Costa Rica... Chapter 4

Costa Rica... Chapter 4

 

Tropical Trout

The sun had not even come up yet when I was rousted from bed. The sun rises early here, too. We gathered our things, drank our tea and loaded up the truck and left. The hour and 45 minute drive to Rio Sevegre seemed to take 3 days. At one point along the journey, we were at 13,000 feet above sea level. From there we dropped down a winding narrow dirt road downhill. From our ascent to the top of the mountain, we dropped to a place along the river that was nestled in the mountains at the altitude of about 8,000 feet.

We pulled into the restaurant for a quick breakfast and looked at the trout in the trout ponds there. Everywhere around us were flowers, and in the flowers, hummingbirds of many shapes and sizes and colors. I had never seen so many hummingbirds. After our meal, we were back out to the truck to get our gear ready. I strung up my 5 wt and tied on a new leader and picked a fly. I was told that dry fly action on the river was not that great, so I went with a bead head nymph that I found in my box. I was going nymphing. No strike indicator, no putty, foam, or anything else would go on my leader.

The 7 of us split up. They dropped me off at a place along the river and I was to fish downstream to where they would meet me after having fished upstream. Apparently because I was the youngest, and supposedly the most capable of that stretch, that is what I was given. I got out of the truck, said my good byes and we agreed to meet back on the road at about noon. I looked down at my arm at the place where a watch used to sit and laughed. I would get there sometime.

I stood on the side of the road and looked across the pasture to where the river was. I had never fished these waters before and am quite inexperienced with trout fishing in general. Through the barbed wire fence I went and across the field. My broken toes reminded me of their presence with every step. Across the pasture, I came to yet another barbed wire fence. As I started to go through it, I heard a familiar snorting sound, and looked up just in time to see the bull starting to charge. I backed out and looked for an alternative entrance to the river. I found one upstream a little ways.

To get down to the river, I had to scale a fallen tree that spanned the width of the river. The river itself is no more than 30 feet across at its widest and fairly shallow, but with good pools and a lot of falls. I got assigned the section with all of the falls. This was not going to be an easy trip. I almost regretted not having my waders anymore. As the water seeped into my shoes, though, the coolness began to numb my sore toes and I found it much easier to walk. I also found it easier to slip and slide.

For the first hour I walked downstream, jumping from rock to rock, slipping and sliding and cutting new trails through the jungle forest around me. It was nothing but whitewater for a long ways. I often stopped and admired the many birds and bugs that I saw. The insect life of the river was pretty amazing. Although there seemed to be some major hatches going on, by the time I got past the whitewater to some calmer pools, I did not see a single rise.

I spotted the trout in the first pool past the long trail I blazed through the jungle. They were tiny. I made a cast though and let the nymph drift down. I had about 3 feet of line past the rod tip out. I found it difficult to control a drift that way. Nonetheless, a few seconds later I was nearly launching my first official "real" trout of the water. A perfect specimen of the rainbow trout, exactly 4 inches long. I took a quick picture and let the little guy go. What colors these fish possessed!

I caught two more from that pool before heading to the next. One was 8 inches and the other 6. Down to the next pool I walked and there, on the same nymph, caught 2 more. One was a brute of a trout at 12 inches and the other was 10. I tried in vain for several minutes to entice the golden colored rainbow trout in the school to take a fly. I could no longer walk along the river again. I went back up to the road and walked downhill a ways until I could find another access point. From the road, I saw the pool and just knew that it held trout. I was not wrong. I pulled 2 from its waters. Each was an exact replica of the other and each was 8 inches long.

I decided to rest that pool and walk downriver along the road a little further. I passed a small bridge and walked out onto it and looked down the river. I saw the pool about 200 feet downstream and hoped that there was a way to get to it. A very large rock was on the side I would be accessing and I thought it would make a nice place to rest. I had been walking and fishing for hours. The thin air at that elevation reminds me that I do not have a full set of lungs.

