Sensory Overload

[Hannah Smith]

I got on a plane. We will start with that. That was the easy part. From the tiny airplane window upon descent, the largest city in Costa Rica was a compilation of tin roofs. There were no high rises, or even any freeways that were detectable from the plane. I was no longer in the United States, and I was definitely not in the little safe haven box canyon that had served as the backdrop for my entire life. It was strange, and I was a stranger. With this feeling, the adventure began.
Off of the plane not even the air was familiar. I would have imagined that oxygen is oxygen, but the rich, Costa Rican atmosphere provided me with a damp gulp of O₂ with every inhalation. Luckily we arrived before it started to rain. We followed the herd, attempting to decode the Spanish encryptions on the signs above our heads as we moved. Español clase numero uno. Two white girls surrounded by Costa Rican taxi drivers. “Conoces Ivan?” Michal speaks French, so I attempt to find the man who is supposed to meet us. I am able to gather that Monteverde is four hours away. The men want to take us there. One has a cell phone. Finally, it is confirmed. Ivan is on the way. The sensory overload is immense. All that used to be familiar is pulled out from underneath us. We sit by our bags. All my familiarity is vested in Michal, the girl that I met before takeoff. Two men pull up in a car. They look straight as us- they know that we are the ones that they are sent to pick up. We are not hard to pinpoint. He says that his name is Ivan; with that certainty, we get in the car.
It started to rain. The sensory overload was not about to subside. The rain in Costa Rica is as unfamiliar as the air. Every raindrop seemed two inches in diameter and each pounded on the windshield like a fist. The tops of the roads were now river beds and drivers drove on without deceleration. They drove fast and honked whenever the opportunity arose, whether it was a friendly face or a red light. In the city, there were very few buildings with more than one story. Michal and I sat without speaking, overwhelmed and unable to conjure up words that could match our sentiments, but through the same experience we are already friends through a strange bond. We are the only remnants of home for one another. Watching the scenery pass by, pictures pass through my mind and the anticipation builds until it feels as if a small brick fortress has been erected inside my chest cavity.
Four hours later and we are still driving. Now we have switched to a bumpy dirt road. My butt numb from the motion of the car and my torso is tired from holding my head steady. The mountains, much like everything that seems to have taken place since our arrival, are completely new. They are still rock formations, but they are steep, and covered with such dense grass and foliage that the peaks look almost soft. Opposed to the top of Ajax, that you could shave with if your face was big enough, the tops of these mountains seemed like a nice place to take a nap. The sides of the roads consist of crowded leaves and branches that seemed to reach out into the road. The movie, as I watched from the inside of the car started to slowly retain more and more resemblance to the setting of the Emperor’s New Groove. Cows grazed, mounted on the sides of the steep slopes without any sign of strain or exertion.
We have 21 kilometers left, and no clue how that number converted into something comprehensible. I know that there is either about 1.6 kilometers in a mile, or it is the other way around. I have been up since 3 in the morning and I have no real intentions to do the math. Night has fallen and we are ready to end the day of travel. We turn a corner and are met with a string of tail lights. At first it seems like a sign that is leading us closer to our final destination. Soon we find that it is a barricade holding us back. Ivan left the car to follow the string of red lights to the source of the blockage. We did not even know where we would be dropped off. Ivan returned saying that the taxis had blocked the road and were not letting traffic through. Like everything else regarding this foreign place, we did not understand. I don’t know how long we waited. The drivers started running down the road to their cars, and the line started to move. Soon, I was talking to the enigmatic person who I had been communicating with via email. She said that we would pick her up and I would go to the house where I would be living.
I was embarrassed when I arrived with my luggage. Almost everything inside this tiny house could fit inside my bag. Immediately I was swarmed by children. At first I saw one girl she told me her name and I instantly forgot it. I was surrounded by an entire family smiling at me, looking at me and telling me names that I had never heard before and I knew that I could not remember. The mother had prepared me a welcome dinner, and famished, I sat and ate while the children all watched like there was a chance that I might break out in song and dance and they might miss the performance. After dinner, with some food in my belly, still overwhelmed but now too tired to maintain, I went to bed- the modest end to 18 hours of travel and my first day in Costa Rica.