La Playa Hermosa

The Kid’s kids have arrived! My granddaughter is eight, almost nine, and grandson is seven years old. They will spend a few months with my son here in Costa Rica, just a mile down the road. The kids think our attempts at Spanish are comical. They’ve taken it upon themselves to educate us on the language, culture and green living of this place. First, my granddaughter takes us on a little jungle hike, rattling off the names of the plants and letting us know which are edible. My grandson shows us the mimosa plants growing out of a little hillside – we’d walked by these plants several times but had not noticed how they fold up when our shadow falls or we brush against them. Having seen too many sci-fi films, Pecos is convinced that these plants, if larger, would lean over to bite us. The kids calmly tell us a true story of seeing an eight-foot boa constrictor emerge from the nearby forest a few years ago to swallow their pet cat in one huge gulp and then - as they watched - to devour it over the next two hours. Pecos is extremely rattled to hear this. He goes in the house and returns with his machete, setting it near him on the porch. I consider how these children have seen so much at an early age and wonder what they will be like as adults. Like their dad, they seem worldly and fearless.

We were finishing breakfast the next day when The Kid and my grandkids pulled up in the jeep, brakes freshly re-repaired. Would we like to go to the beach, la playa? Most certainly! We were ready in five minutes. Because it hasn’t rained in four weeks, The Kid says we’ll take the back way, down the mountain slopes on rugged roads, rather than to drive a much longer, circular distance through San Isidro on pavement.

Before coming to Costa Rica, the only map I could find that shows our village is the one from National Geographic. It shows the road to our village as ‘seasonal only’. The route we are about to take down the mountain is depicted as ‘footpath’ and it ends part way down. No problemo, says The Kid. He’s done this many times.

The ride down the mountain, a distance of about five miles, took nearly an hour as we crept along ever so slowly in four-wheel drive. The views were breathtaking. Where the jungle and hardwood forests broke, the ocean was visible far below. At one point we crested a nearby ridge to find a 360-degree vista of distant mountain ranges. It felt as if we were looking across all of Costa Rica. We passed through narrow spots where the road did seem like a footpath; dense jungle plants brushed both sides of the vehicle. Where foot-deep furrowed ruts ran lengthwise with the road, the jeep jumped and buckled and snorted. We sat on our belongings and held on tight so that they (and we) wouldn’t bounce out.

Playa Hermosa. Beautiful beach, so appropriately named. Flocks of pelicans flew by us in long strings as we swam. There were only a few other people there, at the far end of this two-mile cove. Shade trees hung horizontally over the soft sand and the water was clear with huge waves pounding close to shore. This was the most gorgeous beach yet.

We spent half the day playing in the water and picnicking. My grandkids are fearless swimmers, taking their little boogie boards out in the water up to their necks, then catching the peaks of cresting waves to flop on their boards for a ride of thirty feet or more. Pecos and The Kid gathered large pieces of driftwood to use for carving while I looked for shells. Sand crabs scurried back in their holes when we came near. The water was so warm and the day so clear with a gentle breeze. It couldn’t get any better.

But it did. Just a little ways back up the mountain we stopped at a soda for lunch. This open-air tiny restaurant also featured a trail that the proprietor said would lead a short distance to a waterfall. There would be a charge of 700 colones per adult, about $1.20. We decided to do it. We hiked down a short, steep hillside on steps cut from a rocky wall and came to a pretty waterfall that dropped about eight feet to a shallow pool a few feet deep. It was so beautiful; we were glad we’d hiked down. A couple emerged from a path in the thick jungle and said the larger waterfall was just around the bend. We could hear it.

We climbed down the short path and across boulders the size of cars, and there it was – a magnificent waterfall about three feet wide with a 20-foot drop and a rounded pool at its base. The pool was edged on half of its circumference with tall rocky cliffs; it was about 25 feet across and rimmed at its open half with heaps of boulders. The falls were loud as the water crashed into the pool about two feet from the rocky wall behind it. The pool had a deep drop-off; we couldn’t touch bottom. The water was warm and clear and light turquoise in color. This setting was so beautiful we kept saying it seemed so unreal. We all played in the water for a good while. My grandson and granddaughter were fearless once again, climbing up on the rocky rim and jumping in water over their heads and then paddling across. The Kid slowly made a few toe-holds on the rocky wall to climb up about five feet above the water, and leaned in behind the waterfall before jumping back in the pool. We all clapped and called for him to do it again and again.

Soon four young Tico men came along and dropped their towels on the edge as they dove in the water. One swam across the pool to emerge near the base of the waterfall and then looked at us and nodded, as if to say, watch this. He pulled himself out of the water and slowly, slowly climbed the entire 20-foot smooth rock wall, catching hands in tiny crevices and balancing on ledges just an inch or two across. It was frightening to watch. When he reached the top and stood on the flat rocks next to the cascading falls, he jumped up and down and his friends cheered from below. Then he walked out of sight. His friends kept cheering. Suddenly, he appeared again, flying downward head-first on his stomach, sliding at high speed down the chute of the waterfall, riding on top of the rushing water and landing with a crash in the pool! It all happened so fast, we could hardly believe it! Everyone was shouting and we and his friends all jumped up and cheered and yelled when he surfaced. Thank god he was still alive! This was a level of daring never before seen! Next, he and his friends entertained us for an hour by repeatedly climbing half way up the rocky walls and diving into the center of the pool. One of his friends climbed to the top of the waterfall and then edged along the top of the cliff about 10 feet to the side to dive into the pool from the entire height. Our masterful falls jumper did his ride down the rushing waterfall chute once more. It was just as frightening and thrilling to watch the second time as the first.

Back up the mountain the jeep’s brakes failed once again. The Kid took it slow, giving me time to admire the many wildflowers and leaves very close up once again. The grade was so steep that at several times with the jeep put in its lowest possible traction gear we all leaned forward to help it inch upward. We passed a house again where a Tico family lives year round, inaccessible except by horse or foot for more than half the year. They waved hello again, as they had on our way down hours earlier.

We arrived home safely, just before dark. The Kid and his kids dropped us off and headed brakeless over the next crests to their finca. With all that we’d seen during the day, we figured they would make it home safely, as driving on mountain roads without brakes is nothing compared to jumping a tall waterfall. Exhausted from an entire day of swimming and hiking, we ate fruit for dinner, went right to bed and fell asleep immediately. It was 7:36 p.m. 