WALKING TO ZANCUDO

Zancudo is only an hour by boat across the gulf from the Osa peninsula to the mainland Pacific coast of Costa Rica, but it took us twenty hours to make that trip. First, you need a boat. Then you need water. Gene and I discovered that neither of these were always available.
There were three private boats in the little port town of Jimenez. The entire fleet was out. We settled down at a palapa restaurant overlooking the gulf, ordered papas fritas and Pilsens, our favorite Costa Rican beer, and hoped one of the boats would return early enough to take us across.
Finally, a boat came in, but the captain wanted $100 to make the trip. That didn't compare too favorably to the $3 each for the daily 6:00 am ferry we missed earlier. It crossed the gulf to the town of Golfito where, for another $15, a motorboat would take one to Zancudo. The difference between twenty-one dollars and a hundred was quite a bit more than the little extra we were prepared to spend. Our friend Shelia was in Zancudo recently and told us to go there and where to stay. The three of us shared an attraction to beautiful, undiscovered beaches and out of the way places. She drove a four-wheel drive vehicle over dirt roads on the mainland to reach Zancudo, so she didn’t know anything about boating in. Gene and I have traveled together enough to know that getting from one place to another frequently involves the unexpected. This wasn’t an occasion that left either of us frightened, nervous, or angry.
We got a cheap motel room for the night, only a few steps from the ferry pier and decided to take a swim, but the water that had been lapping gently against the rocks along the roadside was on its way somewhere else, leaving behind an ever expanding mud flat. Instead of wading in, we squished in. Gene and I marched onward, determined to have our swim. The tide was out so far, I thought we might get to Zancudo on foot before we reached water deep enough for swimming. We sat down in the water to cool off and then returned to shore.
It was hard to imagine a ferryboat making it to the pier, but when I looked out the window the next morning, I saw a beautiful sunrise and a ferryboat. The ferry left promptly at 6:00 a.m. and arrived in Golfito at 7:15. At a small open-air cafe beside the Golfito pier, we had our morning coffee. They served it in glasses rather than cups. While I had a second coffee, Gene found a man with a small boat to take us the final distance to Zancudo, another forty minutes. His name was Hector. His boat was green. The water was calm and the ride smooth for the first thirty minutes. Then we noticed that the water was so shallow, we could see the bottom. Hector saw it too. The tide was going out again. Hector turned the engine off and got out of the boat. Water came only up to his knees. He began to push the boat. After five minutes, he was breathing hard. I felt guilty that he was working so strenuously while I sat in the boat like a princess. I reminded myself that we hadn't hired him to push us to Zancudo. As if he read my mind, he stopped pushing and waded away from the boat. He seemed to be looking for something. I thought he was looking for a deeper channel, but when he returned to us, Hector confessed he'd lost his boat key in the water. Maybe we really would end up walking to Zancudo.
Luckily, Hector knew how to hot-wire an engine. He managed to get the boat running without a key and did find a deeper channel. Finally, he deposited us at a dilapidated pier. We proceeded carefully, stepping over spots where slats were missing, and came out on a dirt road. There was no cafe at this pier, no other boats, no people, no telephone. Gene flagged down a pick up truck.
“I’m Mauricio,” said the driver. “What can I do for you?”
Gene said, “Can you tell me where the nearest phone is?”
Mauricio laughed. The three children in the back of the pick up laughed. Mauricio said, “There's only one telephone in town, and it's nowhere near the pier.”
Gene said, “I need a taxi.”
Mauricio and the children laughed again. “There are no taxis in Zancudo.
Where do you want to go?”
Gene said, “A friend of ours told us Reiner’s is a good place to stay.”
Mauricio nodded agreement. “Mi amigo,” he said. “Throw your bags in back with my kids and climb in. I’ll take you there.”

