118 days ago
118 days ago
We tumble down the overgrown trail toward the roaring beast below, guided by the silver shine of the full moon. Pausing to regain my footing, I throw back a swig of the Mexican poison.
“That’s pure Gonzo!” yells my brother Tim over his shoulder, noticing the bottle for the first time. He lunges forward, snatching it from my paw, almost knocking me down in the process.
All around our sloppy selves buzz hundreds of thousands of species, but it all bleeds together as our ears worship the throbbing dance of the densest ecosystem on earth. Back up the hill looms the silhouette of a two-story tree-house where we’ve spent the last two days as temporary citizens of the Costa Rican rain forest.
Maybe the jungle isn’t known for its dizzying nightlife, but this is going down in history. We’ve already flown through the twilight canopy on zip lines maniacally howling at the moon. We cooked dinner floating 80 feet above the jungle floor while drowning ourselves in Chilean wine. And now it’s finally time for some drunken sensory shock.
“Here’s the swimmin’ hole,” slurs Paul as he eagerly takes off his shoes and pants, performing a precarious balancing act on a wet rock. It’s the middle of January. At night. Even in the tropics I’m having second thoughts, but another hit of that vile liquor and a hot cigarette drag me through it.
Tromping through the river, I reach a boulder positioned perfectly above the deep crystal pool. My clothes shed and I’m naked as the jungle, ready to make sweet love to the icy water below as it retreats into the distance. Goosebumps tingle everywhere as my feet leave the ground.
The taste of minerals fills my mouth. I gasp for air. The rush surges through my synapses, quicker than any bathtub amphetamine and my body explodes to the surface. Whose idea was this anyway? Come out to the middle of the jungle, sleep in a tree, and plunge into mountain water at midnight?!
Another night at Finca Bellavista, the world’s first modern tree-house community, where residents regrow the roots that so many have lost in the name of progress. Rather than building supermarkets, they tend gardens. In lieu of roads, a vast network of zip lines darts throughout the canopy. And the clubs, concerts, and bars? Here I am, partying in God’s playground.
I have to say, the décor beats anything dreamed up by aging hipsters from Berlin to Tokyo. As my breath slows and my senses return, I’m completely taken, almost intimidated, by my surroundings. The glowing rock walls and dancing foliage stretch high above my head, framing a sea of stars--tiny pinholes in the vast blanket of night. It’s overwhelming, the swell of life you feel here, impossible to put into words and insulting to capture with pictures. There’s no replacement for becoming a part of it, feeling that ineffable surge that shoots through your spine when you humbly realize that in the end, we are animals.
“Pura vida!” A mantra chanted everywhere in Costa Rica at every step. Crudely translated to English as "pure life," it’s a greeting, a farewell, and everything in between. It’s an ideal of a people. A commitment to living and breathing as human beings. Nothing more, nothing less.
And now, naked and shivering, I finally understand. Here I am in the middle of it all, engulfed by the green monster, a single cell in the vast organism we call the jungle. As I notice a grin swallow my face, I can’t help but chuckle at how simple it all is, this ‘life’ thing. Everything I’ve ever needed has been right in front of me all along. There’s no DJ flown in from Paris. There’s no gooked-up stranger grinding my thigh. No one anxiously pacing around the bathroom peddling fast fun for fifty bucks a gram.
Yet I can’t stop smiling.
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