Pura Vida and the Saint Joe Slims

(Another post-mortem blog rehash. From Tamarindo to San José, April Fools day through mid-month. )

Costa Rica has its character, and its characters. Another stop on the road. Roads populated by new groups of traveling aquantainces and local idiosyncracies. More rain to soak my shoes and fill up river beds and potholes; more sun to parch those roads and turn my skin and the sky different colors. A new country doesn't really mean a new attitude. In this life, it indicates most basically the passage of time and a movement on a map. Costa Rica is, however, a new experience.

I arrived in the Juan Santamaria airport in San José at the beginning of April, Ecuador in the rearview and not enough cash in my pocket to make it worth changing into Costa Rican currency, the Colón. Juan Santamaria, I later learned, is the national hero, a drummer boy who posthumously rose to prominence as a symbol of courage and the plight of the lower class. Turns out that in the mid 19th century, an American southern jackass named William Walker decided to take over and enslave whole Central American countries in the name of the Confederacy. After naming himself "president" of Nicaragua, he set his sights on Costa Rica. Little did he know, Juan Santamaria was tapping out a different rhythm. He was working on a song called "I'm going to burn down the fort where the invading americans are holed up, die in the process, and then get an airport named after me." Santamaria's skills as a beatbox or a percussionist have not been verfied, (in actuality, a lot about him is probably legend/myth/nationalistic political hooey) and no one has made mention of the song he was working on until this blog. However, as I came from the south, and in peace, the statue of the little drummer boy that stands outside of the airport greeted me on friendly (albiet stone-faced) terms, and the country has turned out ok without explicit American governance.

I took a free shuttle to an airport hotel, where I would await my parents hours later. Camping out in the lobby, I quickly befriended two middle aged Floridian couples who had stationed themselves next to the Color TV for the nights Final Four matchups, Florida v. George Mason and UCLA v. LSU. While one of the women did express her preoccupation with getting me "sloshed", I did happily accept their generous offers of about three beers, a mixed drink with Guaro (the Costa Rican aguardiente - cheap liquor), and about a third of a bottle of Concha y Toro champagne in one of those classy plastic coated styrofoam hotel bathroom cups. I was moving towards sloshed, as I hadn't eaten for hours, so I bucked up and went to the RoastiPolli restaurant across the parking lot for a quesadilla. I used my credit card, the first time I'd been able to do that in a restaurant in months, and I tried not to cringe at the price, in american dollars, at american prices. Months later, I'm only now forgetting about the paradise of cheap eats that is the South American Andean region.

I was mostly sober in order to receive the folks some time late in the evening, and happy to return to RoastiPollo to share some chicken nachos on dad's dollar. I would be happy and grateful and satisfied to eat and drink for free for the next week with my parents. All along this trip, people have asked me how my "vacation" was going. That was no vacation. There were no palm trees or piña coladas. Only potatos and overnight bus rides and pepto bismol. Tamarindo, on the northwest pacific coast of Costa Rica with my parents - that was a vacation. That was relaxing. That, as the Costa Ricans so often assert, was "pura vida".

Tamarindo is a paradise. A long beach, palm trees and pretty girls, white sand and a sure-thing spectacular sunset. Populated mostly with stoned surfers, the waves are certainly a thing of beauty. Like the last time I was on a beach in Mancora, Peru, I tried not to trouble myself too much - and succeeded. Reading the national newspaper and a daily run on the beach was all I needed to call it a productive day. Simply ingesting the amount of food I had at the hotel breakfast was enough of a chore - fresh tropical fruits and juices, just-baked bread, rice and beans and fried plantains, pastries and amazing coffee. After breakfast, digestion dominated the day's activity. My parents and I made big decisions like where to put down our towels or which gourmet restaurant to dine in. This was a great vacation.

We did venture out of Tamarindo for a day, felt like we should explore a bit - they have an adventurous streak just like me (perhaps I should say it the other way around), so we rented a car to head down the coast to see some beaches and maybe some sea turtles. At the outset, my mom felt that my dad's inability to even start the car was a bad omen. Sadly, we did not heed. After getting a crash course in the car's security key system, which may prevent even the car's rightful owner to start the engine, we managed to get on the bumpy road heading south. Almost spot-on covers of rarely-played american rock hits as a soundtrack, we rolled on down the coast, mom navigating the geography and dad trying to avoid the potholes. The scenery was incomparable; the region of Guancaste during the dry season is a desert of dusty roads and empty riverbeds. Boney cows with long floppy ears and barbed wire fences surrounding locals' meager gardens. We did find one wet spot, a low-lying part of the road which was covered in water, depth unclear. A conveniently passing land rover showed us that the passage was safe, so we did not have to ford the river, we did not lose three barrels of flour, and grandpa did not get yellow fever. Soon after, we decided to stop at a naitonal park and see if we couldn't check out some sea turtles laying their eggs. Parking the car near a ranger station, we found no sea turtles, but were surprised to come upon a severe puncture in one of our rear tires. High noon in guanacaste is a great time to change a tire, should you ever have the chance. Nothing like pumping a jack in 110 degree weather. I was prudent and reapplied sunscreen; my old man should have taken a hint - though it honestly wasn't as bad as it could have been. We managed to put on the spare and pump it up with the electric pump fortunately supplied by the ranger station, and decided that this was exactly what we left the relaxing paradise of Tamarindo for. We were satisfied with the day's events and could return to the Tamarindo for some well-deserved beers. That will teach us not to try and do something while on vacation!

