There is a place in Cabécar’s Talamanca, named Dechibeta, where hot springs flow in some points; in Costa Rica we have been taught that Talamanca range is a non volcanic range, actually among the four mountain ranges in Costa Rica this is supposed to be the only non volcanic, but then I remembered watching in a map of the area a spot with hotsprings some years ago, and though exactly the same, now I was being invited to see the place and take some pictures, so we went on a fabulous trip to the Dechibeta’s Hot Springs with Marlene Torres, Christian, Vivian and don Rigo.
Starting fromVesta, -the last banana plantation where the public road ends in La Estrella River- We got out of the air conditioned luxury van, and jump into a wagon, it was definitely not the end for us, our wagon pulled by the tractor kept on and crossed the river, water level got over the wagon’s floor, unconsciously I lifted my feet in order to avoid the water, then I laugh and said to myself: -Why I’m trying to keep my feet dry if I know they are going to be soaked in the forest trails and river sooner or latter? We kept traveling through jungle, dense forest, rivers, and river banks .
The path to this place flows into Cabécar indigenous territory,to this point it was impossible not to get involved in what is going on here, tourism is an activity that impacts not only environment, it hits people, and depending on the way we manage this contact, it will be a positive or negative impact both to people and environment.
There was a team of doctors and nurses going into the indigenous land the day we went, as part of a program from the public health institution in Costa Rica named C.C.S.S. which stands for Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social. This clearly demonstrates that the costarrican government is doing something for this people who are also costarricans, but there’s a lot more to do, this team of public health workers come into this place once every month, and some of the inhabitants have to walk, more than one day to be able to get some cure, some remedies for illness or malnutrition.
While the wagon moved at a slow pace -tortuously because of the rugged terrain- I was thinking in one of my dreams which is, to learn the Cabécar dialect, to explore and learn the ethnobotany of this ancient culture.
Once we got to the hot springs, a strong sulphur odor coming from this boiling water could be perceived immediately, and it had a strange turquoise and blue color. I was amazed, I was finally watching the hot springs, the same I use to imagine, twenty years ago, when I was starting to work as a naturalist guide, and used to frequently display the 1-50,000 scale topography maps of the Caribbean slope in theTalamanca range, and let my imagination flow making up these and other places which -because of its rugged terrain- seem to be extraordinarily attractive.
While I was taking some pictures, near the hot spring, Marlene showed me a rock that I could identify as flint, I asked her if she had ever seen the sparks coming out of such rock when beaten and said no, so I lean my body towards a nearby dense vegetation to find a kind of shaded, dark spot in order to show her these sparks and suddenly she and other people from the group told me –Stay still, don’t move!- I felt so bad, I knew perfectly what was going on: I was probably going to be bitten in seconds by a snake, such an advise said in that specific alert tone, could only meant that, freeze by the alert, I moved my head down very slowly, then I saw next to my feet, a juvenile Boa in a typical spring position ready to attack, but not to me, but to the others, It was so close to me!, that somehow it got confused and the attack direction wasn’t towards my feet, I felt calm had returned to my body, -Boas are not venomous- I said to my friends who were also scared for me, slowly I moved away a few feet and started taking pictures of this Boa.
Not much time left to spend there, tubing at Estrella River was our next activity and we had to leave the place, we agreed to return here exclusively to deeply inspect the place and take plenty of pictures in the close future .
A highly delightful experience was Tubing La Estrella River guided by gorgeous Marlene Torres ; her charm mixed with her high impact energy for rafting in these white waters was a unique combination. Our raft went on and on, descending the Estrella River, while a sequence of majestic landscapes framed an incredible scenario of astonishing beauty around us. At Vesta we stopped, jumped into the wagon and went back to Bocuare Lodge and arrived at mid afternoon.
An hour later I was back at my bungalow surrounded by tropical rain forest, it was close to sunset, so sounds in the forest were starting to change, evidenca, that the night shift was taking over and day shift was geting ready to sleep.
After a nice shower, I leaned on my bed with a book in my hands that I love very much, and it’s the third time in my life I’m reading it: Thomas Mann’s masterpiece: The Magic Mountain. While reading, a calm rain started to whisper in the ambience, short later it was singing and probably by the time it was pouring, I was already sleeping.
A night jar singing with a loud voice next to my bungalow’s door, woke me up a few minutes before clock's alarm sounded, it was already dark, the book was still open and next to me, I closed it, went to brush my teeth and wash my face getting ready for dinner, while drying my face with a dry and warm towel, I could hear from far the car's engine driven by Marlene that was coming to pick me up for dinner at the lodge, and I thought to myself that spending time at this place could be as nice as, or even better than in Davos-Platz, the town next to The Magic Mountain, considering the facts –as it happens in the novel to the main character: Hans Castorp- It may happen to me, that instead of staying a few days here as planned, I may stay for years without expecting it.
