I met a tree in Costa Rica that changed me life. I had spent days working and my friend Simon suggested we take a much needed break and go for a hike. Simon is British but lives in Costa Rica. He woke up one day and decided to exchange the corporate jungle for the real ones in Costa Rica.

Simon is in his mid 50’s but looks a great deal younger. His hair is the color of whisky and his eyes are blue. Not the ordinary sky blue. They are blue like the sea, crystal clear blue, shimmering and crashing and churning. Looking into his eyes you can hear the waves falling against the shore, see the foam flying into the air. His eyes are blue like that warm wool sweater that you put on when the air gets that chill: comfortable, warm, familiar. His eyes are that kind of blue.

After driving on a winding mountain road we arrive in a forest in the Lake Arenal region. As we begin our hike I notice that in the forest the sky vanishes almost completely, only a few fragments of blue remain – like scattered pieces of an impossible jigsaw puzzle. The air is rich with fragrance of damp leaves. Outside of the forest is the noon daylight, the powerful rays of summer. But in here everything is cool and the colors have the softness of that time right before twilight. I take all the air my lungs will hold and expel it slowly. These hikes in the forest are like a trip out of my life, a visit to a place where the measuring of time is done only by the rising and setting of the sun. [Read more…]