Reventazón (Pt. 3)
An Encounter With La Llorona
Three
The river was wide and deep, its quiet current an inveterate whisper that pushed like wind on the large rocks that domed over the surface. Pools collected here and there where stone limited and slowed water, hosting small fish, guppies mostly, that fed on the insects that darted through the humid air. These were not small banks, but large collections of varying sizes of rock, many small enough to be considered sand, that spread out on either side of the river, a giant wasteland left by defeated dammed water not yet conquered by the towering vegetation behind it.
It had taken the three climbers a little over thirty minutes to get to this bank from the car, having traveled along a muddy road, under thick bush of dark tropical green littered with multicolored unidentifiable flora, and over a multitude of leaf-cutter ant trails as thick as the river itself and flowing just as quickly in dark flashes of pulsing red. There was not a single large boulder in sight, only a bend in the river that turned left under a canopy of trees and dirt, the beginning of a steep canyon that had been carved by millions of years of rushing water.
They moved quickly, but stepped cautiously, judging the stability of the rocks below their feet, careful not to twist ankles, and in silence for the time being, the expectation of what they would find around the bend pushing hard on Jota who had long ago taken the lead. He’d felt his heart drop, mortar rounds of disappointment falling over these sandy trenches, once he’d peaked past the green of the jungle and had seen nothing of potential around him. He had looked over at Diego with a smile on his face, doing what he could to hide the bitterness he could feel spreading inside him.
It was all so damn ironic, given the fertility of the tropics, the fruits that grew ad infinitum on the trees around them, the unlimited wildlife that sprouted from every corner. Jota was exhausted by the constant disappointment of coming up empty handed when countries not far off had entire areas with so much readily available rock that it would be impossible for one single person to climb it all during their lifetime. It wasn’t something he knew how to bring up to his friend, that he was, and had been for some time, considering just giving up on the entire endeavor. It was a hesitance that he’d felt earlier at the bar when he’d found himself preferring to stay and drink beers, the probability of yet another disillusionment looming. Were they really wasting their time with all this searching given how much good rock had already been found elsewhere?
But this was his baby, the Costa Rican bouldering community, and as much as he felt right now like it was just about time to let go and let it grow on its own without him, his heart was still deeply in love with its development. So he walked fast, nearly running, ahead of the other two in a conflicted sort of desperation to find some kind of answer that might be provided by whatever it was that hid behind the riverbend.
What he found was more than anything he could have possibly hoped for, a group of house sized granite boulders, draped from top to bottom with a thick green curtain of moss. Jagged overhangs that formed natural head height caves stood over rocky landings where the occasional rusty beer can glinted in the sunlight.
Diego and Caro were right behind Jota, yelling premature victorious and benevolent blasphemies as they all rand towards the rocks to touch them with outstretched fingertips. At the very least they had found potential, maybe one or two routes that were actually climbable if they were unlucky and the boulders had nothing to hold on to or were entirely too difficult for them to do.
Diego yelled out in gleeful celebration as he walked around the rock, touching dimples of stone that could at some point be used as hand or footholds, kneeling down to look at water smoothed edges of rock perfect and just beg enough to hold your body.
“We got one, boys!” Yelled Caro, ducking under the main roof of one of the boulders to see what else was around.
The grouping of stone contained three giant boulders that formed an almost perfect semicircle facing away from the water in the middle. Outside the circle, the central boulder held the perfect cave-like feature the three had been so excited about, while the other side included a couple of overhanging faces and a rather tall slab that could become a fun warm-up climb.
The other two boulders held the same potential, a couple of hard looking compression lines on an arete for the left side boulder, and a large sloping seam that traversed the entire face on the other. Far more potential, and far more quality than any of them could have ever imagined.
“Caro can you and Diego run back to the car and grab the rest of the gear?”
“Pads too?”
“Nah, just the harnesses and ropes and shit. There’s so much moss, this is gonna take a year!” Said Jota as he tossed Diego the keys to his truck.
Caro and Diego both nodded, turning around to run as fast as they could despite the uneven terrain back towards the car.
