximately four miles away. Strangely enough he got no takers. We just stood there, putting on our clothes, wondering if he was really serious.

Undaunted by the silent stares he got, the eccentric one tossed his clothes bag into his backpack, gave the pack to someone else and proceeded to inflate his rubber raft. Then with his hat and flip-flops on, he began floating away. We all looked in astonishment as his snow-white ass got smaller and smaller in the  distance. Then it was gone all together.

Somehow it all seemed perfectly logical at the time. I think we just collectively shook our shoulders, agreed that the eccentric one would find that a normal thing to do (floating down an unknown river in the middle of the jungle, in the nude), and wondered if or when we’d ever see him again. I know it’s stupid, dumb and illogical but I still wonder what it would have been like if I’d taken him up on his offer.

He showed up that evening, hat, torn flip-flops, and beet red ass. Then over warm beer, he regaled us with stories of the sights and sounds that greeted and then followed him down the river all the way to the sea.


Nectar of the Gods
I started a habit in Costa Rica that I’ve continued ever since. And supposedly it’s good for your health. We were God-knows how far into one of our early hikes when I saw a lemon tree in a clearing. Even though my canteen was full of tepid, warm water, a couple of squirts of lemon make all the difference in the world. 

A Walk in the Woods

During World War II, a film came out entitled ‘A Walk in the Sun.’ it was about a squad of infantrymen who landed at Palermo, Italy and began a forced march across the countryside to their first objective, a farmhouse at some critical crossroads.

I took a forced march in the woods recently. Trust me here; there is a correlation between the two.

‘A Walk in the Sun’ had very little combat action but ran with poignant dialogue that truly captured the everyday thoughts of those infantrymen as they marched through the Italian countryside. It was at once reflective, insightful, and thought-provoking. It connected the audience on an emotional level with each one of those soldiers. Walking in the woods, alone or with a friend, and getting lost there can have the same effect. It’s like an elixir for your mind and soul at the same time.

Folks have been wandering this planet since the beginning of time. Walden and Thoreau, in their time, were able to capture the peace and serenity that accompanies this kind of soul-soothing venture. Long trail runs and mountain hiking can produce the same kind of mind-altering euphoric effect on the brain.

Back in the desert, I’ve taken my own kind of ‘vision quest’ a number of times climbing the mountains, finding a spot to nest in and then get lost inside my head.

The surrounding environment found in mountains and woods is much the same. It’s a quiet that can pound on your eardrum with its softness and penetrate your psychic with reflective thoughts that seem to come out of nowhere and get lodged there. Much like the girl back in college who taught me how to walk in the rain, solitary walking in the woods can have much the same visceral, cerebral cleaning effect.

When he was just sixteen, Brian and I did that in the Amazon basin. It was a wonderful kaleidoscope of running the Amazon in a narrow canoe carved out of a tree trunk, trudging through the jungle in the pouring rain, crossing raging river streams, and dodging rockslides.

I repeated that experience again in Costa Rica at the end of a long forced march through the jungle. We were three hours into a of non-stop jungle hike when we came upon a pool that had formed off of a river tributary to the Amazon.

My group of fellow hikers, without hesitation, promptly shed their clothes and plunged into the cool deep stream. The two women in the group were as quick to get rid of their soiled, sweat-stained clothes as the men were. The nudity was never an issue when the water was so refreshing and our minds were focused elsewhere.

When the kids were younger, I would sometimes take them into the woods to get lost. We’d stop by some fallen log and just sit there and listen.

At first, the kids couldn’t hear a thing but gradually they would grow accustomed to the quiet and slowly, ever so slowly, would begin to hear the wind, the birds, traffic far off in the distance and a myriad of other woodland sounds. It’s meditation on a soft blanket of moss surrounded by forest sentinels.

I still treasure those moments in time when I get to let go of my surroundings and let my mind and imagination float away, taking me along for the ride.

Closing Windows

 

There’s a wonderful song by the Beatles entitled ‘In My Life’ off the Rubber Soul album. I used it in a documentary I produced for my son’s trip around the world while he was in college. For me it’s more than just a melodic, a bit sappy cultural cruise back in time. It aptly paints a picture of those moments in our lives when windows of opportunity open and engulf us in a title wave of experiences before closing and never reappearing again.