I was in luck. There was a way to get down to it. As I walked down to the rock on one side, I spooked two trout, bigger than any I had caught so far. I stood there still for a bit and watched. I saw them rising. I ducked quietly behind the rock and changed flies. I put on a very small light colored fly and crawled around the other side of the rock and cast upstream. On the third cast like that, I had one on. It was 13 inches long.

It was time to take a break. I climbed up upon the rock and from there saw a small pool loaded with tiny trout. I put the nymph back on and sat there and played with them for a while. I did not let them take the fly… I did not feel like getting back down. It was amazing how quickly they would take the flies. These fish were stocked almost 40 years ago, and are naturally spawning now. I sat on my roost atop the big rock and decided to practice my drifting with so little line out. I found a small fall, about 10 inches wide and a foot or two deep. I would try to get my fly to go down that.

For five minutes I tried with no luck. Finally I got it to do what I wanted it to do. As it went down, the line tightened up. Damn, I was stuck on a rock. I lifted the rod tip in an attempt to let the current carry the fly off of whatever it was snagged on. With that action, something amazing happened. The only thing I heard was ZZZZZzzzzzZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. My reel was singing up a streak. My rod was bent over and 25 inches of rainbow trout leapt from the water in front of me. I was no longer sitting. I was sliding down the side of the rock into the pool I was playing in and starting my run downstream. I could not believe it.

After about 5 or 6 minutes of chasing after it and fighting it, I finally got it to me. I compared its size to my rod and went to land it. As I touched its sides, it flipped, slapped its tail on the line and zipped out of my hands and raced upstream. I had touched it though. I had caught a trout that was considered big for those waters. I was thrilled. I hollered and screamed and cheered and cussed. I danced in the water. Finally, I had broken the trout curse. Finally, after all of the miles, all of the places, all of the attempts, finally, I had caught my trout. I had caught several of them actually.

It was time to sit again. I walked downstream some more to the next pool. There in the middle I saw something moving. It was another trout, about the same size as the one I had just caught and brightly colored. There was something wrong with it though. It had a large growth on its bottom jaw and its tail was ragged. It did not move. I moved flies across its snout and it still did not move. I stepped into the water and walked towards it. It was not until I touched it that it finally darted away and hid under a rock shelf. It seemed sick, or dying.

The sun was high in the sky. I walked back up the road and began the walk back to the restaurant hoping that they would come by and pick me up. I did not realize how far I had traveled. I walked back up the hill nearly two and a half miles to the restaurant. Apparently my "watch" was wrong. Actually, they were late. I lay in the grass alongside the road across from the restaurant and peered at the river. I saw movement in one of the trees and was shocked to see the rare Resplendent Quetzal feeding its young in a nest dug into the tree. Its long tail talked of flies that it could make and I watched as the male and female of the pair took turns. The female did not have the long flowing tail of the male, but had the same beautiful colors.

As the male flew off down the river, the sun hit its plumage and it lit up like magic. Its feathers were iridescent in the sunlight like a peacock’s. I thought of Marvin and how happy he would have been if I had had a gun with me. I thought of how if I had been caught shooting at the "God bird"… I never would have made it out of Costa Rica alive. It is a highly revered bird among some peoples. I laid there watching the birds and soaking up the sunlight and somehow I guess I fell asleep. I woke up a while later; my friends still not back. I was early and they were late.

I made my way up to the restaurant, in a dreamlike state, the effects of my siesta not yet worn off. I pulled up a chair and asked for Un Coca-Cola por favor. I sat and sipped on my Coke and watched the hummingbirds all around sipping on their own sweet nectar. One by one my companions began to show up. One had caught over 30, and all on dry. Apparently the fish were actually rising way down where he had fished. The young ones had caught 3 apiece. One had caught 15. One had caught 14. The other had caught an even 20. I thought I had done well with my 9. I guess I was wrong. I was, however, the only one to catch anything over 10 inches long. I laughed at that thought. I teased them about what a pity it was that they couldn’t handle the section I fished.