When the two of them returned they found Jota sitting at the base of the boulder, nothing yet cleaned. He’d spent the past half hour touching every centimeter of the rock’s surface, looking for holds, imagining the sequence of movements that he would perform once the route was fully clean.
“Was waiting for you to come back before I started,” said Jota as Diego walked up to him, touching the rock with his own hands as Jota showed him where all the holds were.
“How are we looking?” Asked Caro from behind them, throwing a heavy backpack full of gear on the ground.
Diego looked back and froze. There was a figure, a body behind Caro in the distance at the river’s bend kneeling down towards the river’s water on the other side of the bank. A woman, it seemed, with incredibly long black hair that suddenly looked up and stared directly at them. Diego blinked as Jota took a few steps back to get a good look at the rest of the boulder, blocking his view. He moved his head slightly only to find the figure gone.
“Good,” said Jota, looking at Caro. “Good rock. Good friction.”
“Any idea how hard it could be?”
Jota shrugged as Diego snuck a peak behind the two at the spot where he thought he’d seen someone standing. There was nothing. Vegetation swayed slightly in the breeze and still rocks sat next to a lazy water current. He turned again towards the boulder, touching all the holds he could, trying to come out of his little trance and back into the conversation at hand.
“The bottom moves look really hard, don’t they? Easily harder than anything else in Costa Rica at the moment,” he said. “The top stuff, I mean I don’t know. Jota did you look at them?”
“There’s a few crimps up there that could make a pretty good stand start,” said Jota pointing up to a couple of edges at head height.
“True.”
“Definitely something you could do, Caro.”
“The stand?” She asked.
“Yeah,” said Diego, looking over his friend’s shoulders again and seeing nothing, no woman.
“You can probably hold this sloper and just jump up to that crimp, then climb up from there. That’s at least the first thing I’m trying as soon as we’re done,” said Jota, miming the moves as he talked.
“You look at the other boulders yet?” Asked Diego.
“Yeah, there’s a couple other things, but this one’s the jewel for sure,” Jota said as he grabbed a rope from the bag and some gear. He went around the back of the large boulder to see if he could find an easy way to the top where he might be able to build an anchor. The three of them would use this anchor to hang the rope from in order to rappel down and clean the rock they couldn’t reach from the ground. Arduous work, no doubt, but nevertheless absolutely worth it for a climb like the one they’d just discovered.
Noticing that the boys more or less had the main cave route taken care of, Caro walked around to the other side to take a look at a shorter but steep overhang on the same boulder, another completely moss covered wall that faced the river. Caro looked closely at the grooves in the rock, searching for potential handholds that hid behind the green.
Scrubbing was Caro’s least favorite part, especially for someone who vehemently adhered to leave no trace outdoor ethics, destroying years of moss growth was a somewhat painful and often hushed over inevitable part of outdoor rock climbing. It was an unfortunate necessity that most developers tried keeping to a minimum, but destructive nonetheless.
She spent the next few minutes allowing that pendulous movement to become a meditative experiment, almost hypnotic. Her mind was blank. She stopped every once in a while to blow the dirt that clung to the jagged granite in front of her. It was a sate of mind not unlike the one she experienced when she climbed, just without any real physical championing.
Actual climbing is what she looked forward to, what she most obsessed about in her own private little world. There was nothing in her life quite as challenging as a boulder. Mentally and physically, each climb she’d successfully completed was, for her, an act of defiance. Her logged ascents, visible to anyone who might care to look up her social media, beacons and evidence that screamed “look here, this is what I can do with my mind, this is what I can do with my body.” It was ultimate freedom, ultimate autonomy.
This was ultimately a privilege. One that she wasn’t, or couldn’t, be sure that her two companions here were truly aware of. They’d encouraged her for years, yelling and laughing and having fun as she made her way up faces of rock without truly understanding the significance of their hobby, the significance of all of this to her, at least. Caro had talked about this with other girls at the gym, with Marta especially. It was a talk that they had had in depth the few times they’d found themselves out in the wilderness on their own too, searching for new boulders. In their mutual understanding of the importance of this sport Caro had found a certain level of comfort and strength, one that she suddenly felt lacking at this very moment.
