Hiking the rain forest, savoring the quiet coast.

September 21, 2003|Rich Barlow and Kathleen Burge, Globe Correspondent And Globe Staff

TORTUGUERO, Costa Rica - "Here's a snake! Here's a snake!" My wife's outstretched arm is pointing near her feet. Barely a foot away, a baby pit viper lies coiled warily in a speckled pile. Joy erupts in our tour group. Joseph, 11, who has made no secret of his hopes to spot a snake on our hike into the rain forest, shakes Kathy's hand and thanks her as one snake stalker to another. Our guide, Victor Barrantes, gleefully high-fives her like a partner on a winning doubles tennis team. (He will retell the story of her discovery several times during our walk, with Kathy's yipe louder and louder in each successive version.)

I am fascinated by the snake, too, though in a respectfully muted way. The thing is poisonous and inches from my wife's leg. I don't mess with snakes. I saw "Anaconda."

This is the excitement of the rain forest, akin to watching a scary movie; for all the exotic things before your eyes, you know you are not in danger. The worst incident on our hike befalls the guide leading a tour behind us, who happens to be standing under a tree when a monkey gives "rain forest" a whole new meaning. Besides, Victor is a gifted guide who keeps all thrills on this walk vicarious.

He warns us about a bog of quicksand off to our left, and he suggests we sidestep the row of bullet ants to avoid any painful biting. Then we see the vultures circling overhead, as if speculating on which of the two-legs below would succumb to fatigue and be that night's dinner. Snakes, quicksand, ants, vultures. What next - Godzilla?

Actually, we would not have been surprised to see a giant lizard. The rain forest is nature's fun house, where the mirrors of evolution make everything outsized. Tree roots rise above ground to the height of your chest. New England forests do not have palm leaves the size of beach umbrellas. Back home, a vine is a dainty thing twirling around a garden trellis. Here, it is the thick, hanging rope that Tarzan and the apes use for jungle transit in the movies. We take the obligatory swing on one dangling to the ground.

While our March visit falls at the wrong time of year for turtle watching, the armada of hefty green turtles that comes ashore between July and October to lay eggs is a huge draw in Tortuguero, where we are staying for a weekend during our two-week visit to Costa Rica. In contrast to its extra-large ecology, the town is tiny - a hamlet of just 600 - and even in this country, few places rival it for remoteness.

The most muscular Hummer will not get you here, since the village has no roads. You must fly to the grass-strip airport and take a motorboat down Rio Tortuguero to town. Or you can boat in all the way, as we did, which was a three-hour excursion past caymans (mini-cousins of the crocodile) on what some call the Little Amazon.