REPUTACIÓN

"Ah! You are the Cheetahs!" Santos exclaims in the insightful tone that comes from finding the definitive clue to solve a mystery.

Santos, the guide who picked us up from our hotel at Tabacon for the ride to Hanging Bridges, began the get to know you phase of our tour with the usual questions:

Como te llamas? (What is your name?)

De donde estas? (Where are you from?)

Cuando llegamos? (When did you arrive?)

Certainly no questions that would indicate we were on the edge of a story told last night at the Discotec in La Fortuna.

The day before our tour with Santos, the conversation with Bernardo, our guide for the climb of Cerro Chato, began with an explanation rather than the typical tourist Q&A.

"We are going to meet our third at the Observatory Hotel," Laura explained to Bernardo on his arrival with the bus to pick up his party of three for the hike. "My husband is running there this morning and will meet us."

"You must be from Colorado" Bernardo shot back in the form of a question with the tone of a statement.

"Yes!" Laura replied in her astonished how-did-he know-that voice.

"It's always the people from Colorado who come here and run" Bernardo explained. "Your lucky it is cool and rainy today. People from Colorado don't know how much harder it is to run here in the heat and humidity of the rainforest and they get into trouble."

Bernardo greeted me at the Observatory Lodge meet point not by name but where I am from: "How was the run, Colorado?"

Focused more on changing into dry clothes than a conversation, that was the extent of the introduction but not the end of the mental notes Bernardo began filing away on the curious McDonalds from Colorado.

On the climb up Cerro Chato, Hannah and I debated why Laura was never more than a step behind Bernardo. We concluded she was clinging to the person most likely to spot a snake in time to avoid it.

Whether it was her fear of snakes or following Bernardo's foot prints up the slippery trail for maximum traction as she claimed, Laura pushed Bernardo, and the machismo that prohibits a guide from letting a tourist know they're tired, up Cerro Chato.

Following Santos' Tourist Q&A on the ride to Hanging Bridges and a brief introduction of what we would experience, he got into a more specific line of questions. Eager to flex the Spanish awakening from a forgotten place in my mind, I jumped to answer his query: "What have you done so far in Costa Rica?"

"Escalamos el volcan Cerro Chato ayer." ("We climbed Cerro Chato volcano yesterday.")

Santos reaction resulted in a more inquisitive reply than anticipated. "Who was your guide?" he returned lightning fast.

"Bernardo."

"Ah! I saw him at the Discotec last night. He told me he hiked Cerro Chato with people from Colorado who were very fast. You ran there first, right?"

"Si."

"Ah! You are the Cheetahs from Colorado."

Small town, La Fortuna.