Portrait of Volcan Irazu
- Irazu Volcano…the real deal
Carmen and I were taken by a man from her church, Carlos, to the teleferico. He has a bad marriage and wants to divorce—I think he’s interested in Carmen. She says he’s too young and not German. I told him to divorce first, then look. He is the same guy that drove us to the testimonial. The teleferico is in the Bosque de Lluvia (rain forest) and boy did it lluvia. The teleferico is a six-seater cable car that goes through the treetops. Absolutely gorgeous, a never ending story of plant and animal life, insects and birds. There is one tree with shallow roots that throws out vines from high up and when they reach the ground they take root, the old part of the tree dies and the new part becomes strong, eventually throws out its own vines and so the tree “walks” through the forest.
At the moment I am sitting in an outdoor restaurant on a cliff overlooking the Orosi Valley. There are jungle and crop covered mountains, a large volcanic crater, Irazu, towering above us and a river meandering through the valley below. Carmen and I have a room with this same view and a bathroom downstairs also with this view from the toilet—I want to return with Sweet William. We took a taxi to Irazu because it turned out there were no buses on a Sunday, which you would think would be the busiest day of the week at a National Park. Still, the taxi there from the house and then on to our hotel on the other side of Cartago was only $35—so it was probably the way to go anyway.
Carmen and the cab driver, Eduardo, humiliated me by pulling plants up by their roots in the national park to take with them. I tried to pretend I didn’t know them but they kept shouting “look at this one.” We’d probably be in jail in the U.S. right now.
The crater was filled with brilliant green water and the sides going down into the crater were rocky, moonscape-looking terrain. Actually, the whole volcano looked like a surreal moonscape, except for the plants that Eduardo and Carmen were stealing.
Eduardo would say something to me in Spanish and then when I didn’t understand he would turn to Carmen who would repeat it in Spanish. It actually worked most of the time. For some reason I can understand Carmen’s Spanish, but almost no one else’s. Maybe I’m reading her mind and don’t understand any Spanish at all. Carmen is napping at the moment. I walked to the Mirador—a lookout and beautiful park with views of a lake in the distance. I already used up all the calories I burned on an agua dulce con leche—basically hot whole milk with enough brown sugar to make it taste like creamy maple syrup.
Carmen the Chicken Killer by Sarah Curtiss 