(Costa Rica)...Two friends of mine were going to go to Costa Rica in August but decided instead on going to Kaua’i. I have written about the latter destination, so here I go with the former, a gorgeous country that I have been fortunate enough to visit on two occasions. I headed north to the Caribbean coast and was honoured to be among a group who were the first people in 10 years to ride a passenger train in the country, the system having been destroyed in 1991 by an earthquake. The start of the Caribbean Jungle Train trip was in Moín, its length progressing 65 kilometres inland to Siquirres, along the Caribbean coast and then through banana plantations and the foothills of the Cordillera Central. The three carriages, built in England in 1890, retain many of their original fittings, with small, curved wooden planks lining the interiors; Chicago’s Pyle Company built the engine many decades before. From my perch on the outside edge of a carriage, I watched the beautiful scenery unfold and felt myself literally moving through history.
This, as I write, seems overly melodramatic, but I was very aware that that journey was a notable moment for Costa Rica, one that it was not my place to be experiencing. The hot, dusty land unfurled slowly, the line curling around fields of bamboo and grazing land of gaunt cattle; the train did not move fast, which was good. The first 15 kilometres (perhaps still the service exists?) hugged the Caribbean Sea. To the other side, the Tortuguero Canal began its 80-kilometre journey to the turtle-breeding grounds of the Parque Nacional Tortuguero, and on to Nicaragua. Luxuriant – and, more importantly, alive – jungle comes down to the many rivers that the railway crosses.
The train driver stopped at several of the bridges so we could gaze at the scenery and watch the lazy vultures await their moments on the river banks. At the village of Boca del Pantano (Swamp’s Mouth), the line takes an ninety-degree turn inland, with the best halts being over the broad Río Matina and the Río de la Madre de Dios. Lunch was eaten 20 metres above the Río Pacuare. The chances of another train coming up behind were extremely remote; young children leapt off the bridge into the crocodile-less water below.
Next to Moín is Puerto Limón, the capital of Limón Province and the main port of Costa Rica; it was built by American produce concerns to ship out the Costa Rica's main exports: coffee and bananas. The city, which dates from 1871, sits on the site of the Indian settlement of Cariari, which Christopher Columbus visited in 1502. It was he who named the new land Costa Rica, although it turned out to be a little less rich than he had hoped. Just east along the coast is a thin strip of coastal land that eventually ends at the neighbouring country of Panama (I have since travelled along this corridor on the Panamanian side, almost to the border of Costa Rica).
The first sizeable town is La Cahuita, which has a national park, a thin ribbon of jungle and beach that contains Howler and Capuchin monkeys. The park was also the site of a rebellion of sorts, the towns-people occupying the park so as to force the central government to give them more say in how the park was run and how any benefits were distributed. I took a flat-bottomed boat out across the corals and spotted needlefish and rays, while next morning, at about 5 a.m., I walked along the pristine beach (some of which is composed of black volcanic sand) for a couple of kilometres.
Another worthwhile trip in Costa Rica is to Cartago, which for more than 300 years until 1823 was Costa Rica’s capital. It is not really any more impressive than San José, the capital now, but I did visit the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles, which contains a tiny black figurine, La Negrita, which legend has it kept returning to the church despite a little girl’s attempt to make it her toy. Finally, someone persuaded her not to take it home again, and today it is crowned in gold and honored every August 2 with a mass and pilgrimage. From Cartago, I took a bus to the coffee-producing valley and city of Orosí. This is a beautiful part of the country.
Orosí contains the oldest Catholic church in Costa Rica, built in 1743. Called Nuestra Señora de Ujarrás, it has an adjoining museum of artifacts and sits on one side of a square, which in turns leads to a pedestrian suspension bridge that crosses the Río Reventazón. This was the river I followed up to reach the Tapanti Parque Nacional, which has the largest amount of rain fall and cloud forest in the country.
The Talamanca Mountains start their journey here and rise up between 1,200 and 2,540 metres above sea level. Huge, bright butterflies, toucans and frogs are evident. A Dutch couple, recently moved to Costa Rica, gave me a lift back to town. The young girl playing the drums was part of a workshop that I attended in Puerto Viejo, in the north. A man gave an overview of tourism in the area, but he was forced to abandon his speech several times when others in attendance complained that he had mentioned his own hotel far too often for their liking.