Prompt Entry 6

This prompt seems like such a give-away for me, I hope I don't botch it up. The epicenter of my world is a biological station in the heart of a huge swathe of virgin lowland rainforest in a very remote area of Costa Rica. It is called La Sirena, and I have visited twice. I think about it every single day, although sometimes I wake up knowing I've returned in my dreams.

After the first visit, I was forever a changed person. I had seen the vibrancy of life, the pulsation of the Earth's richest biodiversity, the daily struggle of the food web, the wetness of the true tropics. So many things I saw. It was as being born, bloody and screaming and intimate and so full of life and future and beauty.

My brain has felt since then encumbered with a great weight of information to be learned and processed. The breath of wildlife and floral species beckons me to return and learn of all their secrets with a call so imperative it cannot be resisted for long. They are willing to divulge their lessons, their beauty, their intimacy to me. It is a ballad I hear always. A daily chorus that asserts a calm and patient dominion over me.

The station is reachable by three trails. One approaches from the beach that runs from the north of the peninsula, which is known as Osa, another from the south. The third trail runs through the beating heart of the forest. Each takes at least a day's worth of hiking to reach the station, and to someone so easily distracted by the superabundance of species as myself, it is difficult to reach the station by nightfall.

La Sirena is minimal. They have running water, yes, and it is an elevated wooden station where visitors can camp. They have a few beds for some guests who reserve them and are willing to pay a premium. And then they have everything else any person with a sense of wonder could possibly need. Corcovado, which is the name of the entire forest, is a climax ecosystem. It is vast, and it supports breeding populations of apex predators.

There are five different species of cats, all abundant. I have heard the jaguar roar close to me, although I did not see him. I have encountered people who moments before glimpsed an ocelot or margay. I was one time identifying some elusive wrens that tumbled through the underbrush, and I followed them off the trail. My girlfriend, who had accompanied me on my second visit, stayed on the trail, and called me back after a few moments. When I returned, she asked if I had seen the cat. I looked desperately for it, but it had melted back into the forest in the handful of seconds it had taken me to return to her. She described it to me, I said it must have been a jaguarundi, all black and compact, a diurnal visitor. After reflecting on it, I now believe the jaguarundi must have climbed up a nearby tree, and all the while I searched for it had watched me calmly, perhaps amused by my enthusiasm.

There are birds in marvelous profusion. Kaleidoscopic parrots and trogons, the former boisterous and the later nearly invisible despite their loud color as they perch motionless in the foliage. One time, I watched one and had hardly noticed the elegant green vine snake draped around a branch just a few feet in front of me. I would not have seen it if I had not stopped to observe the trogon, itself a highly camouflaged creature.

On evening, I followed a stream through a thick gallery forest, enjoying the pleasant crepuscular murmurs all around me. A splash close to my sandaled feet startled me, and my flashlight revealed a crocodile the length of my arm scrambling up the bank. Its olive iris stared suspiciously, contracting until its pupil was a thin reptilian slit. Those sharp, alternating ivory-hued teeth glistened in the light, reminding me of elegantly arranged silverware, just as eager to bite into warm flesh. I wonder if we are cruder than we imagine, or crocodiles more refined.

The trees are of epic height, towering above the forest in a manner so stately as to be reminiscent only of the most distinguished cathedrals. The verdure is so lush, so pulsing, so misty and humid and fecund. There is much to learn.

I will return to Corcovado with only the necessities I can fit in my backpack: some clothes and food and my library. My goal is to spend a season there, a year at least I hope, so I may see it's seasons change and learn deeply about the forest. I know that is where my first book will come from.