From Cartago to Limon
Patrick Marnham
Costa Rica Irazu is a live volcano. At dawn, as the light steals down into the crater, the col- ours slowly seep through its uneven surface. There are gashes of yellow and, in one area where the rain has collected, it is livid green. It is 15 years since lrazu last erupted. On that occasion the lava poured down the nor- thern slopes and blew out over the central Costa Rican plateau covering the fields and towns in a fine grey ash. The eruption lasted for two years. The northern slopes are still black and dead, but the rest of the mountain is planted with trees. The muck that pours out of a volcano makes good fer- tiliser, eventually.
Twenty minutes after sunrise you can look down on the redder patches of cloud to the east that appear to hide the sun somewhere over the invisible Atlantic. Then the real sun shows, silver and much higher than it had seemed. The peak of Irazu is 11,260 feet. Even at this chilly altitude there are doves, sparrows and plump black birds with long tails flocking in the juniper bushes. They have come up from the thick- ly wooded southern slopes. They avoid the lava runs on the north side, though even there some plants grow. Between the red lava and gritty black sand, tree trunks are twisted into fantastic shapes. They look dead from a distance. Closer one can see that they bear scrappy green shoots pushing directly out from the thick trunks, without benefit of branches. And below the lip of the crater rubbery plants with swollen cir- cular leaves grow directly out of the rock. At this altitude one has to catch one's breath suddenly, sometimes after a slight movement such as turning round. The lack of air can cause dizziness. Looking down into the crater there are no signs of life. The level of its surface varies by hundreds of feet: in some places deep rain gorges have `Have you noticed how the environment has improved recently?' cut down into the mountain, in others there is a smooth expanse of flat sand that looks firm enough to drive a lorry across. Although the volcano has been quiet for 15 years this interior surface changes all the time. The sand levels collapse into deep chasms and the rocky gorges are covered over in their turn. The father of my guide was once actually in the crater of Irazu when it went up without warning. He and his party scrambled for the sides and tried to climb to safety, but their feet slipped back a step for every two paces they took. Fortunately it was a minor event: the wind carried the poisonous fumes away from them and only one man was killed. The neighbouring volcano, Turrialba, is also live and smokes away steadily most of the time.
The highest peak on the opposite side of the plateau is called Sierra de la Muerte, but it is unwise to count on any of these volcanoes being dead. Some years ago another volcano, Arenal, which had long been thought extinct, went up with such force that it blew its cone off and many of the people living on its slopes were killed by gas and ash. A few days before, parties had been camping overnight on the floor of Arenal's crater. And a few days after I ascended Irazu the volcano rumbled back to life again. Seismologists recorded 137 tremors from the crater in a period of 34 hours.
By half past six on the morning of my visit the clouds in the sky over the Atlantic, deceptive maps, have been replaced by a real coastline. It is clear enough to see an island in the sea. Behind us the Pacific is also now clearly visible, though from this distance it looks no larger than a lake. Balboa, silent on a peak in Darien, with his first sight of the Pacific, must have been an optimist or a man with a theory.
Descending from Irazu one passes through some of the richest farmland in Costa Rica. The thick black soil is skilfully carved along its contour lines by ploughmen using oxen. The oxen wear em- broidered leather head-dresses. The ploughmen wear velvet cowboy hats and carry short swords in leather scabbards. One might think that living on the slopes of a live volcano would add a little zip to daily life, but these men seem as peaceful as their beasts. There is something of Somerset in the wet grassy banks and deep combes that divide their plots. They are probably doped by the soft, warm rain that falls on them for most of the year. Historically they seem to suffer more from earthquakes than from volcanoes. Cartago, which is their nearest town, was originally the capital city but it was destroyed by earthquakes in IRAI , and
again in 1910, so the government moved to San Jose. The last time it was so bad that only three houses were left standing.
Even today there are few houses in Car- tago higher than two storeys, and most houses are built of wood, which seems rather fatalistic. The town contains one magnificent stone ruin, which is the old parish church and must have been as large as many cathedrals. A notice outside says that it was totally destroyed in the earth- quake of Saint Antolon and then totally destroyed again in the earthquake of Saint Monica. You have to have a certain familiarity with earthquakes before you start naming them after saints. It may seem surprising that a stone building of such strength should have been shaken to the ground by Saint Monica, but the people of Cartago know what happened. They say that they once had a parish priest whose brother married a very beautiful girl. The priest then seduced his sister-in-law and from that day on the church was cursed. They have not tried to build it on that spot a third time. The gothic ruins now surround a beautiful garden. The enclosure is popular with courting couples who are kept under general observation by the guardian of the site. He walked up and down in the rain holding his furled umbrella by his side. There were quite a lot of men in Cartago who walked in the rain with their umbrellas furled.