Zancudo is not a village so much as it is a narrow spit of land with a road running down its middle. Scattered along that road are houses, a couple of shops, a few cabins for rent. Everyone in town knows where everything is because there's only the one road. You can't stray too far off that road because close on one side is the Pacific Ocean and close on the other is a mangrove lagoon. People keep their boats in the lagoon, and that’s where what’s left of the pier is located.
Reiner's is at the end of the bumpy dirt road. It‘s small: six rooms divided between three cabins. Someone had left that morning. Gene said, “I’ll stay here with our baggage. You take a look at the room.”
I followed Reiner down a boardwalk a few inches above the sand. He was about six feet one, with a strong, athletic body and a fast, confident stride. When we reached the last room in the last cabin, he turned to me, his weathered face neither handsome nor ugly. "I put up a clean hammock for you," he said. He spoke with a German accent. We stood on the front porch. I looked through the palm trees at the deserted beach. It was a perfect beach: good swimming, boogie boarding, and surfing, and so few of us to share it. "I have the room cleaned immediately," he said. I listened to waves breaking gently on shore. “You can have it for $20 a night.”
"We'll take it," I told him.
Gene and I waited in the common room built on stilts above the sand. There was a kitchen with an honor system bar, tables, chairs, sofas, hammocks, a television, a tape deck, driftwood art. A trim, nice looking man with receding gray hair introduced himself as Barry. “Have you made it to Drake’s Bay?” He asked.
“No. Maybe next time we’re in Costa Rica.”
Barry said, “That’s too bad. It’s beautiful there. I own a fabulous place at Drake's Bay.”
Another man with shoulder length gray hair, some of which was in free braids with beads at the end, was named Bob. A third gray one was called Mikey. He had hair all over the place – mustache, beard, bushy eyebrows, head, arms, legs, nostrils. The woman who'd brought him to Zancudo had deserted him there. Fran was a young surfer with sun-bleached hair and a deep tan. He said surfers usually go to Pavones, a little further south. Pavones is “ranked” and has the longest left breaking wave in the world, but Fran liked having the waves all to himself in Zancudo. The last of Reiner's residents was a thin woman from Golfito. She only appeared when it was time for her soap opera.
When our room was ready, we found the beds made up with sheets and pillowcases embroidered with peacocks. Peacocks were carved in the headboards of the beds, a motif that was unexpectedly elegant for a place where there were no private baths, only shared, and a ceiling fan that didn't work. "No problem," said Reiner. "I have a fan. I put it up for you." The other residents were impressed with what they called the VIP treatment we were getting. The man who'd just vacated our room had stayed there for a month without a fan, a new hammock, or embroidered sheets. What he did get and what all the other guys were getting was a substantial discount for staying so long. Reiner probably hoped that we would also settle in for a lengthy stay, but we only had a few days.
We stayed at the end of the road the remainder of that first day and night, eating lunch and dinner across the way at María's. María is one of Reiner's many ex-wives. Maria’s is the only place to eat nearby, and everyone from Reiner’s moved over there for both meals that day. It felt like boarding school, complete with an irritating individual who bragged and talked too much. That was Barry. At lunch he said, “This is about the size of the restaurant I own in Sausalito. Of course, my place is considerably more up market.”
“Of course,” I said. “Pass the hot sauce and shut up.” I didn’t really say shut up, but I thought it. Barry was quiet for the rest of the meal.
Between meals, Gene and I swam, used the boogie boards, took turns in our clean hammock, and enjoyed an entire sky of burnt orange at day’s end.
We were up early the next morning to bird watch while walking the road. The Zancudo peninsula isn't pristine rain forest. There are no high rises and very few people, but also very few birds. Blue Gray Tanagers and Great Kiskadees were breakfasting along the road, but we'd already seen hundreds of those lovely birds in other parts of Costa Rica. About forty-five minutes up the road, we interrupted our walk to have coffee at the open-air restaurant of Sol y Mar Cabins, and there we saw a new bird, the Green Crowned Brilliant, a large, glittering green, hummingbird with a forked tail. Then we went a little further to Zancudo Boat Tours and arranged to take a ride that afternoon through the mangrove lagoons and up the Rio Coto Colorado. We walked back to Reiner's along the beach. Though we hadn't quite made it to the end of the peninsula, we felt we'd pretty much seen Zancudo. It was muy tranquilo.
