Dia Dos

So Arenal is centered around a six-block town called La Fortuna and the 2nd most active volcano in the world. Totally undeveloped, laid back, third worldish but safe. The majority of tourism revolves around outdoor adventure escapades. The second day we decided to do this private rainforest horseback ride to a 150-foot waterfall.

Johnny was our gaucho type leader. I had this maniacal ego freak horse that could not handle being second in command. Over the course of two-hours Marlena would abruptly break into unprovoked gallops to take lead. Chad’s horse was not having it. We would have 5 minutes intervals of gladiator style races, fording rivers, hurtling logs; it was thrilling. I may as well have been Annie fucking Oakley.

When we get to the rainforest the gaucho leads and we hike and hike and hike, down 300 uneven too-tall steps, across tree bridges, 400 more steps, to pure and unadulterated nature. The waterfall is gorgeous and oh such raw roaring power after 6 days of torrential raining, and Johnny points and shrugs at the raging 25-foot wide river we need to cross to get to it.

And. I. Would. Rather. Die.

It’s my worst nightmare. But Chad is paying and Johnny’s watching so I suck it up and resolve and repeat one consistent mantra that I am not a pussy and I will fucking do this. And I step forward wearing only a bikini and a beat-up pair of diesels and plunge in. My legs immediately get swept out from under me and suddenly I am Bear Grylls rushing toward the rocks because the current is so strong from the storms and I am screaming and I am going to die and drown and Chad will have to take my coffin back and my parents will look at my bloated unrecognizable body and I am a pussy and we should never have done this and my head is almost under the water and I am far downstream already and I am dying and then, there is a pit bull locked on my arm and I am safe. Always, with him. And he smiles and shrugs, “We probably shouldn’t have done this, I think I just peed a little,” now on dry ground, still vice gripping my arm. But Johnny, bemused, tells us, tu eres estupido, wrong crossing technique, and I am not a pussy and I will fucking do this. We oregon trail it across and it is so worth it. Massive and breathtaking, pool upon pool all to ourselves.

And we get back to our hotel and I need a fucking drink. I have these horrific rape bruises on my arm and the stewards are becoming suspicious, but the barkeep loves us nonetheless. And I have 5, 6, 7? margaritas alongside just as many cervezas and I am drunk and alive! And Chad and I are reminiscing about all the stupid shit we've gotten ourselves into in Europe and he tells me about how in Mexico he paid some dude to drive him back to his hotel after agreeing “no muerte me.” Soon after he leaves to get a complimentary reflexology massage on our porch. I stay at the poolbar because me and Ricardo are good buddies by now. But then I get lonely and want my hero and I cannot recall where he is as I stumble onto our bed, blacked out to the max. And I see him, through a veil of silk curtain getting a foot rub from some silhouetted tramp. And I am pissed. And I mutter, muerte. And she stops and looks to Chad. And then again, muerte! And Chad says, mi novio is muy comico, hahahah, and I laugh along from the bed, abruptly stopping to yell MUERTE. Then I start watching Hitch in Spanish and resume my muerte yelling whenever the commercials come on. And that was my second day in Arenal.