I don't fear the waterfall.

by Jessica Johnosn (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find Costa Rica

I still get up for the 6am bus with the guy in the bottom bunk across from me, from a town in Belgium he deems too small to mention. We rise even after the rum-and-cola-canned drinking, the slow slipping of guaro straight, and impromptu-partnered-dancing in Carribean-Spotify-playlist-Spanish with the med student, high school teacher, resident of Florida, twin brother hostel receptionists and their older friend until 1am to say goodbye. There are only two times to take the journey from majestic cloud forests and cool to many a beach and warm, and a 2:30pm departure would not leave enough daylight at the end of the six hour trip. I still walk up the winding hill wearing a backpacker's backpack on my back packed for who knows how long and a bookbag on my front with all its accessories, through the light drizzling and not yet dawn fog. Of course, I slip on the slick of my first step into the ticket office, hit the back of my head on a corner of cement separating glass from dry-earthen-tiled floor. But I'm not overly grateful and surprised that he quickly comes to my side, pulls out his huge water bottle and hopes it cool enough to soothe the throbbing. Not overwhelmed that he then pulls out his powdered Paracetamol packets for me to take, with a bit of my yogurt and cranberry granola bar. Laugh at the way down. It just seems appropriate that he takes the lead on navigating the rest of the trip, bus from the mountains of Monteverde to the office in Puntarenas where you take a cab to make it to the port in time to board the ferry to catch the bus in Paquera on the other side. I know more Spanish, but he hasn't just hit his head so he asks for directions and cost. When we reach Montezuma and we're walking on the road from happening, youthful, known-for-backyard-bonfires-a-stone’s-throw-from-the-ocean, so packed hostel to something-nice-he-saw-in-his-guidebook hostel and the sweat and the weight becomes too much, he suggests I wait in the park while he checks the next one. When he comes back with the news that they do have space and takes the biggest load I've been carrying, that kgs in the teens of I-have-no-plans-to-go-home, and leads us to the hostel, I breathe easy and 'bout time. There are merciful stairs to climb, among a lush garden of leaves 'bout my size. We settle at the hostel. I change from high-waisted jeans and hiking boots into sneakers, a bathing suit I’m borrowing from my mom that cinches us both at the waist, lifts and contains my breasts. Further adorn in an orange cotton swing dress, as to infuse the moment with a loose-, a lighted-ness. He swim trunks, shorts and a t-shirt. We each pack to get to the waterfall a few colones, a room key. Treading tiny rivers, climbing sizable rocks and hanging onto sturdy-ish vines, we reach the tower of falling water. Settle among the ground now made of rock and a bottom I cannot see, trees that become all green. Ready to take off my dress. Here, decidedly un-concussed and determined to get my all wet in a way I never have. I don't fear the pounding, or how for a second I can't tell where the people go just beyond the thick, the hard, the water wall. I don’t stay where my feet have somewhere to land. I don’t keep my head above water. Or maybe, given how comfortable he is diving off the rocks, it doesn't take me so long to ask him if he'll accompany me over. I drown, but in the way that all the people that have dove in say your nose fills up, you clear the deep from your face, then you buoy above. We swim over. I reach my hand under, the suspension of breath pressing down on my chest. Or maybe no fear. Maybe the waterfall doesn't give me the acute feeling that if something were to happen to me here I can't be sure anyone would save me. Maybe it's not a dull, familiar fear I'm often feeling but must breathe through once made visual.