Most visitors turned back after the beach nearest the gate.

A narrower trail disappeared into the forest, and with every bend the voices faded until only insects and surf remained.

The crowds had stopped within a mile of the park’s entrance.

I’d gone further.

The path wandered between palm trees and empty coves. Every few hundred meters another beach appeared beneath the jungle, tucked away as though someone had hidden it there.

Crabs scurried sideways into their burrows. Iguanas sprawled across warm rocks without moving.

I found a rock beneath a palm and sat.

Salt drifted on the breeze. Dolphins surfaced beyond the breakers, disappearing almost as soon as I saw them. Somewhere above me, monkeys crashed through the canopy, sending coconut husks thudding onto the beach.

I’d been looking for sloths since arriving in Costa Rica.

People kept pointing into the trees.

“They’re right there.”

I never saw them.

Months later, I discovered I’d photographed several without realizing it.

This time I finally saw one.

It hung from a cecropia branch above the trail, little more than a shaggy ball of fur wrapped around the trunk. It moved so slowly I wasn’t sure it had moved at all until I lowered my camera and looked again.

~

I stayed longer than I meant to.

The trail kept leading to another beach.

When the afternoon heat became too much, I left my shoes beside the path and went swimming. The Pacific was warm enough that I stayed until another hiker appeared, then hurried back for my shoes and continued around the headland.

Eventually the trail ended at a stretch of water I didn’t remember crossing.

Brown water rushed between the mangroves where dry ground had been that morning.

I looked for another path.

There wasn’t one.

Then I noticed a man sitting in a wooden boat beneath the trees.

He wasn’t surprised to see me.

He pushed away from shore with a long pole and drifted across the narrow channel.

“Doscientos colones.”

I handed him the money.

He tapped the water with his pole as we crossed.

“High tide.”

On the opposite bank, the trail continued exactly where it had left off, as though nothing unusual had happened.

The boatman pushed away before I had taken ten steps, gliding back to wait for the next hiker who stayed just a little too long.