This week was a big travel week so we were crisscrossing all over Costa Rica. We started off the week at Tortuguero, headed to La Fortuna, bussed to Palo Verde, and finished the week off in beautiful Monteverde. This week taught me the importance of Dramamine. We were also rapid-fire exposed to wildly different ways of living. We went straight from the plush, air-conditioned rooms of La Fortuna to Palo Verde where we were sleeping in mosquito nets with two of the wimpiest fans I’ve ever seen.
It taught me the limits of my patience and the ability to adapt quickly to whatever is being thrown at me. I started off this trip firmly believing that I could only sleep in air-conditioned rooms set to, at the highest, 68 degrees. La Selva quickly reframed that belief and Palo Verde pushed it even further. The moment I hit those rock-hard beds with the pillows coincidentally also made of rocks I was out in minutes. In both situations, after the initial shock, everyone slowly regained their spirits and positivity, taking it in stride. I think that those two places taught me the most about my limits and myself out of all of the beautiful spots we visited. Dr. Wasserman mentioned early on in the info sessions that he wanted to push us out of our comfort zones—not too far, but enough to make us learn and grow. When I first heard that I definitely wondered what I was getting myself into. But I am incredibly grateful to have had him leading this trip because I came on this trip to learn and grow as a person, not be comfortable.
In many of our discussions on ecotourism this past week, I kept coming back to this idea of comfortability. The main difference between the places we visited was the level at which they valued comfort over the environment they were in. I found that the most comfortable, the most plush, and high-scale places we went to were the most separated from their environments. This is incredibly noticeable in a place like Costa Rica because the environment is why these hotels and establishments exist. We started off our trip in La Selva Biological Station dropped into the middle of Costa Rica, culturally and environmentally. We were immediately engrossed in Costa Rican food, hospitality, the people, and of course the gorgeous rainforest. In order to get to our rice and bean breakfast, we had to trek a literal half mile (we calculated it) from our dorms to the cafeteria through wild rainforest.
We were in constant contact with nature; from the howler monkeys outside our dorms at 4 am to the many bugs that accompanied us in our shower. Initially, it was a complete overload of senses that I wasn’t entirely at ease with. As time went on, I came to love it. At one point I caught myself saving a tiny bug from the small river in my shower and thought “What have I become”. I loved seeing all the beautiful moths in the shower, the weird giant toads at night, the sounds of the forest waking up in the morning, the ever-present threat of the fer de lance, and the incredibly kind and engaging staff.
In reflection, I believe that a part of my heart will always be there. As a side note, I am literally tearing up while I am writing don’t look at me. Starting there forced me to completely flip my world upside down in terms of what I thought I was capable of. I didn’t think I could even begin to identify the plethora of birds—I ended up completing a research project on their identification. I didn’t think I could handle cold showers—I ended up loving them. I didn’t think I could handle the heat but I made it through and went days without air conditioning. Getting up at 4:45 am would have been absurd to me a couple of months ago but I did it. All of this is to say that I was initially incredibly uncomfortable in ways that forced me to change.
As we visited more places across Costa Rica, I realized that isn’t always the case. Ecotourism is grounded in the idea of bringing people to experience a beautiful natural space while living in harmony with it. That was absolutely the case at La Selva but not always elsewhere. The place where this struck me the hardest was La Fortuna, next to the beautiful volcano with sweeping views of the city. It had comfortable queen beds, air conditioning, incredible views, and even a jacuzzi. But I found myself very uncomfortable. What first struck me was the difference in people staying there. It looked like I was back in Indiana, not in the middle of Costa Rica. The food was different too—like it was catered to us Americans instead of the Costa Rican people themselves. No bugs in the shower, no cacophony of sounds to wake me in the morning, no rice and beans. A month ago, I would never have thought to miss that but this hotel felt weirdly stale. The little life on the property was carefully placed and cultivated by Costa Rican groundskeepers that were gone by the time we woke up. Are we as ecotourists supposed to be separated from the environments we are visiting or in tune with them? The website had little mention of their sustainable practices which was a complete flip from La Selva which was made very clear at the get-go. The people that stay at this hotel are not challenged to see beyond the manicured grass lawns—why would they be? As far as they know, Costa Rica will always be beautiful and luscious. I found this to be the antithesis of what ecotourism is based on—we were extracting from the beautiful land instead of in harmony with it. In La Selva, you were constantly confronted with the reality of climate change with the immediacy of the jungle. The guides made a point to mention how the land is changing with rising temperatures. There was composting, no air conditioning, cold showers: leading to one of the smallest ecological footprints I may have ever made. My idea of what I was comfortable with changed drastically. That is what I believe ecotourism should be and I will challenge my friends and family to think about tourism differently. Change comes from being a little uncomfortable.
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