We sat around and smoked our cigars and watched the kids pull dinner out of the trout pond. We talked, shared fish stories, I showed them the Quetzals and we all winded down after a good day’s fishing. I had no idea that trout fishing could be so good. I found it extremely ironic that I would have to travel to the tropics to finally catch a trout. I guess sometimes things just happen that way.

I now have to switch back from the trout frame of mind to the tarpon frame of mind… from one extreme to the other. A week from today or so, I am off to Nicaragua, and then to Lake Arenal. Between now and then, I have flies to tie, leaders to build, shock tippets to tie flies onto and lines to clean. I have loops to remake, knots to check and phones to answer. I have a lot of work to do. I can not wait until next week. It will feel nice to have a tarpon on the end of my rod again… but I have to admit, those trout aren’t as bad as I thought they would be either.

 

Costa Rica... Chapter 3

Costa Rica... Chapter 3

 

Escuela del Río

It was still the middle of the night when I was rousted from bed. On the mountain at the elevation where I am staying, overlooking the city of San Jose, the air is cooler, and the wind is always blowing. As we packed the truck to get ready for the day, it was cool. I knew that once we got down to the city to pick up Peter's client that it would be warmer, possibly as much as 15 degrees warmer. I enjoyed the cool while I could. We were off to the Pacific side of the country to fish and there the sun has no mercy.

Unlike the Atlantic side of the country, the Pacific side is more of a dry forest as opposed to the tropical rain forests found on the Caribbean side. While rain and clouds can often dominate the weather on the Atlantic side, it does not seem to affect the Pacific side as much. As we drove across the continental divide, this became amazingly apparent. The line of clouds stopped there and the temperature became so that we all took the extra layers we had put on for the cool mornings.

The guide Peter, the driver Cristofer, myself and the client John rode in silence most of the time. the result of not enough caffeine yet and the fact that it was still so damned early. The sun was fully risen by 6:30. As the sun shed light on the scenery around us, we became more active in conversation, talking about the things we were seeing around us. The ficus trees and teak trees and even the cabo trees, which has pods that are used for chocolate that is not chocolate. At hearing that, John and I suddenly needed a rest near a large stand of those trees. They did not stop.

We stopped only once for breakfast, where we finally managed to put enough caffeine into our bodies to make the rest of the long journey down the always-dangerous roads of Costa Rica. An hour later we drove across the rickety old bridge in Bebedero and were at the boat launch. We unloaded the 1200 pontoon off of the top of the truck, and took the 1000 out of the back of the truck and assembled it. We got rods ready and gear ready and the motors on the boats, gassed up and ready to go. John was going fishing with Peter in the two man 1200. I was going to school on the smaller one man
version.

The school bell rang. Cristofer loaded onto the one man pontoon with me and off we went up the Corobici, while Peter and John went up the Bebedero. The extra weight and off balance weight that Cristofer created by sitting where and how he did was absolutely asinine and foolish, as well as extremely dangerous. It was supposed to be. School was in. We headed off with a small motor trying to push the weight of the boat, the fast moving current and the two of us in a pontoon that listed badly to one side and a bow that was raised into the air. I was supposed to be nervous. In fact, I was supposed to be very afraid.

My job today was to get to know the river a bit, see the place where we were, get to know the boats and how to control them, both with the motor I could not reach and the oars. The problem with the motor can be easily fixed with an extension on the motor guide bar. The oars on the other hand, will take time. They had picked for me the toughest set of conditions to learn in. High winds, high waters, extremely fast currents and a boat that had too much weight and too off balance to be able to handle efficiently.

Cristofer motored us up the river, explaining what he was doing. Hydrodynamics became amazingly clear all of a sudden. I found myself being able to read the river. When we got to the first set of small rapids however, I found myself sitting with Cris in the boat, crossways to the current with one side up on a large rock. We were stuck. At least we were not flipped over. I managed to not panic and with a small prayer, put my feet down below us, found a rock and after praying that it was indeed a rock, pushed us off of the rock we were stuck on and got us turned around again.