While I had lunch in a bar a traveller car- ried a large cardboard box into the room and opened it. It was full of live crayfish. The fat girl who was sweeping the floor was frightened into squealing like a puppy. The crayfish were not at all frightened. They spread out across the floor of the bar and it was some time before they were all recap- tured. In an adjoining room there was some sort of engagement party. At one table a girl was sitting with two men. The older man, much older, seemed to be her fiancé. They were surrounded by an all-male band — three trumpeters, three guitarists and a singer. The bandsmen wore tight trousers with three rows of brass studs down the outside seam. The singer stood directly behind the girl's chair and gave it full volume. There was an expression of restrained happiness on every face except that of the girl who looked thoroughly em-
barrassed. Round the sides of the room there were several other bands in different uniforms waiting their turn to serenade her. There was a rack for guitars by the door; she was the only woman in the room.
I wanted to spend the night in Cartago and I went to a hotel which was said to be clean and welcoming. A surly man took my money in advance and led me to a room overlooking the railway track. I sat on the bed and the fleas rose in a cloud. It is one thing to bitten by the occasional flea; it is altogether different to see the little fellows lining up and applauding your arrival.
Forced to choose between the fleas of the mountains and the mosquitoes of the coast I chose the coast. There is something less personal about mosquitoes. One doesn't care where they have been before. I had a long argument with a taxi driver about the fare to Puerto Limon, a three-hour drive, which he won. He stopped on the way beside a small shack where he was greeted ecstatically by his children and by his con- tented wife who was sitting in the crumbling porch sewing buttons on his shirts. The ecstasy was apparently caused by the news of the fare. I felt less bitter about losing the argument. Next stop was the garage. This man must have been completely broke before he picked me up, because he filled up with petrol, changed the oil and bought a new tyre. Eventually the car was in reasonable condition to continue. 'Now we are safe,' he said. Just then the rain came down so hard that the wipers were quite unable to penetrate the curtain of water of the windshield. Somewhere ahead of us the tail-lights of a lorry disappeared into the storm. The taxi driver accelerated happily. 'Now you can sleep,' he said. Remembering the happiness of his children I realised that this man was not going to have a crash, so I went to sleep.
In Central America the people of the Atlantic coast are mainly of African des- cent, hired originally in the West Indies to work on the banana plantations. They speak Spanish and English, and in Puerto Limon they speak a sing-song Jamaican English, which is pleasant to hear. When I arrived the African receptionist at my hotel was being gently persuaded by three Cubans, two men, one woman, to let-them
`I'm all right, but could you take the rucksack?'
Spectator 19 June 1982 share a double room. After a while one of the men made her giggle and then she gave in. It was hard to say whether the Cubans were trying to save money or have a good time. Maybe in Cuba you can do both. Aware of the need to recover her dignity she told me, when I asked to see a room: that I could see two rooms, but that if wanted a towel I would have to sign for it It was three days before I saw her smile again. She told me that her great grand- parents had come over from Jamaica nearly a hundred years ago and that 1 would find most people in the town were bilingual even now. I noticed, however, that the older Pec' ple spoke better English than their children. Slowly the community is changing its English culture for a Spanish one. On Sun' day evening these African people gather in families and make a formal paseo through the streets and round the park, something which one rarely sees today in Spain- ,e people of the coast are the poorest people"' Costa Rica. There is little work apart ft°r1.1 the docks and the banana farms which ar,' owned by American fruit companies and are frequently the scene of violent strikes' violently put down. It is this part of the country that the government intends t° develop as a tourist paradise. On Sunday, while the town slept in the afternoon heat, I walked out onto the wooden quays to watch the bananas being loaded onto a boat owned by the Del Monhte i fruit company. The banana trains go og"t out onto the rotting wooden piles and shun up and down in the glaring heat. You have to keep a sharp lookout for loose wagons. ,i If there is a signalling procedure they keep It to themselves. The dock foreman was lying on a crate resting. He was a vast man with a blue; black skin and pouring with sweat. 1 huv, never seen a man look so peaceful and s hot. He declined to have his photograPh u taken. After resting for a few minutes h e -.- stood under a water pipe to cool off. tit" day's food was a yard of raw sugar cal?: and three cobs of sweet corn. He said his and was living on an abandoned banana l„t plantation beyond the swamps; that Inca", she was squatting. The owners call sue; families who work abandoned banaltl, farms for their own profit parasites. The profits to be made from the tropical fruit business are very acceptable.nel Walking round to the stern of the -„ Monte banana boat. I noticed that O: American company had registered the Nati in Panama, thereby taking advantage ° less stringent safety and labour regulations- That night I came across the follovvin,, passage in Nostromo, where Conrad; character, Charles Gould, the owner °f Central American silver mine, speaks: `What is wanted here is law, good faith, order, security ... that's how your men of making is justified here in the face °, lawlessness and disorder. It is jusdrle° because the security which it demands routst be shared with an oppressed people. A be,5 ter justice will come afterwards. That your ray of hope.'
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