Lunch at Maria’s was a fresh tropical fruit plate, no choice. Barry said, “I could never get away with that at my restaurant in Mill Valley.”
Gene said, “I thought your restaurant was in Sausalito.”
“Don’t get him started,” I said, this time out loud. Everyone, including Barry, was quiet for the rest of the meal. Reiner offered us a lift back up the road for our boat outing. Bob took Gene aside and warned him that Reiner was a madman behind the wheel, but we found his driving perfectly acceptable. Maybe he was still giving us the VIP treatment?
Our boat captain was Junior, and he was still young enough that the name seemed appropriate. We were his only passengers. He kept the boat slow and quiet, so we could watch for birds. Bare Throated Tiger Heron and Anhinga in the lower canal. Junior had a copy of the Cornell University GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF COSTA RICA, and he knew his birds.
We saw a Green Backed Heron wading in shallow water on long, skinny legs. A Wood Stork sat in the top of a tree. Green Kingfishers skimmed the waters surface. A Whimbrel poked in the mud near shore with his decurved bill. Further up the Rio Coto Colorado, we saw Blue Headed Parrots, spidery white water lilies, and crocodiles. Many crocodiles. Silly me - I’d worn my bathing suit in case I wanted to take a dip to cool off. I doubt I'll ever get hot enough to want to swim with crocodiles.
To make it into dock before dark we had to zoom into the sunset. The surface of the water was radiant gold with islands of fuchsia, mirroring, exactly, the sky. Instead of merely gazing at a display, we were in the sunset, moving through the color. It was above us, behind us, below us. We were surrounded by sunset. As the now speeding boat broke through the fuchsia and gold, we saw trees along the banks covered with white blossoms that fluttered off their branches as we approached. The trees were abloom with birds - Snowy Egrets and White Ibis.
Then it was dark, as suddenly as if someone had pulled a switch. Junior slowed the boat and poked back into the mangroves we'd left four hours earlier.
We returned to Sol y Mar for dinner. Neither of us wanted to share another meal with Barry. Somewhere along the line, he’d also told us about his ranch in Fresno and his hotel in Redding. “If we were with the guys and mentioned our boat trip, I suppose we’d find out that Barry owns a boat,” I said.
“Or two or three,” said Gene.
When Gene was paying our bill, our waiter asked, “How much longer will you folks be here?”
“We’ve got a ride to Golfito tomorrow with Reiner.”
He frowned. “I have to tell you, Reiner is a certified maniac behind the wheel.”
A look between Gene and me acknowledged that this was our second warning. I was tempted to ask for the gory details, but I didn’t.
We walked home along the beach again, but it was different in the dark. There were no lights near shoreline and few inland. Would we be able to tell when to stop? We had a flashlight, a watch, and knowledge of approximately how long the walk would be, so I was able to suspend concern and enjoy the romantic starlight stroll. At the appropriate time, we started shining our flashlight inland. Soon, we saw Reiner's coast- side mirador, a lookout platform on stilts six feet above the sand.
“We've walked over two hours today,” I said. “I’m tired.”
Gene said, “Aren’t you glad we don't have to get up to catch the 6 a.m. ferry tomorrow?”
“After two warnings about Reiner’s driving, I have mixed feelings.”
“It’ll be an adventure. We’ll see what the overland route is like,” said Gene.
Before we could discuss it further, Fran, Mikey, and Bob stopped by our cabin to say good-bye. Fran said, “I wish you guys were staying and Barry was leaving.”
M any mornings of bird watching and early ferries and plane flights had us awake unnecessarily at 5:00 a.m. We got dressed and started packing up. It's a good thing we did because Reiner came by at five minutes before 6:00 to tell us he wasn't going to Golfito after all. He'd try to get us to the 6:00 ferry. I rode in front with him. Gene rode in the back of the pick-up. Reiner drove directly onto the beach, which is somewhat smoother than the road. Then began what we used to call an E ticket ride and what we still call a mad dash. The beach no longer seemed smooth as we caught air flying off the top of one small rise after another. Once we landed in the ocean, and salt water splashed up all around us. Gene screamed, and I looked back, in alarm. I was afraid he had bounced out, and I’d see an empty pick up bed. But he was still there. Instead of the terrified face I expected to see, he was smiling. How could I forget that he was a high speed, down hill, thrills and chills kind of guy? Gene was having fun, and I might as well too. Better to die happy than frightened.
His reputation intact, Reiner got us to the pier in time. Gene shoved some money into his hand. There was no time for accounting. We ran for the ferryboat, this time leaping across the holes in the pier. It was certainly our fastest and most casual checkout.