Going up the Corobici is a treat in itself. Though located in Costa Rica, the people that live there are Nicaraguan. They are simple people. As we motored our way up the river, we watched as the people gathered up on the bank of the river and waved us on. They watched us with curious and sometimes evil eyes. I looked back at them in their wooden shacks, their rubbish strewn down the sides of the riverbank and flowing into the river and wondered if they knew what damage they were doing to the river they depend on for their welfare. Along with the rubbish from the people, the runoff from the agricultural areas around there have brought the level of toxins in the river to a dangerous level. We would eat no fish caught from that river.

As we neared the last of the shacks and got into the wilder part of the river, away from the visual traces of man at least, we were greeted by the howlers. They do not like the sound of the motors and whenever they hear one they will howl as if we are a threat to them. Perhaps in a way, as humans, we ARE a threat to them, but not directly and not in the way that they perceive us to be. The parrots began to show. The great white ibis and the heron and many other kinds of birds became visible to us. The trees, some right out of time itself, with their huge mass of tangled roots rose above us on either side, sentries of the river. The iguanas scooted away from us on both sides of the river. There were literally hundreds of them in all shapes and sizes. Mating season must be coming soon for them, as they were beginning to take on the bright orange and black coloration that they do during that time.

The caiman and the crocodiles and the Jesus Christ lizards and the other creatures of the forest became more and more obvious the further we got from man's influence. The crocs would slide into the water ahead of us and disappear. The caiman would do the same. Flickers of movement in the shadows would catch my eye as well as my imagination. I wondered what secrets the forest held. I wondered what the trees would say if they could talk. I wondered what tales they would tell of the river, the jungle and the country. What creatures swam through these waters a million years ago? What secrets lay waiting for us on the bottom of the dark murky green waters? What creatures lurked in the shadows it cast upon the ground, in the tangled mess of roots below it, and in its branches hidden by its leaves?

We went further and further into the wild part of the river. We filled the motor up with gasoline several times. As we rounded one corner, another splash from the shore into the water happened in front of us, but this one was to be different. This one was p**sed. The croc was as wide as the inflatable craft we were sitting in and at least twice as long. It slid into the water and charged at us, going under the water only feet in front of us. If crocodiles can smell fear, this one's olfactory senses would have been overloaded. I sat there in the pontoon, the coppery taste of adrenaline in my mouth, the smell of fear coming out of my pores, the knot in my stomach, the sharpness and edge that only pure unadulterated fear can give a person in all of their senses, and the fight or flight syndrome kicking in. I was bound and determined to fight. I knew there was no way to outswim, outrun or out motor the croc. I was not going to leave the pontoon willingly. A million thoughts went through my head. We went over where it had gone down. It took only a second, but seemed like a year. It did not bother us. It would be a while before my hands stopped shaking again.

Around that area we saw many baby crocs, and I began to wonder if we had not made mamma croc think we a threat to her brood. More howler monkeys howled above us. I began to notice the holes in the mudbanks of the river and the large amounts of white splatters of feces below them. I wondered what lived in those holes. I soon found out and was rewarded with the sight of the rare
Anderson Owl, peering out from its hole. Owls are by nature a nocturnal creature, so to see this bird in broad daylight was certainly a treat. As we got closer to take a look, it flew off only feet in front of me and across the river into a tree. I watched it in awe.

The motor ran out of gas for the fourth and final time far up river. We made our way to the bank, where I grabbed hold of a tree branch after carefully checking the bank, the tree and the water around it and held us still while he poured the last of the gasoline into the motor. It was now time to learn how to row this thing. It would not be easy. My right oar was high in the air; my left was low to the water. My bow was raised and my stern was nearly underwater. The wind was howling down the river and across the river and in some places, up the river.

I began to row. It took a few minutes for me to turn the boat around so that we were facing forward. Finally I got a system figured out. It was not easy with one hand so high in the air, but somehow I got us going, around the first couple of corners and around the first few obstacles in the river, keeping us in a forward direction and without running into anything. We turned another corner and the wind was blowing so hard to our faces and across the river that it became impossible to row anymore. Cristofer started the motor and we motored the rest of the way downriver. I had not made it very far. Apparently though, I made it further than they expected me to.

