Overgrown

November 17, 2025|Rick Juliusson

Nature adores a vacuum. The carefully groomed paths of Curi-Cancha reserve are an irresistible playground for nature. They are the cloudforest equivalent of Leonard Cohen’s crack - a flattened swath that could be seen as a scar, instead is a bold opening letting the light in and giving nature a chance to stretch and play and reinvent herself.

We walk this path, from just behind our Monteverde home to up above the continental divide, almost every day. And every day there’s new vines dangling, new branches reaching sideways, new flourishing flowers and opportunistic occluders at eye level.

Slow, Animal Crossing

Plants aren’t the only living beings taking advantage of man’s industrious path-clearing. Early mornings we enjoy crossing paths with coati, agouti, wild boar (javelina), and monkeys (up above).

A baby armadillo scoots right up to my foot - whether out of curiosity or blindness I don’t know - before scurrying on to some high grasses. We enjoy watching him nibble for a while, then quietly beckon to four other guided groups to share the spectacle.

Javalina (wild boar)

Leaf-cutter ants

Agouti

Coati

We had the baby armadillo all to ourselves...

...until we called the guides with their curious guests over.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Curi-Cancha is generous to let us enjoy the trails daily, and I try to pay them back by clearing debris. And debris there is, every day. The sheer weight of the hundreds-foot canopy above, succumbing to the power of the wind and rains and the sheer gravity of its prolific growth, regularly releases branches onto the path. The paths themselves are dug sharply into steep hillsides, damaging roots and changing water runoff routes to cause further erosion and tree-falls.

That's a lot of biomass up above that wants to come down someday

When the park wants to close a trail, they just let it overgrow naturally (and quickly)

Sometimes nature leaves a perfect art project on the path

Happy Movember!

In honour of this powerful tendency of nature to become overgrown if not managed daily, I’m letting myself go a little more than usual. Hair, beard, even nails are left to find their full expression.

I’m not at all sure what it’s teaching me, but having long breakable nails is a new experience for this lifetime guitar/piano picker/plunker. On our walks I have to pick up the fallen branches with a little more care, and I feel a bit of brotherly kinship with the old man’s beard and mossy danglies. The cloudforest and I are seizing the opportunity - of a light-filled crack or a Movember grooming hall-pass - to fall and scurry and become overgrown without expectation of a perfect offering or outcome.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
- Leonard Cohen, Anthem

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3 Comments

Judy on November 17, 2025 at 4:07 am

I love, love, love your marvelous description of your eventful walk in that reserve. Susie, Emma and I were there.At the time Emma was into microhabitats so we caught sights of unique mini plants and mosses,, webs and critters.

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- Rick Juliusson on November 17, 2025 at 1:05 pm
  
  Yes, it’s so easy to focus on the gigantic power of the huge ficus etc that one can overlook the microscopic beauty interlaced
  
  Reply
Art Broderson on November 17, 2025 at 12:17 pm

Thanks Rick , such a beautiful walk, great way to start my day.

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