Nosara: Hero’s Journey
Imagine you could experience your hero’s journey in Nosara, this land of personal and spiritual transformation.
What stops you from following your quest, why wouldn’t you walk your path of personal and spiritual growth which is Nosara?
Nosara: Hero’s Journey — The Quest!
I left my lodgings in Jaco which had been my home for fifty days, almost a lifetime for a nomad like me, and headed for the hills and beaches of Nosara. Little did I know when I accepted an offer to be the content writer at Costa Rica Yoga Spa that the land of Nosara itself was alive with potential.
So I traveled aboard four buses in the heat of the noonday sun, sometimes discussing the state of the world with welcoming natives and at other times dozing between slugs of refreshing mineral water.
The bus stopped just outside Nicoya on the side of the road and as I stepped down onto the land a beautiful young elemental- like woman who’d changed her name to Prempreet, approached me and we agreed to share a taxi into Nicoya and the rest of the hero’s journey to Nosara together.
The road to Nosara was delayed, no bus for a few hours, disappointing, yet not unusual, on the paths into the sacred.
So we spent a few hours in a bonny cafe together, I drank coffee and Prempreet ate the flesh of coconuts after enjoying their milk, chatting like we’d known each other forever.
Eventually, we reached Nosara, but the hero’s journey had just begun…
Nosara: Hero’s Journey — The Obstacles.
The trip to meet up with Prempreet a few days later went OK at first.
The road is really a glorified mud track and as vehicles journey along it dust flies up choking the oxygen out of the air. Motorbikes carrying whole families, quad bikes and various other motorized transport passed, smiling and waving greetings like trumpeters from the court of the king hailing my arrival.
I hadn’t hitchhiked for many years, although it used to be a pastime I loved. Yet soon there were two French women tourists that picked me up and drove me to Nosara and after a conversation, confusion and a realization that I was supposed to be in the village of Guiones, I negotiated my way to pastures new.
Eventually, we met up and again and our new found friendship gelled effortlessly as we talked and walked and opened up new avenues of growth, affection and spiritual development.
Soon we needed to start the journey back, hitchhiking on the beaten track, and then the rains started and quickly we were drowned rats lost in the storms and the darkness of a foreign land.
We were given temporary shelter at an inn called El Local, to hide from the ever-worsening storms. Thunder screamed in baritone song across the skies, deeply and powerfully running through the autonomic nervous systems of my body, bringing change and transformation. Lightning rent the air thick with elemental sylphs and the spirits of land sung of change and the magic of Nosara.
…and then the voices of the gods spoke, unmistakeable, directly into my mind of how this hero’s journey, an initiation of Nosara, would empower my world, my magic and all that followed.
There was a lull in the storm, maybe like the epicenter where the hawks hover waiting for the kill, so we decided to make a move.
The road was dark, lit only by the lightning and the passing vehicles. We’d considered private transportation, but none were prepared to travel out on this blessed night.
After what seemed like an eternity, yet probably only thirty minutes, an interesting, albeit pleasant, eccentric man came to our aid. His vehicle had its hazard lights flashing and he explained that it had broken down a number of times recently so he wanted to prepare other road users.
Nosara: Hero’s Journey — No Path Home.
The river had flooded the road home and the ferocious storm had gathered momentum again, no vehicle was able to pass, the waters were too deep, their crossing profound.
We learned of another bridge at the other end of the town so we decided to try our luck there. Prempreet was flagging with hunger so we sat under a canopy eating raw fruit and vegetables before venturing out to the elements again.
Need I say it, the other bridge and its way past was also flooded, too deep to cross.
As we trekked back along the muddy paths back to the first bridge no-one else would stop, an hour or so we walked until we stood at our baptism.
There’s a saying here, that anyone touched by the River Nosara would surely return, I guess we’ll return then, because we waded through, at times almost knee deep, this sacred river stretched out across the road.
Nosara: Hero’s Journey -Another Twist
Soon a tut tut man appeared, somewhat mysteriously, to transport us to the road that led up to Costa Rica Yoga Spa. As you can imagine, we didn’t refuse although, I wondered whether he was real or one of those beings that cross through the thin veils from other worlds on nights like this.
His tiny tut tut was not able to ascend far up the hill to my lodgings in the sky as the road was steep, wounded and muddy, so we parted company just a third of the way up.
I never anticipated getting lost at this point, but a tree had fallen in the torment completely obscuring the path. So we climbed and climbed the wrong road, in the wet and the dark, slipping here and there and questioning our sanity.
As in every archetypal hero’s journey, we came upon an unlit house, somewhere near the top of the world. At first, we felt it would better not to disturb the slumber of those inside, but as conditions worsened we re-evaluated.
I’m sure he was one of those blessed elves who rescue travelers lost on the road to transformation, yet I have to say he presented as a young North American man who, after Prempreet’s heartfelt plea, agreed to take us in his chariot to safety.
We were shown the road to salvation and were soon lodged safely within the walls of the Costa Rica Yoga Spa.
The next day, as I told the tale, the Lord of the Manor, smiled and said:
“I’m not surprised at all, these things happen in Nosara”