Jota’s comment about her only being able to do the easier part of the boulder he was cleaning had stung more than she’d allow herself to admit, and now as she brushed away at the moss she wondered yet again, despite her efforts to clear her mind, if coming here had been a mistake. She could hear him and Diego talking to each other, so excited and sharing in something she knew she was not a part of, might never be a part of. It was again that feeling of complete loneliness, one that refused to go away. A part of her was gone, its growth killed by uncertainty and negligence, an unnatural disconnect that had left her falling with nothing to hold on to, and a Jota deliberately unaware. Would he ever understand the severity?
Caro brushed harder and thought of Marta, how similar she was to Diego in her own obsessive sort of way, how the biologist in her would have protested quietly about the destruction their hobby so often wreaked on the moss that covered the boulders they climbed. It was strange for her to have refused to come, strange for her to not have wanted to spend her day running up and down this river looking for all the rock she could find. Marta was just as excited by the prospect of development herself, but her reticence to join, her apparent fear of this place was worrying.
That’s when she felt them. Eyes burrowing at her scalp, coming from the river behind her. That loneliness she’d felt only seconds ago disappeared, replaced by the exact opposite feeling, a claustrophobic and unwanted companion standing behind her somewhere. Caro stopped brushing, listening hard for any crying. This was what Marta had been so scared of. What was watching her from the river?
There was nothing. No crying. Only flowing water and the occasional laugh from Jota and Diego. Were they not being watched? Had they not noticed it? For a moment she thought she heard a faint whimper, a quiet noise that raised that pulled hard on her neck hair. Caro breathed slowly, forcing herself to brush again, to ignore the empty space behind her, the exposure, the inability to hide, the nakedness she felt. It was all in her head. She’d started to think about Marta freaking out and now she was freaking out too. It’s all in my head, she repeated over and over. But that feeling, the eyes behind her that stared and watched her movements, did not go away, did not subside.
Caro turned, immediately leaning back into the wall and accidentally bumping her head slightly on the rock. She looked around. There was nothing but tranquility in front of her, the river flowing lazily, the same bugs darting here and there over the water, vegetation swaying lightly in a breezy push and pull. The paranoia was gone immediately. Nothing was watching. No Llorona staring at her from the river looking to drown her, only the sounds of Jota and Diego’s brushes a syncopating rhythm to the water’s steady drone.
She walked over to them.
“How long are we staying here?” She asked.
“Why?” Said Diego, barely looking up. Caro glanced around the river again.
“No reason, just wondering,” she said.
“You gotta poopoo?” Asked Jota who was hanging from a harness half way up the boulder, brush in hand.
Caro blinked.
“No?” She laughed.
Jota nodded, was about to go back to brushing when he stopped to stare at something behind Caro, frowning. Caro turned as quickly as she could, a flash of adrenaline heating up her forehead and legs.
A pair of older men were crossing the river. Shirtless, skinny, baggy jeans rolled halfway up their shins soaking anyway, and holding dirty old sneakers in their hands, they stepped with precision, having clearly made this same crossing a few times. The three watched as the men came closer, one man wearing a ripped up baseball cap, the other sporting a slightly greasy beard and both with confused looks on their faces, clearly trying to understand why anyone would be wasting their time cleaning rocks by the river.
“What are you doing?” The bearded man asked.
Jota and Diego gave quick explanations as Caro caught her breath.
“You going to be here long?” The other asked. Jota shrugged as Diego answered.
“Yeah, this stuff takes a while, you know?”
“Makes sense.”
“What are you guys doing out here, anyway,” said Caro.
“Why?” Asked the man in the cap. Caro managed to mumble an apology as the bearded man laughed, showing a near toothless mouth.
“Just taking a walk,” he said.
“Those lights?” Asked the man in the cap almost immediately after. Jota began to lower himself to the ground as the three of them looked over at their gear.
“Yeah,” said Diego, slowly.
“Why do you have them? Asked the man in the cap, resting his arm on his friend’s shoulder, relaxed.
“Best to climb when it’s cold,” said Jota.
The two men nodded quietly, then gave each other a look. They were frowning.
“Not thinking of staying here after dark, are you?”
