San Isidro and Beyond!

To San Isidro ... And Beyond!

Somehow in the blissful slipping-into of TicoTime, I managed to lose the business card of the delightfully present, joyful young man who had driven me out from Jimenez to Matapalo, so Ramon, the caretaker arranged for Arturo to pick us up on Thursday morning about 11:00 to take us to the bus station. As with every taxi driver we've met on this trip, not only was Arturo pleasant and knowledgeable, but he also had no usuriousness in his nature. Furthermore, he had a more accurate understanding of the Jimenez bus schedule than the online horario, so we got to the station shortly before the bus left for San Isidro.

The bus from Jimenez, were it straight through, would take about 4 hours, but it was the local, so we stopped often to pick up passengers, only to drop them off a kilometer or two farther along. Shortly after leaving the peninsula, we began paralleling a wide river with occasional little drops that had me regretting not bringing an IK on this trip, until later on, when I found that this river, the Rio Grande de Terraba, had crocs. The Rio Grande runs along the base of a barranca that was part of La Amistad National Park, the wildest and largest natural reserve in Costa Rica, extending all the way across the border into Panama.

130 km and 70 stops later, we were deposited after dark at the end of the line, the plaza of San Isidro, where a bullfighting, cow, and orchid feria was in full swing, making the crossing of the main drag with our bags an adventure in itself. We secured a taxi driven by another good-natured young man who drove us 5 or 6 km up into the mountains to La Princesa, our hotel for the evening.

The view from our patio in the morning was a spectacular vista of the entire valley and mountains beyond, seen through a floral rainbow foreground. The bougainvilleas, especially, with their hyper-naturally rapturous hues had Sandy swooning. Until she saw the daturas. And the roses. And the ginger. And the bird-of-paradise. We wandered the garden, eyeing and identifying exotic birds until the heat reminded us that we were headed to Finca Amrta that morning to begin 3 days of singing for peace and harmony with a group of like-minded people. Another taxi driver took us to the centro to buy goods before heading out into the mountains west of town. He took us down a steep, dusty, rocky drive into the finca, where we were admitted, signed in, and pointed in the direction of the various places to camp. The generosity of others contributed to our good fortune, as we found that they had left to us the most beautiful campsite on the property. It was within a grove comprised of 4 clumps of magnificent green bamboo, up to 12 inches in diameter at the base.

 The spacing was such that we created a small enclosure with our two hammocks, and set up the tent just outside of that. We were some 10 meters from the river, at a spot that had been hand-dammed the prior week by 5 industrious young women from the finca, so that we had a beautiful, pristine swimming hole at our front door. As soon as the hammocks were strung, we shed our clothes and spent the next two hours alternating our revels in the crisp, clear waters with our languid sunning on the boulders alongside.

Prying myself away from the river, I found the singing circle, and began the happy work of learning my first song with the group, Costa Rica Singing Alive. They use a lot of call and response, as well as repetition, gesture, and precise enunciation to help the newbies such as myself to learn the songs. Included within the price package for the weekend were 3 organic meals daily and more infusion of goodwill than a heart can take without bursting into tears or laughter or both.

 Friendship bonds notwithstanding, the culminating event on Sunday evening was the highlight of the weekend. It was a 2 by 2 caterpillar line of hands cradling, supporting, nurturing each person as their turn arose at the head of the line to walk slowly, slowly, slowly, with eyes closed through the line as we all sang a loving, healing song to them, over and over, until they had heard the song sung to them individually at least a dozen times, before ending up embraced in a final hug that allowed the swell in our hearts to subside enough to open our eyes and become part of the singing caterpillar to infuse the next gentle heart coming through.