Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
The Hammock
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
Dear Travel Journal,
Until traveling to Costa Rica, I thought that bears and I were transcendentally related. Bears and I are hard-wired to rest and relax, to hibernate and hammock. Grizzlies and grizzled men seem to have a thing about conserving calories.
Now I know better. My spirit animal is the sloth.
A sloth is a whole other level of lazy. Sloths sleep an awe-inspiring twenty hours a day. Sloths and I can be stressed out by humans. Just like me when I’m running routine errands, a sloth is disheveled, unsightly, oddly shaped.
Sloths are the animal kingdom’s Zen meditation masters. Watching a sloth crawl along on a tree limb suspends time. Sloths are motivated to move only by the need to eat or shit.
Costa Rica is rich with them. Five million sloths. Roughly calculated, one sloth for every Costa Rican, making it the unofficial national animal—a symbol of the good life.
A quarter of the country’s land mass is protected jungle. From my rope hammock suspended over my bungalow patio at the posh Lapa Rios Rainforest Eco-Lodge on the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica’s biodiversity unfolds around me. Like a happy romcom on an IMAX screen.
Costa Rica is home to more animal and plant species than Canada and America combined. For a lazy view of the copious flora and fauna, shunning sweaty nature walks, I opt for a slow-paced, Amazonian version of a ski gondola ride. Gliding amidst, over and through the lush foliage is peaceful, comforting—until the insects discover me.
My well-practiced survival instinct is saying No to hikes in the hinterlands, running any white water rapids or bicycling on backroads in search of picturesque pastures. Better to sleep late and devour an obscenely large breakfast in my cozy, safe bungalow.
In the trees canopied above me, there’s a lot of monkey business going on. Spider monkeys swing limb to limb, chase each other, chomp on ripened fruit, frolic with Cirque du Soleil-like precision.
A mother tapir and her baby are on the gravel path just twenty feet from my patio deck. I make a mental note to joke with my kids about not noticing a candle wick on her head.
A bird of prey fishing for its next meal—perhaps a falcon or turkey vulture—hovers over the azure waters of Pavon Bay. My guidebook says nothing about the bird’s religion. Another groaner dad joke to tell Ben and Brittany.
A lizard squirms its way along an invisible freeway. Iridescent blue butterflies flit among the bushes. A flock of rainbow-colored macaws squawk at each other.
A black ant the size of an eraser struts militantly along my patio railing. Nicknamed "the bullet ant," the threatening vibe is Clint Eastwood in the movie Dirty Harry.
The rainforest is so thick I feel like I’m under a colossal, green beach umbrella. Green leaves, green vines, green on green. Here and there, accents and undertones of brown are like the piping on a soldier’s dress uniform.
Even with the blazing sun eclipsed, I feel its heat soaking into my pores. Fully committed to lazing through the day, I sink into the sway of my hammock.
Slothfully speaking, there’s no reason to move.
