Visiting Forest Hikers

You can’t just take visitors anywhere out in the forest. We often have friends visit us from Costa Rica and abroad. We’re especially careful with visitors from abroad. They certainly prepare their wardrobes well –often equipped with the latest hiking gear complete with high tech, instant drying/no tear fabrics. And they carry these incredibly lightweight back-backs that have all sorts of zippers and pockets for stuffing everything you could possible imagine needing while hiking out in the jungle. And they provide me with all the information on the latest hiking & forest supplies along with web sites where I can acquire all this stuff too. It’s not necessarily always true, but the more carefully our visitors assemble their supplies for hiking in Costa Rica, the more careful we are with them!

After less than two years of exploring the forest out at Finca El Tigre, we’ve already had a series of mishaps with intrepid visiting hikers - everything from scrapes and tumbles to sun stroke to fractured limbs. We never take visitors from abroad on the high adventure waterfall hikes, especially city people from New York City or London. We’ve had enough close-calls with experienced locals. I’ve learned the hard way that it doesn’t matter what the visitors say – that they’ve hiked Tibet or Nepal – I still want to see how they do on an intermediate hike (high enough adventure for pretty much everybody) before inviting them down to the waterfalls. And I rarely hike down there without our forest worker, Armando, who has hauled injured visitors back up the mountain a few times already. He is also useful for using his machete to hack a trail around obstacles and also keeps us oriented without GPS.

Hiking deep in the forest without Armando basically guarantees me with a side-detour into uncharted territory. In case of getting lost, I never fess up to visitors. I just tell them we’re exploring new areas in the forest as we climb back up the mountain. Sooner or later, we eventually come across one of the lateral trails crisscrossing the forest. People can really get lost down in the Osa Peninsula – and not survive - but never at Finca El Tigre. This is a calming thought whenever I blunder off the trail with visitors in tow.

Quite honestly, most people don’t appreciate the forest. We start off on a hike and immediately they begin chattering and going on about anything and everything except what’s right in front of them. These are friends who are delightful at cocktail parties but can’t seem to make the shift when confronted with nature. They can’t seem to feel the joy of just being in the middle of an old forest, mesmerized by the birds and rushing water and beholding the utter majesty of massive trees. And then they wonder why we can never see any animals! Therefore, when visitors begin talking incessantly, I just take them on the pasture hike overlooking the forest canopy and talk with them and enjoy the views. They come back invigorated from the exercise and think that they’ve hiked in a forest.

If visitors are in good physical condition and seem to make the shift into the natural world, then I offer to take them down for a look in the forest. Then it is decision time – the forest hikes can range from two to five hours, or more, depending on how things go. Luckily, we have lateral trails that loop back up part way and again half way down the mountain if I decide we need to bail out. This generally happens quite naturally when a visitor suddenly remembers a weak knee or some other medical condition when faced with a long hike down the mountain, which invariably results in a long hike back up. Actually, it’s easier hiking back up a mountain than keeping your balance hiking down but most people don’t want to find that out for themselves. There are times when we need to grab onto something to keep from tumbling down a steep slope. And it’s important not to grab onto just anything – like a thorny palm or some other nasty plant, of which there are many, not to mention biting insects and snakes. I know what to touch and not touch but can’t expect visiting guests from abroad to know the same. So I have to constantly advise them along the trail-

“Don’t touch that green, leafy plant – it will burn you …. Watch out for that ferny seedling – it has clinging, spines…Don’t touch that caterpillar….”

The general rule of the forest is: Look where you’re stepping – Stop to look up.

Still, visitors usually have a way of picking up skin rashes and bug bites while out hiking. It doesn’t help when they show up wearing shorts or cropped pants. It’s just a bad idea to go into the forest without covering up completely – and that means wearing boots, socks tucked over long pants, t-shirts long enough to cover the pants, a hat and a handkerchief wrapped around the neck for mopping up sweat. What is it with the Brits and Yanks who insist on hiking in shorts as if they were in the Lake District? And nobody who is not wearing boots should go into the forest. Sandals belong on the beach.

Every hike has a highlight. Sometimes we come across the monkeys or a sloth. Sometimes the sunlight splatters a rainbow on the waterfall. Sometimes we come across a new fruit or seed. Visiting botanists are a special breed because the whole hike is marked by many special moments. I generally botanize by myself or with a visiting botanist and these are my absolute favorite hikes. The difficulty of the hike is quite irrelevant. What’s important is, for example, finding that Tempisque tree after coming across the seed or trying to identify something that just doesn’t key out with the references on hand – and that happens all the time. Botanists are not aware of the steep slopes or the sudden downpours. They are on the hunt for the elusive rare plant – perhaps not yet classified, or just trying to figure out the tree in front of us. We never mind having to carry out an exhausted botanist.