That Time My Friends Were Nearly Held for Ransom in the Costa Rican Rainforest
And when I learned to stop mistaking uncertainty for danger
The hostel sat on the outskirts of La Fortuna and was guarded by a spindly teenager with a guitar in his lap and a kitten at his side, absentmindedly pawing at the humid air. Despite the scooters that whizzed sporadically by and the bar that bustled just across the one-lane street from our bedrooms, the property’s pulse was impressively tranquil.
To its left was an overgrown field with grazing cows, and to its right was a roadside waterpark that remained vacant throughout my entire stay there, a couple of modest townhomes nestled in towering green, and a tall, rusted billboard suspiciously devoid of advertisement. Framing the touristic enclave was the Arenal Volcano, whose monolithic peak hung shrouded in clouds and only peered out from its hiding place on those rare open-skied days when the tropical climate would permit.
Hammocks were suspended between every pair of wooden pillars that could support the weight, and they swayed like pendulums in the careless, Costa Rican breeze. Ambient lights lined our hostel’s deck. And each night as the sun set, they would flicker on and ignite a conversation between whatever travelers and nomads were residing there that specific night.
One evening, I found myself talking to two new guests who’d traveled through most of Central America together before arriving. The first to introduce himself was a Canadian by the name of Gordon, and the second was a soft-spoken Swede who called himself Sebastian. Gordon was brown-haired, brusque, and as well-traveled as he was poorly-kept. Sebastian, by contrast, was gentle, good-natured, and wore blonde locks that hung just above a warm smile.
More than laziness, Gordon’s unseemly appearance seemed to owe to life on the road and the rugged efficiency that it required. He was caked by a layer of dirt that darkened his skin a few shades and suffocated the odor his body should surely emit. His beard was scraggly, and his hair had marinated for so long in its natural greases that it looked more like a product of style choice than lack of shower access. And where his griminess made him look grizzled and wayward, Sebastian wore his filth like a shepherd, affectionately roaming the land and taking no more from this earth than needed. And bathing no more than necessary.
There was an indisputable yin and yang component to the pair. The two drifters were palpably different people from disparate corners of the globe, but their shared stomach for travel made sense of their improbable companionship.
Merely thirty minutes after arriving and setting down his bags beside his assigned bunk, Gordon raised the idea of making a hike toward the rain forest that bordered town. He stood next to the table as his foot tapped out a restless rhythm beneath it, his antsy posture pulling the atmosphere out of repose.
Part of his daring suggestion seemed to simply stem from a desire to absorb as much of the country as he could, and as swiftly as he could manage. But he also seemed to want to make his fearlessness known to the table of travelers seated before him.
One of the best aspects of traveling is being surrounded by other people exploring the world, and being flooded with recommendations of sights to see and new cultures to experience. But sometimes the line blurs between a good-natured exchange of stories and a contest where each country visited and world wonder seen becomes a kind of bid for high ground. At worst, these conversations practically write themselves:
“That’s so cool you’ve been to Peru! That reminds me of the time I traveled through South America on a motorbike,” one backpacker will humbly brag as a well-meaning trade of notes turns into a one-up contest.
“Biking through South America was a lot of fun, but it was nothing compared to doing the Ha Giang Loop in Vietnam,” the following vagabond will counter, smugly assuming the title of most seasoned traveler.
Sebastian and Gordon seemed to fall on opposite sides of this spectrum. When Gordon listened to others share their stories, his next would already be written across his face in plain letters. Sebastian, though he’d covered 10 times more terrain while traveling than myself, listened with a rare attentiveness as I relayed those few kernels of experience I’d accumulated from my limited time abroad.
A few minutes went by and Gordon once again gauged interest from the group about his proposed nighttime trek toward the jungle. “I’m probably just gonna start walking that way until I get to the trees and see if I can spot any wildlife or something,” he outlined his plan of attack with a blasé tone and a casual shrug as he pointed toward the canopy flanking our town.
Sebastian, too curious about the creatures to say no, and too supportive to reject his friend’s proposal even if he wanted to, was quick to acquiesce. His nods arrived promptly, but with the unhurried tenderness of a man who was constitutionally incapable of rushing anything. There was neither doubt nor haste in his near-immediate concession. He carried himself with a subtle buoyancy, as though the world was automatically deserving of his trust.
“I don’t have a whole lot else I’m doing. Sure!” I said after a moment of mental debate, aware that our planned operation was something shy of airtight, but hopeful that the spontaneous venture might at least prove memorable. I still hadn’t seen the forest up close myself, and it wasn’t exactly the Amazon that we were facing off against, after all.
Another American staying at the hostel sauntered tentatively closer as we spoke, his attention apparently piqued by the trajectory of our talk. He sized up the exchange with the faintly imploring look of someone searching for an invitation — or at least a logical point to announce his presence.
“I might tag along too if that’s cool,” the bystander coyly chimed in. “I’m Ryan by the way,” he awkwardly salted on top before holding out a friendly hand for the three of us to shake. He had curly hair, a clean shave, and strong arms poking free from a tank top that was unusually pristine for a transient.
15 minutes later, the four of us were trekking across town at the mercy of Gordon’s impromptu whim.
Though Ryan had booked a stay at the same Costa Rican budget hostel that I had, it was rare for me to meet fellow States citizens so untraveled. As our ragtag ensemble ambled toward the greenery — past bars, businesses, and a hundred different breeds of passersby — he confessed that it was his very first trip abroad. He only planned to be at the hostel for a night before meeting up with his friends from back home who’d booked stays at a retreat a couple of hours away. He tried to will his mind open, but this was uncharted territory for him. His agreement to come along was even further outside of his comfort zone than my own.
