One of the main activities of my trip to Costa Rica over 10 years ago was a trek up the mountain, through a rainforest to an indigenous village of the Cabecar indian tribe. This was before the age of google, and blogging and travel PR… I had my travel notebook with me (no laptop!) and took down notes about this secluded culture; their religious views and way of life and quite frankly I was so fascinated by the entire experience. Unfortunately, I overexerted my body and I think jump started my hypothyroid issues since I spent close to 14 hours hiking within one weekend. Afterwards, I pretty much slept whenever I could and did the rest of the activities in a bit of a daze. So going back there, was huge. I had quite a few flashbacks of this trip, seeing the hills and remembering spending time resting and taking in the landscape. It was quite an interesting experience, now that I live in western Mass to compare the volcanic mountain range of Costa Rica to western Mass. Very similar in regards to the animals and lifestyles. However, one is obviously tropical and with that a variety of different plants, animals and insects. From a research perspective, it is an ecological paradise and a place I think I’d like to spend some more time in.
Going back, I wanted to re-experience a few things, so I did a hiking activity and did the hanging bridges. Since that hike over 10 years ago, I’ve been interested in hiking/walks through the woods. Nothing too strenuous, but enough to take in the landscape and photograph the nature around me. Since moving to western Mass, I have been interested in doing nature hikes/walks around the trails here learning about foraging and other nature topics. However, since Costa Rica, it’s come to my attention that I have heat exhaustion and over the years have learned to control it and catch it before my body overheats. I was quite happy with myself that I only had one incident on the hanging bridges tour and thankfully the rest of it was quite easy to do. Regardless of my health issues, I quite enjoyed being in the rainforest – as I’ve done in the overgrowth forest in Canada and around here in western Mass.
In my next nature adventure, I think I might try hiking alone. While I very much appreciated the tour guide as he spotted a few things that I wouldn’t have seen and provided information that was interesting about the landscape; it was a bit difficult to take photos and really spend sometime with the rainforest. I am getting a better sense of what I have to work with while traveling and I think next year I’m going to try and take some of my traditional art materials with me.