I’m not talking about the rampant imaginative wanderings of youth. I’ve had plenty of those fade in and out of my mind; from circling the globe in a tramp steamer to living in Europe to hanging out with hippies on the West Bank. Some dreams met fulfillment while others opened briefly like a window shade only to shut again as time and maturity took its toll.

I thought about that when I came across some old photos of a bike trip I took; two in fact, many years ago. One alone and one with my son. About the same time I came across an old photo of downtown St. Paul and reflected on my life there while in grade school. Both were windows of my life that are closed now....never to reopen again.

The first photo was taken in downtown Saint Paul around 1959.  It was a time when ‘Desolation Row’ would have been considered a kind description for the core of the city. I was in high school by then after having spent eight years taking a bus downtown to attend grade school there. I wasn’t even aware of the city’s slow demise as first ring suburbs began sucking the marrow of life out of the town.

                                                Old St. Paul Group on Facebook

Reopening windows by way of old photos can bring on a plethora of memories; both good and bad. I’ve always believed there can be joy in visits back home if you’re in a better place now. A friend recently turned me on to a new community of interest on Facebook called ‘Old Saint Paul.’ Members post lots of pictures of old St. Paul, curio items and other memorabilia from the area. For me it’s almost as if a memory window is opening and closing each time I come across another one of those pictures on my news feed. Each is a glimpse back in time. Most evoke strong memories of a time long since past when I lived in Saint Paul. But not surprisingly that window of life closed a long time ago.

The Minneapolis Planning Commission recently turned down a proposal for a new hotel in Dinky town which is located on the border of the University of Minnesota. But it hardly mattered. The old Dinky town that nurtured the likes of Bob Dylan and other bohemian types had long since disappeared. Its colorful inhabitants having fled to Nord East and other artistic ghettos years ago.

The Dinky town of the sixties where Susan and I hung out at coffee houses and attended folk mass at the Newman Center had slowly morphed into a distasteful collage of fast food slop shops, retail traps and the latest faddish entrapment for student funds. Its soul had been gutted by so-called development and what the city fathers hoped would pass for progress. That window of my life changed as I did during that period.

There’s another window of my life that has changed. But it has nothing to do with buildings or current trends or a specific location. It’s an event that still occurs each summer but it’s not the same anymore.  To be honest, it’s more a question of my own physical fitness, athletic skill and desire. Three things I had in my youth and am struggling to maintain today.

It’s an event called the TRAM which stands for The Ride across Minnesota. It used to be a one week 500 plus mile ride from one side of the state to the other. All done by bicycle and attracting upwards of 1000 riders each summer. Like most events, it’s changed over the years and now the route goes in strangely convoluted circles instead of from border to border across the state. Somehow it isn’t the same.

For two back-to-back summers, I rode my bike across the state of Minnesota. The second trip was with my son. It was a well-organized event that attracted a multitude of riders and support staff. It still does but it isn’t the same.

I could probably do it again if I were in better shape. But then I’d probably have to have a lot of caffeine for fuel in the morning and Bengay for sleeping at night. But that’s not likely. Traveling 500 plus miles on a bicycle over five days, sleeping in a tent each night and battling headwinds, fatigue, mechanical breakdowns, hot sticky humid nights and rocky lumps in my sleeping bag is no longer my idea of fun. It wasn’t for the faint of heart or solid of brain back then. Even less so today. Yet while that window was briefly open, it was a grand adventure.

The first year started out badly but ended well. After the first day, my host promptly ditched me for a new-found tag-along who fawned at his every word. Fortunately, I was able to saddle up with a number of other folks with whom I traded war stories, bantered back and forth over the miles and had a great time.

The second year Brian and I did the ride together. The miles felt the same and the geography changed little over each day. Yet it was our companionship that made all the difference in the world. We shared sore butts, stiff arms, humid stifling nights, small town bar-hopping and a plethora of ‘easy rider’ memories. Much like our trek down the Amazon but all-together different.  Ditching my Son in the Amazon.

That old TRAM window is closed now but it was grand while it lasted, having cultivated fond memories for both my son and I. All those windows have given me a rich history in which to fill up my memory bank. Call it capricious or perhaps the foolishness of youth. But there is some-thing endearing about the journey we’ve all traveled on through life. It’s something  songwriters have penned ‘The Circle Game.’ Most of us just call it the Circle of Life.