“That’s the idea,” said Jota. The bearded man nodded while the other took off his cap, grunted, and spit on the ground to his right.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said.
“Why?” Asked Diego.
“Bad things happen out here at night.”
“Yeah, I’m sure they do,” said Jota dismissively. “We’ll be fine, we’ve been doing this for a while.”
“Not what I meant.”
“Then what?” Asked Caro, feeling concern and adrenaline hit her body.
“Just not a good idea,” said the bearded man. He turned, motioning for his friend to follow who shook his head and gave a final word.
“Get out before the sun sets.”
“Sure, whatever man,” said Jota. “Have a good night.”
The two men went on their way, wading through a small pool in the distance and disappearing down river just as quickly as they’d arrived. Caro and Diego watched them go as Jota jumared his way back up the rope.
“That was kind of creepy,” said Diego, his mind back to what he’d seen behind Jota and Caro.
“More like annoying. They probably grow weed down the river and wanted to make sure we wouldn’t walk in on them or something. Or they’re secretly gay and, you know, same reason.”
Diego laughed, allowing himself to be convinced by what Jota was saying.
“So what, an entire town doesn’t want us going down to the river because they have a secret gay society where they bone each other all day?” Asked Caro.
“Probably. Towns people are religious as hell. What they think is stupid, but you gotta keep secrets from someone if not from God, or whatever.”
“You’re saying this is a big deal?” Asked Caro.
“I’m not saying anything about a big deal or not. None of this is.”
“You don’t need to be crazy religious to think something is a big deal,” said Caro shaking her head.
“Yeah, you would know.”
“At least I fucking care about something.”
"A little too much, maybe.
“Can you two stop fighting?” Asked Diego. Caro turned to look at him as Jota spoke from above.
“I don’t even know what we’re fighting about.”
“Yes you do.”
“Gay people?”
“What?”
“Because you know I don’t care, I’m not a bigot like these people.”
“No, Christ, it’s about you not giving a shit about anything. Again!” Caro was yelling suddenly, breathing hard and nearly shaking. Jota raised an eyebrow and went back to brushing.
“See what the fuck I’m talking about? Nothing is a big deal to you, is it?”
Jota was silent, brush moving from side to side haphazardly.
“We should fucking leave. Three different people have told us not to be here at night, are we seriously this stupid?”
“Leave?” Asked Diego.
“Yes!”
Diego shook his head.
“Ignore her, dude. She’s being way too dramatic.”
Caro stopped for a moment.
“Dramatic?”
“No, I just mea—”
“Yeah that’s your favorite fucking catchphrase isn’t,” said Caro.
“Look, all I was saying is that you, you know,” Jota looked for the right word.
“I what? Care too much?”
“Is this about the thing?”
Caro shook her head again, did her best to keep the tears she could feel swelling in her eyes from breaking out.
“Just say it,” she said.
“What?”
“If it wasn’t a big fucking deal, say it. The what, Jota?”
“I don’t,” mumbled Jota.
“The what!” Screamed Caro.
“The fucking abortion, okay?”
Caro watched him, nodding her head.
“I’m fucking leaving,” she said, turning away.
“We’re not doing this,” said Diego suddenly, standing in front of Caro.
“Doing what?” Asked Caro.
“This. Fighting. Here!”
There was a pause as Diego threw his brush at the rock as hard as he could. Caro winced. Diego continued, angry.
“I don’t give a fuck about your stupid fight. Abortion or not, leave or not. We’re fucking staying.”
“You knew?”
“Yeah, Jota told me. But you know what? It doesn’t fucking matter. We’re here to develop fucking boulders. We’re here because I wanted to be here, because it might be the last fucking time we do this and I’m not about to let it be ruined by a fucking non-issue. So you know, what? Both of you get your shit together and finish brushing this rock so we can fucking climb it!”
“I just think,” started Caro, but Diego interrupted immediately.
“I know you don’t care about this, but seriously. Fucking stop. Jota and I aren’t going to leave. Wait for us in the car if you’re scared.”
Caro shook her head and breathed hard, trying to calm herself down. She decided not to retaliate further and turned around, walking back towards the boulder she’d been brushing knowing fully well she could do nothing at this point but wait out the night.
