“A Cachete,” Costa Rica

With just “A Cachete,” I had a new friend.

Moments before, my mind had been racing with what ifs and potential regret of my decision to trudge forward on the trail with our two guides for a hour horseback ride home. We had ridden the horses on an arguably treacherous trail to la Catarata del Rio de la Fortuna, a waterfall whose thunderous echo blended in with the tweets of the native birds and my footsteps against the rocky path that shifted beneath me with each step. After possibly hundreds of flights of nature’s stairs, we arrived upon two things: the end of a tranquil river and the beginning of its end, la catarata.

With an overwhelming power, a ring of mist enveloped the pool in which I stood below the falls. It was the rippling remains of the relentless water that tumbled over the edge just moments before. While, sure, the water had taken a quite bumpy and unforgiving trip down the river’s freeway, it had reached its destination with a grace that pulled me in to stare at the great waterfall without fear of its potential danger, but in awe of the rush of life that it encapsulated in just one fall, and I was lucky enough to stand still and watch (thankfully with a lifeguard on duty, just in case, you know).

As my family and I made our way up the slope (one that was undaunting on the way down, but had us wishing we brought inhalers on the way up), the typical Costa Rican afternoon shower began brewing in the sky, clogging the path of the rays of sunlight within seconds and replacing them with the familiar storm. If I’ve learned anything while in Costa Rica, it is that storms do not blow over, and there is no such thing as waiting a storm out unless you plan on booking a hotel room while you’re at it. As my family and I sat around a table, this all became more apparent, and the winding streets and impeding sunset in forty five minutes became all less appealing for our ride home. But while my family and the rest of the group sat with worries of what we would do when our horses slid down the road or when we were trapped in the rain forest at sundown, our two guides Joel and Harrison simply laughed, telling me in Spanish that only 15 people have died on the trip. Ah, comfort. And with that, I shared a laugh with them and moved onward, wondering who the 15 unlucky ones to go would be this time.

We began our walk back with a few showers, but nothing unbearable. But in order to get to the actual trail, we had about two miles of walking alongside cars in the streets. Harrison and I walked alongside each other as the cars patiently waited for us to pass. And while we walked, I learned that Harrison was 21 years old and was working at the farm to earn money before he went to San Jose to study the next year. He had never traveled outside of Costa Rica, but had friends living in Miami Florida, who one day he would be able to visit if he saved up enough money. While he has never left Costa Rica, he was grateful to be able to have so much to explore and to experience before he leaves his family for the first time. His greatest joy at the moment was his three year old little sister and his two week old baby horse that lived at home with him. They were his pura vida, his light of life that kept him working everyday, trudging the horses through the thunderstorms two times a day along with twenty people to keep safe.

At one point, I got ahead of Harrison, but I quickly heard his horse galloping next to me as he screamed “A Cachete.” Unaware of what this meant, I knew it must be something pretty great, for he gleamed each time he said it. In Costa Rica, to say a cachete is the word of utmost contentment, it means, in short, to have everything. As I learned to use the phrase, we started adding it to the end of almost every sentence. How was the ride? A cachete. How did the day go? A cachete.

I was quite surprised that we did not have a direct translation for this phrase in the United States, for not only do a lot of us have everything, but it is the dream for most to have everything, a general aspiration. But there was something different about Harrison and Joel, yes they had desires to travel to America and to provide more for their family one day, but they filled those desires with the joy that they found in everyday, and each moment added up to a cachete.

While we rode back in the rain, we were lucky to not have been caught in a lightning storm like the ones that had occurred each day prior. With the intensity of the bolts that struck, you would think that the entire country of Costa Rica would have to have stop drop and roll drills just in case of catching on fire, but instead the fire travels throughout the people, zapping them with a joy that only escapes through their smiles that spread like wildfires to the people who are lucky enough to meet them. It is because of that joy and the “a cachete” days that the people in cars did not honk as my horse refused to budge in the middle of the road and why the younger boys working at the farm fell with laughter as we arrived with soaking wet horses that they would have to clean off. There is no urgency to blare on the horn when life isn’t going exactly as planned because they know that no matter what, each moment, good or bad, offers a little bit to their a cachete.

We all sighed with major relief to have successfully climbed up the steep slopes that followed overflowing streams. We finally hopped off our horses, grateful for the security that came with having two feet on the ground. We had prepared ourselves for a fall from the ruthless waterfall head first, but we had forgotten the calmer waters that awaited us at the bottom. It was that loss of fear that filled the cracks inside of me that kept me from the joy that Harrison radiated when telling me his life story. Harrison told me that he is fearful of next year, being away from his family and on his own for the first time. He will face new trials, different than the daily trek to the falls, but he will choose to accept each moment as enough no matter what and appreciate everything that he has, or as he says, everything that he could need.

As we filed onto our bus to get back to our hotel and dry off, the group laughed about how we could have all called a cab and skipped it all, but we were all so glad to have followed through with it. And I had never felt so lucky as I felt to wave goodbye to my friends Harrison and Joel and scream “a cachete,” and I knew that I couldn’t have meant it more.

Pictured above is a photo with my new friends, Joel and Harrison.

A photo that my sister took of me at the bottom of the catarata. Not shown: group of girls next to me having photo shoot in bikinis (cropped).

Ah, the great catarata.

One of my favorite days spent hiking the Arenal Volcano and looking oddly sketchy in my yellow rain poncho.

Okay, these things could kill me, but I later looked up videos of people putting their heads inside of crocodiles mouths which made me a little less intimidated by crocodiles and a little more worried about the logic of humans.

Both pictures above are of my friend and his dog who could not live a happier life (he can surf!!)

🙂