Moons Over Whiskeytown

MOONS OVER WHISKEYTOWN

Our family and friends camp together every summer at Whiskeytown Lake and National Recreation Area near Redding, California. When we began the campouts, in l987, there were only a few older kids, including our daughter, Fawn. There were lots of little children. Our youngest son, Gino, was one of the littles. And there were adults...sort of.
Adults reserved the group site, a peninsula that we had all to ourselves. We sent out letters announcing the dates, collected money, bought provisions for and prepared a fajita dinner the first night, organized the potluck side dishes for the remaining dinners, and stayed up late partying and playing games.
The first time we played the new game of "Pictionary," we teamed men against women. Competition was fierce. The player who was "it" took a card with a word on it and tried to help their team guess the word by drawing picture clues. Dennis held his drawing up for his team to see. "Cucumber," guessed one.
"Surfboard," said Dennis, who wasn't supposed to say anything.
"Cigar!" "Penis!" "Baseball bat!" They all called out at once.
"Surfboard," Dennis repeated. Because he's a little hard of hearing, he thought we couldn't hear him, but we could.
A teammate looked at the picture again and said, "Surfboard?" The women refused to give the men credit for that. The men objected loudly.
"Quiet down!" a child called out from a tent. "I can't sleep."

From the very beginning, watercraft represented freedom for the children. Long before they could take out the motorboats, as many as possible would pile onto the board of Gene's windsurfer and paddle over to the other side of the cove. A red kayak and an inflatable rowboat followed them. They went ashore near a Douglas fir tree that leaned toward the lake as if trying to see its reflection in the glassy surface. A rope hung from the tree. They took turns climbing the tree. Holding onto the rope, they'd jump from the trunk, swinging out over the deep water.
On the point of the peninsula across the cove, I was fearful that the child on the rope wouldn't let go in time, but they always did. By the end of the day, they'd earned my confidence. On the second day, I took photos of them. By the third day, no one paid much attention to the jumpers. The temperature was 104. "Meltdown," said Dennis. I glanced across the cove and saw his son, Justin, climb beyond the rope on the tree. Higher and higher he ascended. Finally, he stopped and surveyed the wet and wooded world below him. He jumped. He dropped through the hot air and touched down feet first. It seemed he was underwater forever. I think we all held our breath along with him. The clouds in the sky stood still until his head popped up. We cheered. The kids cheered. Another child scampered up the tree. Soon the Dads joined them, not for a lecture but for a jump.
The next summer not only the rope but the entire tree was gone. We found another rope swing in a distant part of the large manmade lake, but the following year it too was gone. Jumping into water from a high place had become an instant tradition, like having fajitas the first night, so discovering the jumping rock on Brandy Creek was perfect.
To get to the rock we first drove a dusty dirt road until it ended literally in the creek. From there we continued upstream on foot, rock hopping, wading across the narrow, shallow stream, climbing past waterfalls, ducking under dogwoods. Water played the rocks like musical instruments. The serenade was peaceful and pleasant. Finally, we came to a tall rock with a deep pool below. It took nerve to jump, not only because of the fifteen-foot drop but also because of the icy water waiting below. Jumpers rose to the surface gasping or shrieking. They got out fast and sprawled on flat gray rocks that were warm from the sun. The hike up Brandy Creek became an annual adventure.
Camping during a full moon was another custom. The first year Terry went water skiing by the light of the moon. The wooded islands and shores cast a dark wrick-wrack silhouette against the bright sky. She cut through the reflected light, scattering moonbeams left and right. She wore only a life vest. That exhibition was called "moons over Whiskeytown."
