In the early 90’s I somehow got the idea my wife and I should take a trip to Costa Rica. It was toss up between there and Italy.
Like many, I threw all my loose change in a jar, saving the accumulated money for our next trip. On the outside of the jar I taped a piece of paper with my dream on it. Of course, I discussed it with Mary, but she was always ready to travel just about anywhere, so she went along with it enthusiastically.
So the jar sat there with the little tape proclaiming our dream destination, Costa Rica, and the coins continued to accumulate.
Sometime in 1996 I received a brochure from a travel agency called Elegant Vacations. I gave them a call and roughed out an itinerary for a ten day vacation in Costa Rica. They arranged everything and in January 1997 we left for a country we were only acquainted with through a few brochures and a subscription to the Tico Times.
The vacation produced mixed results. We had an exciting time on a Class III-IV white water rafting trip down the Rio Reventazon, enjoyed a tour of San Jose and then left for the Arenal Volcano in our trusty 4WD Suzuki Sidekick. I eagerly awaited the visit to the volcano and intended to soak away my cares in the Tabacon hot springs. Unfortunately, when we arrived the clouds obscured the lava flow from the volcano and I came down with the flu, an unlikely candidate for a steam bath. After two days I was nearly recovered, but Mary was showing similar symptoms, so I drove to the Pacific beaches with Mary nursing a splitting headache.
We arrived at the Smerlda Resort and Mary took to her bed with a vicious headache, high fever and aching muscles. The second day she developed severe asthma and I went off in the pitch dark to a local pharmacy to get her some relief. After a harrowing trip on a narrow winding road I managed to find a small town and a pharmacist who spoke a little English. I returned with $10.00 worth of asthma medication and a case of jangled nerves. At that time Costa Rica had few road signs (still doesn’t) and no streetlights, making driving on unfamiliar roads at night a frightening experience that even locals avoid if possible.
Mary managed to stagger to the beach once before we left the gorgeous resort for the Monteverde cloud forest. We soon left the main highway onto probably the worst road I have ever seen. The huge potholes, rocks as large as your head, combined with washboard ruts made traveling over 15 miles per hour impossible. Twenty-two miles took us well over an hour and a half.
However it was near the end of this nightmare road that we had an experience that changed our lives forever.
As we entered the low clouds the afternoon sun streamed through the misty sky and we were treated with multiple rainbows. It was like driving through a kaleidoscope of colors with each rainbow more beautiful than the last. As we rounded a bend in the road a huge rainbow coursed over our car and seemed to disappear into a small mountain. I remarked to Mary that when we turned the corner we might see the end of the rainbow. We curved around the hill and sure enough, the rainbow seemed to disappear into the hillside. “There, there it is,” I exclaimed, “the end of the rainbow.” Mary asked me, “Well, if that’s the end of the rainbow, where is the pot of gold?”
Obviously, there was no bank or goldmine in this remote hillside, and it wouldn’t be for several years before we would find out the significance of this rainbow in our lives.
We continued up into the Monteverde cloud forest, walked through the jungle looking for the reclusive Quetzal and then finished up our vacation with another night in San Jose.
Soon we were home and all that remained of our dream trip was a photo of the rainbow.
It wasn’t until 2003 that the message of the rainbow started to lead us back to Costa Rica.
In November 2005, we packed up our cats, loaded our household goods in a container and moved to Costa Rica.
Each morning when we arise to sunlight flooding our bedroom and the sounds of thousands of birds (and a weed eater or two) we know we have truly found the end of the rainbow as we embark on one more golden day in Costa Rica.
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