Now in that wonderful confluence of son-follows-father, Brian has just taken his daughter, Maya, on her first fourteener. Imagine, my granddaughter summiting a 14,500 foot mountaintop to celebrate her eighth birthday.

I guess another window just opened.

REPOST: What I Learned from Howling Monkeys

This week, at the slight risk of seeming lazy, I decided to re-post my most popular all-time blog post circa July 2012.  Enjoy!

Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica is located on the Osa Peninsula in southwestern Costa Rica. It is a gem that I was most fortunate to discover in the early 80s, less than ten years after it was first established. National Geographic has called it  “the most biologically intense place on Earth in terms of biodiversity.”



My trip to Corcovado meant three weeks of sleeping on rocks, dancing around deadly snakes, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and listening to howling monkeys every night. By the end of each day my colleagues and I were roasted and rank. About as close to paradise as one could get.

I headed up a film crew that was part of a group of photojournalists invited by the Costa Rican government to explore the park and (hopefully) write or create television programs about it.

The lessons began the first day of our arrival. It was a wonderful group of journalists, magazine editors, writers and one eccentric professor from out east. This is before the Internet. Our focus was on film, photos and note taking to capture the true beauty of the country and its park. There were two women in the group who (it quickly became apparent) could hold their own with the men.  We were all young (relatively speaking) and eager to explore town and country.

San Jose is the capitol of Costa Rica and a bustling economic driver for the country. We were anxious to see what it had to offer. But first we had to tackle three weeks in the jungle.

I chose cut offs and a t-shirt instead of the more jungle attire of cargo pants, long sleeve shirt and boots. I was cooler in the jungle and didn’t look like a field hand from the Coachella Valley. I also figured ‘what the heck.’ A snake can bite through pants as easily as it can directly to skin. If I was going to get bit, long pants wouldn’t be much of a help.

Time is What You call It
We were supposed to fly into the park that next morning. We got to the small airport early and piled up our gear for three weeks of jungle camping. Then we waited. And waited. And waited.

What I didn’t understand back then was American time vs. South American time. Foolish me thought that 9:00am meant 9:00am or maybe a few minutes late. Actually in Central and South American countries 9:00am means never before the allotted hour, of course and perhaps up to: 45 minutes or longer after the appointed time. And in their world that was perfectly Ok.

My frustration must have been apparent because one of our trip leaders pulled me aside and informed me that the pilots would arrive when they felt like it. He said that I’d better get used to that attitude or else I would be the one getting frustrated for no reason at all. I took a deep breath and toned it down from A to B to C. Very mellow from then on.

Our fly-in was simple enough. We flew into the park at treetop level. Then dropped below the tree line onto a narrow strip of grass that had been cut out of the jungle. Our pilots were like cowboys. They loved scaring the heck out of Anglo tourists with their macho landings. Some planes hadn’t made it down safely in the past. Quite a sight as we taxied by.

 

Don’t complain about the Accommodations
Our base camp consisted of a park rancher’s station and separate bunkhouse carved out of the surrounding jungle. The bunkhouse was full so we opted to sleep on the ground nearby. In retrospect it was the right decision. After a couple of days we all adjusted to the hard ground, the howling of monkeys, sounds of strange animals nearby and the constant drone of insects all night long. It became our white noise and certainly beat the thunderous snoring rolling out of the bunkhouse each night.

Know Your Neighbors
There are three simple rules for hiking in the jungle.

Jungle terrain is seldom flat. That only happens in Tarzan movies. It’s hilly, rugged and laced with jungle vines that can send you sprawling down a slope in nothing flat. Caution is the word.

Secondly, watch out for spider monkeys. They love to pee on you as you pass by underneath.

The third rule is also pretty simple. Watch where you step or be prepared to die.
Never step over a log or object on the ground. Never lean up against a tree. Always step on top of the log then step over to the other side. Look at the tree first before you lean against it or sit next to it.

There were many species of venomous snakes in the park. The Fer-de-Lance and Bushmaster were tops in their game. One bite…thirty minutes…hello, heaven. Even the poison dart frog could do you in.