Back to the launch we went. The sun was beating down upon us, through the stiff wind and it did not feel hot, but even through the sunscreen I could feel the effects of the ultraviolet rays upon my skin. Four months in Canada will take away whatever tan and resistance to the sun that a person has. It was time to get out of it. When back at the launching place, we disassembled the pontoon. Peter and John arrived shortly afterwards to the bridge just below the place where the two rivers come together. They pulled over to the shore and we lunched.

They had cast to one huge snook, but had gotten nothing. They had seen two egrets die from apparent poisoning. They had seen an amazing amount of wildlife as well, but had gotten no fish. They were going to now go up the Corobici and see if they had any luck. I did not tell them that I had not seen a single fish move there. The sounds of mortars exploding in the air caught my attention quickly. especially since it was in the air just on the other side of the bridge. The town of Bebedero was having a fiesta, and that was their way of inviting neighboring towns to join them. On the bridge, people started appearing. It was time for their baths before the party. I felt like an intruder. They did not seem to mind or care about my presence. They bathed on the river's edge, changed into clean clothes and stripped down naked to do so right in front of my eyes. Again, I felt a bit of culture shock coming on.

While the people of the village had their fiesta, I laid in the back seat of the truck and had a siesta. It will take a while to acclimate myself to the sun again. It had won that day, and I was feeling its effects not only on my skin, but with the nausea and headache that the beginning of sun sickness bears. I slept soundly until Peter and John got back, some three or four hours later. When I awoke, I realized that indeed I had gotten the disease. I didn't know that it could strike so easily and its symptoms show so quickly. I realized that I had fallen into the depths of the disease of the tropics. I no longer cared about the time. I was in no hurry to do anything and it was the first day that I had not asked what time it was a single time. Those symptoms assured me that I was infected. I can think of worse things.

There are only two times here anyway. There is day time and there is night time. By the time we got the other boat loaded back up and on the road back to home, day time was over and night time had begun. It would still be another hour or so before the lights of San Jose shone in the Central Valley below us and we would know we were close to home. It had been a long day. I wanted nothing more than to sit on the front porch in the dark, look at the lights of the city below me, hold my kitten in my lap and have a shot of café rica. It was not a lot to ask for, and I got it. Another day in the tropics ends.

Costa Rica... Chapter 2

Costa Rica... Chapter 2

 

Lluvia de la Selva

My alarm clock was the sun. Though I had not gotten to bed until almost 4 am, when the sun rose and shone in the window around 7 am, I awoke to greet the day. Today I would float the Rio Frio. There was no chance I could have slept any longer; I was far too excited. The magic of the night before was still dancing around in my head and I wondered if I would find the waters here as magical during the day as I did in the middle of the night. I would soon find out.

We worked hard and yet efficiently getting the two pontoon boats down to the water, the engines strapped on and all of our gear that we would be needing taken care of. The wind was blowing hard, but it was a warm wind and a welcome change from the cold winds of Vancouver Island where I had just spent the last 4 months. The water of the lagoon where we launched was not as mystical as it had seemed the night before, but I knew that it still held mysteries. I knew it held large tarpon.

Cristofer was to be my guide for this trip. It was to be a short one. We still had a 4-hour drive back to the finca and a lot of work to do there after the fishing. This was just a short introductory trip. I had my big rod strung up, a good strong tippet as well as a bite tippet and a large topwater fly tied to it. I was prepared.

We situated ourselves into our seats and were finally off. We went downriver first, the small 2 hp motors pushing us along with the currents. The further downriver we got, the wilder it all became. I made some casts, but was too overwhelmed with what I was seeing to really think hard about fishing. I knew that it being so close to the full moon, the fish would not be actively feeding this time of day, as they had fed all night. I had heard them. I had watched them. I knew.

