A Pastoral Landscape

Monteverde is like stepping into a Claude Lorrain pastoral landscape. The air is fresh and clean, free of the soot and smog that hovers over San Jose. The one main street is a well-kept quiet dirt road. The sun shines in the blue sky. Our quaint Treetop house is rustic. From the polished wood floors, to the bamboo roof, to the gnarled tree trunk table and stools, everything fits into the picture--an ideal cottage in the woods. The trees grow green around us and the flora and fauna thrive.

But soon this bucolic pulchritude is tarnished by the uncivilized realities of a rural lifestyle. The hills, which the morning sun basks in a golden glow and dances in the dappled shade of the afternoon are monotonous and steep. They double distances. They steal your breath on the way up and jam your toes and wear out your knees on the way down. During the day, the wind keeps the clouds away and cleans the air so you can take deep sweet breaths that no longer burn your lungs or coat your mouth and throat with a fine grey ash. But at night the wind howls. It scoffs at man´s feeble construction of walls and roofs. It exploits the cracks and gaps and enters with a vengeance. It swirls and blows inside and makes certain that as you shiver under your blankets you succumb to the power of nature. It roars through the treetops like a revving engine and shakes the house with its iron grip. The temperature inside fluctuates with the winds capricious temper. The cold marches in along with the darkness.

Pedestrians, cars, motorcycles, and trucks share the road alike. We walk one-foot-infront-of-the-other in the ´safety´ of the white line that lines the edge of the road and tempermentally disappears to rocky gravel, deep gutters or mountain drop offs. We walk, shoulders tensed, as if it will make us smaller. At night we disappear as black ghosts, invisible to and blinded by the bright headlights as they whip around the sharp corners of the road.

There are scorpions hiding in pant legs, spiders on the walls, and beetles on the toilet. The shower has two temperatures cold and scalding burn-your-scalp hot. As it passes from one to the other, you get an ephemeral second of delightfully warm.

After a week I knew I had to get out, and get out fast. But the bus crawls at a snails pace back to the bustle of San Jose that I had so eagerly left.

(Note: I wrote this is based-upon-truth piece of fiction on the 5 hour bus ride to San Jose. I am spending the weekend with Julia and friends at the beach.)

(Note: It is true--Abba got bit on the thigh by a scorpion that had crawled into his pants as they sat folded on the shelf. He is fine)