Eventually, we made our way to the outer edges of a wall of plants and trees so massive that they wholly enveloped the sounds of civilization. We began scoping out entry points, fielding a few distrustful stares from locals as we meandered along the perimeter. After a few minutes of internal deliberation, one of the town’s residents approached us.
For a decorated globetrotter who’d spent the past few months traveling through Central America, Gordon had offensively poor Spanish skills. He asserted himself, attempting to explain our intentions with unearned confidence. But that piecemeal attempt came out little better than, “Donde esta el Jungle?” He made no effort to properly accentuate his words.
The man who approached us, however, was hardly better in English than Gordon was in Spanish. Ryan and I exchanged leery glances as our companion and the local spun their wheels in place, trading hand gestures and loose bits of vocabulary until they’d seemingly established a course of action. Sebastian knew he couldn’t rely on his Spanish skills enough to be of any aid, so he stood there with loose shoulders and a serene grin.
Rather than simply trying to tell Gordon to get lost or politely inform him that our plan was unwise, to my dismay, the stranger beckoned for us to follow him.
We forged ahead along the forest’s edge, down a rickety wooden walkway, and paused briefly as we arrived at what looked like an overgrown trailhead. It was Sebastian and Gordon’s unwavering confidence that had gotten me this far. But as the rainforest chittered, warbled, drummed, and hissed, I gulped before its wild enormity.
Watching the first two step unhesitatingly into the darkness, I repressed my fear and trudged onward. A few inches behind me, Ryan brushed and snapped through the leaves and twigs, his tan skin gently reflecting the half-mooned night.
We walked further and further into the forest until the only guiding light we had was our cellphones. They meekly beamed through the oppressive darkness.
After a few minutes, we heard the disembodied sounds of a new figure’s footsteps making its way toward us from another angle. His outline was taller and more forbidding than the first, and he made little effort to conceal his footsteps as they squelched through the mud.
I couldn’t tell where he’d come from. But his sudden arrival sent a primal fear down my spine. We were walking into a trap. We were being ambushed.
Somehow, Gordon and Sebastian seemed completely unperturbed by the arrival of the new silhouette. But Ryan and I had reached our breaking point and could no longer let our doubts go unspoken.
“This — this doesn’t feel good,” I muttered through the blackness as alien creatures slithered and croaked. The rush of a nearby stream began to crescendo and muted the chatter from the front of the group.
“Yeah… I’m not feeling good about this at all. Do you want to turn back?” Ryan asked, clearly anxious about making the return trip alone.
“Guys, we’re heading back,” I shouted. But the sounds of the forest drowned out the announcement. Neither Gordon nor Sebastian offered a reply.
With our minds firmly made up, Ryan and I retreated from the woods and ran back to the hostel. He followed my lead, looking nervously behind us every few seconds as I desperately tried to recall the route. Whether the survival scenario elicited superhuman navigation abilities or my three days in the town had given me a greater sense of geography than I’d thought, it was tough to say.
Ryan and I hoped that Gordon and Sebastian would arrive back at the hostel shortly after we did. Neither of them seemed concerned about the situation, and we both tried to convince ourselves that they were justified in their wide-eyed optimism. But having separately spent time in some of the States’ most dangerous cities, there was something about the situation that we both agreed felt off.
As minutes turned to an hour, and an hour into nearly two, a sense of panic began to set in. Time slowed to a crawl. “Maybe they just can’t find their way back to the hostel,” we reasoned. But as seconds ticked by, we decided we had to inform our hostelkeeper about what had happened.
He rightly scolded us over the brazen stupidity of our excursion before helping us to strategize. As worries arose, we tried our best to downplay and deflate them. But grim new speculations inevitably ballooned as time continued to dilate.
Finally, after an unreasonably long amount of time to be hiking through the tropics at night without a water bottle, a slightly panting Gordon and Sebastian entered into frame.
“Where’d you guys go?” Gordon said with a mixture of curiosity and confrontation.
“You’re — you’re okay?”
“Ev — Everything is all good?” Ryan and I spoke over one another in stammering disbelief.
“What do you mean??” shot back Gordon, baffled why we’d ask something so absurd. Sebastian joined at his side after grabbing a wet paper towel from the kitchen and draping it around his forehead. Their skin was latticed with thin red welts from vegetation lashing against their arms, legs, and necks, but neither seemed at all bothered by the battle scars. “They literally just showed us some insects and frogs.”
“Yes, they were really nice,” Sebastian added in his cheerful Swedish accent.
Ryan and I looked blinkingly toward one another, all but certain that the duo had gotten their phones and wallets stolen at best, and been kidnapped and held for ransom at worst.
“They’re taking us on a morning hike at 6 AM tomorrow if you want to join,” Gordon held out the olive branch with a level of nonchalance that arrived as a slap in the face after our hour of spiraling speculation.
A recurrent frustration in writing memoirs is the expectation that each story needs to come paired with a moral. But life rarely unfolds so tidily that it lends itself to clean takeaways. I want to say that the lesson learned that night is that the world is a safer place than I so often fear. In reality, it is. But it’s hard for me to square the notion that my paranoia is often unfounded with the fact that, in life, real dangers do exist.
Were I to approach a similar crossroads to the one that I confronted in Costa Rica, I’m not sure that I’d greet it differently. I don’t regret that I ultimately followed my intuition. Yet, I’d hate to go through life as someone who’s so reflexively risk-averse that I didn’t at least find myself in precarious situations from time to time.
Very often, the best experiences come not from recklessness, but from those moments in life when curiosity only narrowly outweighs fear.
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