Last week when I was working in the studio it started to rain. I didn’t think anything of it. After all it is the rainy season in Costa Rica and it rains in the afternoon. Then, Carlos called me from Café Blue to see if I was OK. Apparently down at Café Blue which is only 300 meters away, quite a storm was in progress. Not only was it pouring but there were also very high winds. Usually when it rains, no matter how hard, the rain comes straight down.
At Café Blue, the winds were gusting, limbs were falling off the trees, chairs were tipping over in the restaurant, glasses were being blown off the tables and crashing onto the stone floor, and a large tree behind the restaurant fell over taking several shrubs, vines and bromeliads with it. All of this while very little rain and no winds were blowing at the studio. Then, across from Café Blue a large wall of vegetation fell from the cliff. This cliff is totally vertical and over the years all types of plants have grown onto this vertical face of rock including trees, vines, flowers, orchids and shrubs. No rock was ever visible.
The wind from this storm loosened the wall of plants and it detached from the rock in one big sheet of twisted plants and roots and fell to the ground, all in one single motion. The result is a perfectly clean rock face of approximately 120 feet tall.
Even before the cleanup of the vegetation began, which included Carlos in his best clothes dragging logs in the rain and Cristobal chopping away with his machete, ideas about setting up rock climbing and rappelling activities began. Adrian the hotel manager was immediately on the phone calling experts to make a site visit while Carlos was emailing a well known rappelling company near Arenal. One of the exciting things about living in Costa Rica is that you never know what will happen and where it will lead you. I will keep you posted on when you can expect to experience rock climbing and rappelling at Monte Azul. Or we may just light it up with pretty lights at night instead.
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