The overhead light bulb masquerading as a lamp is a total buzz kill but if I keep my head down its barely tolerable. At 9:20pm I come down stairs from my humble quarters here in Samara and find that the bar and restaurant are closed. The night watchman unlocks the kitchen and then the cooler and hands me a cold Imperial beer and puts his finger to his lips. Shhh. I slip him 1,000 Colones and say thanks. It's been a very, very long day.It all started way back in Liberia, Guanacaste at 5:00AM this morning. The sound of pouring rain pounding on my roof woke me fifteen minutes before my alarm went off. DAMN! It's been over a week of constant rain but low and behold the rain came to a gentle stop just as I was packing up to set out to meet the driver for the trek down south. Pedro and I grab some baked goods and coffee and are on the road before 6:30. First stop is a small (tiny) town called Guatil where they make hand-crafted ceramics. The rain has me in a horrible mood and I can barely get the shots I need before moving on.
Then we swing through Nicoya and it starts raining again as we head up another bad, muddy
dirt road towards Barra Honda National Park to attempt to see the caverns, on the shot list. We arrive at noon and they tell us its gonna be about four hours to get to the caverns, down inside and then back. I hesitate and then say OK. Two guides grab a bunch of thick climbing rope and harnesses for Pedro and I. Then we hoof it about an hour and a half straight up a really bad and muddy dirt trail. I slip and nearly fall about every five minutes and the tripod begins to dig into my shoulder as sweat pours down my forehead and into my eyes constantly. The sound of howling mono congos or Howler Monkeys is eerie and a bit monstrous as we finally reach the top where it levels out, still continuing along a very wet and muddy trail.Finally we arrive at the main cavern - a big black ominous hole in the ground - that you can't see into. They begin to rig up a bunch of ropes from nearby trees and then pull the rusty hatch off the safety ladder that descends into the depths below. First Jose, one of the guides mounts up with his helmet and head lamp and descends. "Hand over foot," is all he tells me as I begin my decent. The small rungs on this ancient ladder are not only slippery from being wet but now super muddy from the bottom of Jose's shoes. At times the ladder is pressed flush up against the rock and I have to hold onto the outside rails in order not to fall, sometimes skipping two even three rungs. The other guide above belays the line as I head down 20 meters and finaly touch bottom with the opening now a tiny skylight hole above.
We spend two hours down there, sheltered from the pouring rain as I try in vain to get an image that shows the other two guys with their lamps and all of the fine stalagtites and finally I call it off and we head back up, once again into the driving tropical rain. The walk back down was even more treacherous and now the trails are like rivers of mud as the jungle dumps its brown murky slush upon us. It was quite a day and actually put me in a better mood as I stripped down of every piece of clothing at the car, completely drenched. When we hit Samara that evening around 7PM we went straight to a small restaurant near the beach and feasted on fresh mussels and fish fillet smothered in a spicy avocado sauce - possibly the best meal so far. And the pics in the cavern could be some of the best thus far also. Pura Vida.