My husband, Gene, couldn't wait to learn to ski so he too could skim across moonlit water, but he didn't turn out to be a natural. He sank as if God intended him to be an anchor. After five failed attempts, Dennis said, "Take a break. We'll try again later."
Gene was determined to get up on his next turn. Dennis was captain of the boat. They started from right off the point, the end of the peninsular. Those of us on shore watched from our beach chairs, ready to cheer for even the smallest success. "He's up!" We all cheered and clapped. "He's down." "No! He's up." He was up and down like a yo-yo without ever letting go of the rope until finally he completely disappeared under water. "Let go of the rope," we screamed from shore. "Let go of the rope," Dennis screamed from the boat. But Gene had resolved not to let go. He emerged from the depths like a modern Loc Ness monster, skis still on his feet, and managed to ski on top of the water for a decent interval. He received a standing ovation when he returned to land.
It was always summer at Whiskeytown Lake for us, and unlike some California lakes, the water level was consistently high, even during droughts. But nature isn't static, so there was invariably something new or different. One year we couldn't get reservations during a full moon. It was mid-August, and there was no moon at all. Our group area and tents were in dense darkness under the trees, but at the point, the Perseids meteor shower lit the sky with silent fireworks. One large meteor cut a long, wide blaze of bright across the night. After that, the rest of the shooting stars were like tiny tots, flashing and dashing around. Just as the kids, all older then, snuck a beer or two out of their parent’s coolers, the little stars stole light from the moon. They reeled across the sky, drunk on moonshine.
Favorite water toys and sports varied from one season to the next. Water-skis had staying power, but knee boards were quickly replaced by tubes. Two inner tubes connected to the back of a motorboat by long ropes. The tubes had handholds. All the riders could do was hold onto these while the captain of the boat made sharp turns and crossed his own wake in an effort to dislodge them, an aquatic version of crack-the-whip. One afternoon Gino and Rosie were tubing. The tubes collided with a force that launched Gino high into the air.
"Oh my God," I said as my eyes followed the trajectory of my son. Everyone at the point jumped to their feet in horror as he flipped once, twice, three times. He was a strong, athletic boy, but gymnastics wasn't one of his sports. Maybe it should have been, because he landed without injury.
In '93, we arrived to find ugly metal food lockers installed at the group cooking and dining area and scattered around the campsite. Rangers told us to put all our food, including ice chests, in the lockers at night because this was now bear country, and odors attract bears. Instead of our world getting tamer, it was getting wilder. The kids were thrilled. They wanted to see a bear.
We felt certain they'd get their wish because nothing is more lusciously aromatic than marinated skirt steak sizzling over mesquite - the meat for fajitas. Sure enough, after dinner, a huge shaggy cinnamon bear tried to join the party. We chased him off and then stumbled around with flashlights, putting food away. We reconvened around the campfire to eat our hand cranked blackberry ice cream and talk bear.
Each summer when we arrived, the ranger said, "There haven't been any bear sightings yet this year."
As the meat sizzled on the barbeque the first night, I pictured the bear high in the hills. He sniffed the air and said, "It is time to begin my journey down to the shore." We never knew how or when he'd present himself. Once I returned to my camp right after dinner and found Mr. Bear at our table. His large front paws were on the table, and he was facing me. He looked like he was waiting for me to serve him a meal.
The summer of '96, we all went down to the cove to admire the sunset. It had turned the sky and the water fire red. "We should get a picture of this," said Terry.
"Ssssssshhh," said Justin.
She glared at her son for hushing her, but then she heard what he heard. We all heard it. Like a scene in a movie, a huge unseen creature was crashing toward us through the forest on the other side. Louder and louder. Closer and closer. A big black bear emerged from the trees, a different bear, our sunset bear.