Supposedly a snake can hear your footfalls a long distance away and will move away from that sound. Theoretically, the snake is more scared of you than you are of it. But ‘theoretically’ doesn’t really help if a snake bites you. Then you have theoretically twenty to thirty minutes before you die. Unless you have snake serum that you can inject into the puncture wound immediately.

Our guide was a wonderful, always cheerful park ranger whose grasp of the English language always left us with the question: ‘what did he say’ or ‘did he really say that’ or ‘Ok, whatever.’

 

On the first day of a long hike, I casually asked our guide if he had snake bite serum with him after he described the numerous poison snakes that abounded in Corcovado. He said no, he’d left it back at base camp, a four-hour hike away. I guess when your time comes, it comes. We all walked a little more gingerly back to camp that day. And made sure he had it with him every time we went out after that.


Haste saves Toes and other Body Parts
Almost everyday, we’d have to ford some river or inlet to the sea. Always at low tide since the currents were so strong at high tide that it was very easy to get swept out to sea no matter how strong a swimmer you might be.



Then there was the matter of the Bull sharks, American crocodiles, and spectacled caiman that liked to swim up those rivers from the ocean. Our guide would watch carefully for any sign of our unwelcome visitors. Then with a wave, we’d roll up our pants (usually didn’t matter) and begin wading across the river or inlet. Looking down for any sign of a snapper usually didn’t matter. The water was brown with churning sand and silt. It was a guessing game if any one of us would be toast that day. Or the next. Often times after crossing the inlet someone would spot a fin or smudge on the water. Damn, made it again.

I’m not a Nudist
It wasn’t a fear of stepping on glass, or sitting on a steel chair or swimming across a pond full of snapping turtles, I just never pictured myself a nudist. Grant it, skin is skin is skin. And there’s a plethora of  ‘Oh, my gosh’ on the Internet if you’re interested that sort of thing. I’m not. I just never pictured myself, sans. clothes, among other people.

So when we came upon that backwater pool, in the middle of the jungle, five hours into our hike, taking off our clothes for a dip seemed surprisingly logical, rational and very appealing. I can’t remember who suggested it first. Probably the eccentric one. He always had great ideas.

The men took off their clothes first…boring. Then the women…no Brazilian trims there. One kept her panties on for a short while but then decided ‘what the heck, everything was visible anyway.’ Suddenly I felt very foolish hiding behind my sunglasses. It had quickly became apparent that the soothing coolness of the water, that magical pond in the middle of the jungle, and the lively banter going on was more interesting than body parts seen or imagined. And after a few glances, seriously, who cares?

It’s true that clothes make a woman sexy. Take those away and what you’re left with is… Ok, pass the lemonade. Maybe that’s the secret nudists have discovered; that after the clothes come off, your attention is drawn to more substantial and interesting things.  Who knew? It took a cool pond in the middle of a Costa Rican rainforest to teach me one of life’s great lessons.

Seemed Logical at the Time
The end of our gallivanting in that backwater pool came with an announcement from the eccentric one. It seemed that he had a rubber raft in his backpack and was looking for someone to float with him down the river to the sea, approximately four miles away. Strangely enough he got no takers. We just stood there, putting on our clothes, wondering if he was really serious.

Undaunted by the silent stares he got, the eccentric one tossed his clothes bag into his backpack, gave the pack to someone else and proceeded to inflate his rubber raft. Then with his hat and flip-flops on, he began floating away. We all looked in astonishment as his snow-white ass got smaller and smaller in the distance. Then it was gone all together.

Somehow it all seemed perfectly logical at the time. I think we just collectively shook our shoulders, agreed that the eccentric one would find that a normal thing to do (floating down an unknown river in the middle of the jungle, in the nude), and wondered if or when we’d ever see him again. I know it’s stupid, dumb and illogical but I still wonder what it would have been like if I’d taken him up on his offer.

He showed up that evening, hat, torn flip-flops, and beet red ass. Then over warm beer, he regaled us with stories of the sights and sounds that greeted and then followed him down the river all the way to the sea.


Nectar of the Gods
I started a habit in Costa Rica that I’ve continued ever since. And supposedly it’s good for your health. We were God-knows how far into one of our early hikes when I saw a lemon tree in a clearing. Even though my canteen was full of tepid, warm water, a couple of squirts of lemon make all the difference in the world.