ONE STEP FROM CHAOS: A Costa Rican Adventure
Updated: Sep 25
OCTOBER 2023
ARENAL, Costa Rica — There's pressure on my right shoulder. One...two...three...four separate points of pressure. Wait, no, five? Four to the front and one on the back. Each point is becoming more pronounced, each digging deeper and deeper into my skin. The pressure is so great, I'm starting to lose my balance, the pressure anchoring me backward.
Arenal Volcano sits on a blue afternoon.
It's a hand.
Just moments before, I was walking down a rock-laden pathway curving through brilliant green underbrush of the Costa Rican jungle just yards from our lodge. I am in awe looking up at the branches of trees filled with multi-colored toucans, parrots, and a troop of spider monkeys. The sound of the jungle is interrupted only by the rap, rap, rap of my Canon 7D shutter as I snap photos of each one. Ahead of me stands Mount Arenal - an impressive active volcano more than 5,000 feet high. The same vivid green descends from its peak, down the steep face and collides with the lush rainforest, transforming into a thick carpet extending from the mountain's base to where I am now standing.
Only now, instead of standing on something sturdy, my right foot has met some resistance. The object is forgiving to my weight: pliable, but firm. Squishy even. What in the world am I stepping on that's squishy?
My focus on the now extreme pressure on my shoulder and the confusing sensation beneath my foot is now shifting to a new sensation. A sound - muffled but stern.
It's a voice; a voice that belongs to my husband. Time at this point was moving in slow motion, but has now rapidly sped up as I make out the first two letters of the word leaving his mouth.
Snake. He's shouting snake.
The hand is his, grasping tight to my shoulder to pull me away. The spongy sensation beneath my foot is the undulating body of a bright emerald green side-striped Palm Viper who is now struggling beneath the weight of my foot like a loose garden hose, swaying about desperately trying to escape.
You don't have to ask me twice.
I oblige the snake's unspoken request by leaping into the air as high as I can, tucking my legs to my chest. I'm pulled toward my husband who catches me mid-air. I also let out a pathetically high-pitched, hideous outburst in this process. The sound echoes around us, drowning out the guttural roar of the nearby howler monkeys that I had been looking at moments prior to my unfortunate interaction with the snake (and yes, it is venomous, but thankfully in this case, it was more interested in fleeing than taking a piece of me with it).
By the time I have both feet back on solid ground and fully comprehend what happened, I feel only two things. The first is embarrassment for the sound I just made. The second is remorse for never actually seeing the viper myself.
If only I watched where I stepped.
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