A jungle of green rose up from the river on either side. Curtains of wild orchids draped the trees in places. Many other exotic flowers grew wild, adding a bit of color to the tones of green, brown, black and white that seemed to make up the majority of the landscape. mostly green. As we rounded the first big bend in the river, the rain began to fall upon us and I stood in the front of the boat, and easily imagined that I was the first one ever to be there, though I knew it was not true. Many had been here before me, you just could not tell.

I stared all around me. A very large iguana sunned itself at the top of a tree. Looking for other iguanas in the treetops, I spotted a few monkeys, hunkered down and quiet and unmoving in the rain. All around me birds of every color and species imaginable flew and swam and dove. The rain did not last long. the trip continued.

Further downriver we encountered some of the natives, doing their laundry in the river, the soap a chum line of sorts to alert the crocodiles to where they were. Doing laundry there is dangerous work. A few of the natives were fishing as well, though not with fancy graphite flyrods and reels. Instead they outfished us with their hand lines and bait. We saw many of them with fish, who used nothing more than a piece of line and a hook. No reels, no rods, nothing but the knowledge of how to catch the fish where they lived.

We fished on down the river some more, and as expected, drew no strikes. I finally realized that sometimes it is best just to put the rod down and take in the wonder around me. I replaced the rod in my hand with a camera and went to work. On the way back up the river, I asked Cristofer to stop near where we spotted the monkeys and the iguana. The position was wrong for a photograph, however. As he pulled us over to the bank though, we scared three large iguanas from their places. I did not know what they were at first beating around in the bushes a mere foot and a half from my face, and have to admit I was a bit nervous until I finally spotted them.

We sat there and watched the monkeys, who were still pretty inactive and watched the huge iguana at the top of the tree. I admired the parrots that I saw in the trees everywhere. After I had had my fill, we continued on. A little ways up I was greeted with another rare sight, a Jesus Christ lizard, sitting alongside the water's edge. As we approached it so that I could get a picture of it, the bright green lizard with many adornments took off and proved why it is called what it is. Across the water it walked, and when it hit the land, it ran like a man on its back two legs. What an amazing sight.

Shortly after, as we motored upriver some more, I found myself lost in my thoughts and lost in the beauty of such a place. A noise rose above the din of the small motor and I looked to the sky to see where the jet airplane was. It sounded as if it had to be close. Cristofer smiled and shut the engine down. From his throat came some guttural noises, and they were greeted by the same sounds back from the tree. The howler monkeys were staring at us from their places in the trees. I was taught how to talk to them from the safety of our boat. The noise came again. I know now why they are called howler monkeys. What a haunting sound they make.

Past the lagoon we went and continued up river. I was adjusted well to the thought that this would be more of a sightseeing tour. The tarpon were not feeding, and I had only seen a few of them rolling, although they were big tarpon. A dead pig laid along the river, obviously a fresh victim of the mud that it was stuck in. The crocs had not yet found it and the first bird was finally making its way over to it. Indian huts lined the river in places. People's homes were found way out along the river, accessible only by the small wooden boats that they build themselves and totally rudimentary. There is no plumbing, no running water, and no electricity. It does not seem like a bad way to live.

Horses and cows, egrets, wild hogs, crocodiles, snakes, lizards, parrots and an assortment of other wildlife surrounded us. The jungle enveloped us. The river flowed beneath us. The wind blew, the rain fell and me?? I fell in love. The many canals, the lagoons, the deep dark muddy river with ghosts of its own like a river I have loved back home in FL have totally stolen my heart.

As we headed back in to the lagoon to get ready to depart, I found myself wondering what it would be like to live here. The thought will not leave my head. I wonder. The jungle has a way of letting you think.

Costa Rica... Chapter 1

Costa Rica... Chapter 1

Noche de la Laguna

The town of Escazu, just outside of San Jose is a look back in time. It is a look at a culture so different from my own, that the shock was inevitable. It did not last long, as I found myself becoming more and more attracted to a way of life where nobody was in a hurry, nobody was concerned with what time it was and things had a way of just going along smoothly. Needless to say I was enraptured with the place. I love the lifestyle, the laid back way of the world here, and how time just seems to stand still. The houses, schools, cemeteries... all of it, is older than time itself.