The summer of ‘95, every teenager brought a friend or two or three. They set their tents up together, as far as possible from the adults, near the point. Justin drove his pick-up off the dirt access road, through the trees, right up to the tents, to unload gear. Nobody had ever risked ranger wrath that way. We found out later that was necessary because so much of the "gear" was alcohol. Teen Town was ready to rage and rage it did on Saturday night. After dinner, they took three of the four ski boats out for a moonlight spin. Laura, the only child in camp old enough to be awake but not old enough to be included, returned from her lakeside reconnaissance on the run. She said, "One of the boats is gonna sink! There are so many people on board that it's really low in the water."
Jessica took the fourth boat out to reconnoiter. When she came upon the flotilla of teens, no more than a reasonable six were on any boat. She strafed the water surface with a spotlight as she slowly circled the other boats. Eight additional teens were treading water or clinging to the sides of the boats. One of the captains said, "Everyone's taken turns being in the water."
"What about when you were motoring out here?"
"We went really slow, and they held onto the sides of the boat."
Jessica suppressed a laugh. "If the ranger had come along, he'd have fined you hundreds of dollars. There's no telling how many laws you've broken." She took the excess passengers on board, and the boats returned to shore. Adults took possession of all keys.
The teens reconvened at the point. Laura spied on them from behind a tree. Soon she returned to camp. She said, "They're skinny dipping."
"Good," said one of the moms, defiantly.
"Don't be such a little snitch, Laura," I said. "That'll be you in a few years."
"We've all done it," said another mom, but not all the moms agreed that skinny-dipping was a harmless activity. Evidently, some of us had been wilder than others. Certainly some of us had shorter memories. How quickly "moons over Whiskeytown" was forgotten. But that night, once again, there were multiple moons over Whiskeytown.
"Where did all these teenagers come from?" demanded Christie, one of the moms.
"They're our kids," I said. "When they bring a friend to camp, they don't bring a child. They bring another teenager."
A chant rose up from the point. "Go Katie, go Katie, go Katie, go!"
"She's stripping," said Mama Christie grimly.
"She's a cheerleader," I said. "She's probably doing one of her routines."
"No doubt the X-rated version," said Christie and stormed down to the point. She marched back to camp practically dragging her son.
The party broke up by midnight, but the controversy raged on among the adults for months and led to rules, many rules, for 1996. There were far fewer young guests. Everyone had a good time, but the kids said the year before had been the best ever. Teen Town had become a legend, but it wasn't the only one. "What about when Fawn took Jessica down? That's got to be in the top ten."
"Another is Gene's underwater skiing."
"Don't forget Gino's triple flip." By the time we were through telling our all time favorites, there were more than ten on the top ten list.

I sat at the point, reading. A dad used a giant sling shot to lob water balloons from shore at the kids floating on the lake. A balloon landed near the ones on the long white board. They cheered. I looked up. The people I saw on the board were not kids. They had manly muscles and womanly curves. Our children had grown up on us, on that board, on that lake. I knew we were all getting older at home too, but something about being in a different place helped focus my perception. While we were traveling to that beautiful place every summer, we were also traveling through time, as we always are. Somewhere between here and there our kids traded places with us. Now they are the ones who stay up late partying, playing games, keeping us awake. I thought back to '94, the summer of falling stars. Those stars fell like a finale on their childhood. Now they are adults...sort of.

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To our kids:
Rich, Stasia, Fawn, James, Gino, Justin, Jessica, Rosie, Meagan, Jeremy, Shannen, Kim, Rick, Windy, Kelly, Kyle, Abram, Sadie, Richie, Shawn, Andy, Bryan Paul, Tara, Laura, Julie, Allison, Gabrielle, Luke, Cody, Shila, Jenny.

"May you stay forever young. "
Bob Dylan

Fajita Marinade

1/3 c soy sauce 1/8 tsp garlic powder

1/3 c vegetable oil 1 T. minced onion

3 T. wine vinegar

Combine & marinate skirt steak for 4 hours or more. (1/2 lb. per person.) BBQ.