Pital, Alajuela — September 17, 2024

September 17, 2024. Pital, Alajuela. The path in finds you before the place does — palms leaning close, leaf litter soft underfoot, a little yellow-trimmed shelter waiting in the clearing. I walk past beds of red cordyline and mossy stones, past small interpretive signs I half-read, until the jungle opens onto painted concrete the color of clay. Steam lifts off the thermal pools. The water is greenish and still in one pool, bubbling in another, held by stacked river stones. I leave my flip-flops in the dirt by a stairway that drops into the foliage, magenta leaves at shoulder height. Later, up a metal-framed platform with twisted-branch railings, banana leaves at eye level, I think: the volcano isn't in the photos, but it's in everything — in the heat under the rocks, in how lush everything grows.