We went through Escazu on our way to Cano Negro. Far in the north of Costa Rica, not far from the Nicaragua border, it is part of a wildlife refuge where time has stood still for many years as well.

The people of this country are a calm people. There are few fights, and even though we may not speak the same language, it is clear that they are not saying unfriendly things. To watch them is amazing. It does not matter who it is, if they see someone struggling with something, they jump right in and help. I saw that so many times. Cano Negro (Black Canal) is a place of dreams, and I lived a few of them out there.

We arrived late at night on the first day and got settled into our cabinos. The first order of business before taking our belongings into our rooms was a good spraying. The odor of bug spray wafting through the area as we sprayed our rooms to chase any scorpions or other insects out of our beds was pungent. The rooms were simple. There was a bed in each. Some had two beds. Nothing else. The walls were plywood. That was the extent of the construction. No fancy pictures on the wall, no insulation, two windows with flimsy mismatched curtains and a small shelf. The cool breeze drafted through the cracks and holes in the wall and floor and through the windows. It was a perfectly functional room. Downstairs, below us in the rooms (each cabin had two rooms) was a picnic table and a closed in toilet and shower. The water coming out of that shower was cold.

As we waited for the bug spray to do its job, the near full moon, now in its waning stage, shone down upon us. The light breeze kept the mosquitoes away. The mud on the ground was thick, and sticky. It had rained twice that day. We sat and talked and enjoyed the warmth and fresh air. Eventually, my companions started to head to their beds. Only Cristofer and I were left awake.

In the next cabino over were two guys. Both were young men from Belgium who were living out their dreams and bicycling across Central America. Stefan was a very tall thin guy, with hair that had not been brushed for 5 years, a nice smile and a sense of adventure. He was very outgoing. His friend was more the shy, quiet type and we did not hear or see him much. As midnight approached, somehow a plan was formed. The next moment found Stefan, Cristofer and I carrying the pontoon boat down to the lagoon that lies along and off of the Rio Frio.

The pontoon boat is made for two people. It has a place that one can put a motor on and get somewhere quicker, but we took only oars. Stefan sat in the back seat and rowed. Cristofer stretched across the small place for gear behind him and I took the seat in front. Armed with only two flashlights, we made our way into the lagoon and were mystified. Stefan rowed us out to the center of the lagoon. With our flashlights, we spotted many large crocodiles. We listened to the bullfrogs, which grow to giant sizes. We listened to the calling of the neighborhood roosters, the huge tarpon feeding, the cows mooing and the owls hooting.

We sat there in a small inflatable boat, in a lagoon in the middle of the jungle, three people from three different places who spoke three different languages. Somehow we managed to talk and to share not only our languages with each other, but a special moment in time. The silvery glow of the moon laid down its reflection upon the murky waters below us and the orange eyes of the crocs and frogs shone with its light. We sat there in silence. We sat there and talked. We tried to learn each others' languages in one night. Somehow we communicated.

For nearly three hours we sat in the lagoon, sharing stories and silence with each other. The sounds of the tarpon feeding all around us and the crocodiles swimming and bullfrogs croaking and the sights of the shadows in the jungle around us and the moon above and the clouds moving over it and the reflecting eyes and splashes of water that caught the moon's light, lending an eerie glow to it as the tarpon thrashed about in their moonlit midnight feeding frenzy intoxicated us. Lazily, reluctantly, we made our way back to the shore and headed in. None of us wanted the moment to end.

It was almost 4 in the morning when finally I made my way up to the bed and after one last check for scorpions, got in it. I fell to sleep immediately, the sounds of the wind and the tarpon and the frogs and crickets was my lullaby. Morning would be here soon. With morning would come a trip down the Rio Frio for some flyfishing. It did indeed come early.