If you haven’t read Pura Vida: Part 1 – The Winners Circle Please read that first. Enjoy!

The winding and curving of the roads in Costa Rica become tiresome on the stomach, but as you move toward the center of the country, the scenery is anything but boring. Upward and onward we climbed into foreign lands.  And as we moved higher in elevation towards the jungle I began to wonder if we stopped anywhere would Sam Neil get in and tell us to GO, GO, GO as the T-Rex is bearing down on him.  The lush green forest soon surrounded us on every side. We were making our way to the center of something that, to me, had an air of mystery that I hadn’t known in years.

We were on the road for 5 hours as we traveled towards the belly of the country. The views were breathtaking as we stopped at the Arenal volcano for some beer and a chance to stretch our legs. The lake formed by the volcano was enormous, serene, wild. I need to see more of the world and I know this now even more. Everything seemed so remote and interesting. Nomadic, uncastrated dogs with huge balls roamed freely in the towns we passed. Many of the scenes that went by in the windows of our van were National Geographic photographs set to the sounds of the tires against the road or the music on the stereo or the hum of voices and good conversation.

The conversation in that white-twelve-person van popped with authenticity. Our conversations about politics, love, life, the search for meaning, and finger banging Jesus (inside joke) never seemed to end. The flow of conversation darted and entertained me to no end. This drive is where I started to notice something: our time spent together as a group was blossoming into friendship forged out of the love Sam and Tyler have for each other and their friends.

We arrived at our jungle house stiff-legged and ravaged from the trip. The house that we spent the next three days at looked like Swiss-Family-Robinson style abode with metal roofing and open rafters. It was perched on a hill with a deck that looked out in wild yonder. There were two different living room spaces, five or so bedrooms, a large kitchen and two dogs (a mother and a puppy) that roamed around freely.

We also had a caretaker and his family that would check in on us daily to make sure leopards hadn’t dragged one of us in the night and they would advise on what to do or they cooked us dinner if the price was right. They were hospitable beyond belief. I am sure the fact they were making money helped, but there was validity in their desire to help us understand and have a good time. It may have been my daily beer consumption getting to me or the strangeness of being outside of one’s comfort zone that led me to believe this.  That could be it, but probably not. I didn’t talk to our guardian much but I watched others interact with him and I observed his mannerisms. He was genuine in his desire to help us have a good time. Everything about this place was relaxed, surreal. It wasn’t like the home front at any point. It is their way of life in the tourist part of the country and it is far spreadsheet stress that percolates in my life. Pura Vida.

The entanglements of our western lives are what I spoke about before and I said that something feels off. There is a sense of doom mixed in with all the luxury of Western life. The rat race is fucking real. And the inevitability of it all stumbles to greet us head on from time to time.

That first night under the jungle trees we just relaxed from our long journey. The entire group sat down at a long table in the dim lights of the enormous porch and ate dinner and drank rum. I came to realize these were some damn fine folks to spend a week with and hopefully know for the rest of my life. The year previous was a tough one for me. It wore my soul thin and I needed a real vacation like an infant needs a diaper changed. And this is where I belonged.

I had known some of my fellow journeymen on the trip for more than a decade and some I had only known for that week, but time is short on this planet – filled with instant connections and endless blue skies – it’s cool like that, you know, to be human and share the journey together. These are and were and will always be my people in one way or another.

The next day we went on a hike around the land surrounding the house. The ever-so-hospitable caretakers showed us the plants that thrive in that part of the world like lemon, banana, ginger, pineapple and so on. I strolled through that magic jungle looking at the home of innumerable creatures – the life that has gone on for millennia and survived. Tarantula and armadillo holes lined the trail and poison frogs hopped underneath the fallen leaves.

That night I began to feel detached from not only the group but also from my own bones. Everyone talked cheerfully at the table and I was all alone amongst friends. These things happen. I stood up, went up to the top deck and relaxed in a hammock-like chair. I stared out at the darkness and listened to the hum of friendship and life that was all around. The whole trip I was surrounded by people and I put pressure on myself to be alone.

Sometime later Tyler came up and sat next to me. He asked if I was OK. I was fine, but with the knowledge that someone cared about me, I was better and more complete. And then we shot the shit for some time like we always do. The burden was gone. People that look after others are fucking rare and lovely. Embrace them.

Now I am thinking about Sam and Tyler and the life they will and do have together. The people involved thus far are bottle rockets flying on a dark street in the dead of summer – speaking in terms of celebration and the here and now. I remind myself that I should never stop looking for people like them and I should snuggle up with the idea that, although I am wandering through this existence alone, I am not alone, per say – at best, I am basking under this glorious hot star, trying to figure out where the wild things are, and digesting whatever Pura Vida I can.

On the final day of non-travel in Costa Rica, we all went our separate ways for different excursions. A group of us decided to go rafting, others horseback riding.  There wasn’t much to say about this leg of the trip except that we observed more natural beauty in a world with stark differences from ours. When the bus stopped, the guides showed us a sloth hanging in a roadside tree. I was no more than four or five feet from it. He turned his head ever so slowly to look at us with those freakishly warm eyes and then went about his business. It was going to be a long, slow day for that little fella.

The river was rough in parts, but not nearly as treacherous as the Colorado rapids I have been on before. The guides were fucking around for the most part and the trip was jovial overall. I thought not of the danger of  white water rafting until our boat capsized and in I went – smashing against rocks and breathing in water. There was sheer panic for a moment as I fell in. I am not used to situations with fast moving water holding my survival in the balance. I haven’t been against the ropes like that in a very long time. And that wouldn’t be the last time I went into that damn river. I had to swim once more before they moved me to the middle of the raft and I could relax a little.

We finished out the rafting adventure with a tasty Costa Rican meal of meat, beans, and rice. I was exhausted after swimming for my life twice and taking in the sun all day. The carbs were needed before we headed home and I couldn’t wait to get back to the paradise house for a beer and the company of good people surrounded by wild things.

The early morning hit hard. It smacked with the reality that our trip was finished. Or at least the majority of the group adventure was over. The newlyweds were about to embark on a long trip around the country. The rest of us (with the caveat of one) went back to the grind to whatever place they came from – back out into real life.

On the morning we left I was drinking coffee and wondering how I was going to cope with the corporate jungle I was about to go back to. I noticed some Toucans on the bird feeder, hopping around, being all beautiful and shit. Blackbirds with long red and yellow striped beaks. The playful and carefree birds made me sink into my skull and know that I will be back in Costa Rica someday. It hurt to think of leaving. I don’t think I have wanted something more in recent memory than to lie around in the jungle listening to the movement of life under the canopy and maybe see some Toucans fuck in the slow awakening of the day. I don’t have a bird fetish, mind you, but it’d be a wild thing to see the world “living” as it should instead of how it could be.