Most nights, we ate, walked home along the beach with a waxing moon and a million stars and some crashing waves, and went to bed early. I often grabbed another drink with the hotel employees as they finished up or sneaked internet in the hotel lobby. One night I let the folks find their own way home and made friends with a couple of friendly spring breaking american college girls. While uneventful, I spent a few interesting hours with

Cat - too skinny to drink 3 caipereiños, she lied right down on the restaurant's bench seats and complained about an overbearing worried traveling companion (soo glad I have not had any of those) and her boyfriend's surfing obsession

Other girl - Hindi-speaking californian with actually interesting things to say and an antique Coach clutch, which I will admit was pretty classy looking. I'll also admit that until we discussed it my only association with the word clutch was the manual transmission kind.

30-something couple - invited to carrouse with us by the gregarious girls, the woman was a DC immigration lawyer, the man an entrepreneurial college dropout who had done quite well for himself. He was in divorce proceedings, but seemed downright relaxed and happy to be with his current girlfriend, as they both had property in the Tamarindo area. They did seem to be happy.

I felt glad during that interaction and during my entire stay in Tamarindo that I was not on spring break. That I was a traveler, that I was seeing real things and Living a Real Life out of the country.

My dad an I attempted to surf, my mom succeeded in tanning, and we all managed some reading. I finished Jimmy Carter's new book, and my folks read books I'd recommended to them - my dad The Life of Pi, and my mom the Master and the Margarita. Is it a sign of becoming an adult when your parents take your advice on literature? Is it a sign of being a kid when you go on vacation with your parents? I'm satisfied with an affirmative to both questions.

It was another sad goodbye when mom and dad headed to the airport after a week, leaving me alone again, naturally. We did it quickly. Love you, see you soon. Thanks for the beers. I'll getcha back someday...



No place to stay, and Easter week filling up every cheap hostal bed in Tamarindo, I wasn't worried. Things always work out. And they did. I managed to haggle one bunk for one night in a classy hostal close to town, and moved on nomad-like for the rest of the week. My first night was at Hostal Tamarindo, and though it had the most modern, clean, and spacious hostal kitchen I have ever used, I still had difficulty navigating the bustle of french and australian bikinis cooking chicken and pastwa while I prepared the cheapest meal possible: rice and beans and veggies. In the meantime, I befriended a couple of brits, a sexy californian of guatemalan descent, and a group of Illinois students "studying" abroad in Costa Rica. The atmosphere was festive, with tanned surfer dudes cracking open beers and constantly sounding more and more like Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. (Holy Spumoni!) Several rounds of drinking games later, I missed college only a little bit and was able to actually enjoy getting down to some Reggaeton at the Mambo Bar, Tamarindo's forum for locals to sell drugs and pick up drunken college students. It wasn't entirely a den of iniquity, but it sure isn't my idea of paradise. I headed home, cuddled with my backpack on the top bunk, and tried not to squeek the springs enough to wake up the unshaven aussie sleeping soundly below.

Next day, I moved on to a room in the Botella de Leche (bottle of milk) hostal, where I would stay for most of the next week, in various rooms or camping out in the yard. Everything in the hostal is cow-themed, the buildings painted white and black like a cow and the salt and pepper shakers sporting a bovine visage. Maria, the middle aged and matriarchal, brilliantly colored Argentinian owner, made me feel right at home from the moment I arrived, her hearty and gutteral smoker's laughs filling up the converted farmouse like the fresh air that flowed through always-open windows and french doors. Her staff of tattood argentinian twenty-somethings kept things loose, and the atmosphere was familiar and cheerful. The kitchen was also spacious, and I was happy. I shared food, drinks, and stories with a handful of international travelers at the Botella. Notable americans included Dana, a nurse from california on a month's surfing vacation; Hannah, an 18 year old world traveling floridian who graduated high school, volunteered in Kenya, and then found herself working at a Tamarindo sandwich shop and surfing every day - she left after a couple of days to go home and look at colleges; Carrie, a tan and friendly former Penn soccer player who was set up with a pretty sweet gig while trying to decide what to do with her life, working as a paralegal in paradise and surfing in her free time. A DC resident, we may cross paths again. I continually bumped into an amiable short chap from Quebec while cooking dinner, and found myself sharing a loveseat with a Swede for evening channel surfing. I felt guilty taking in a few minutes of American Idol.

No place to go and no room in the Botella, I pitched a tent in the yard and payed to use the kitchen, play guitar under the shade in the hammocks, and shower following sunset runs. I got pretty used to idleness, but it was difficult getting used to the prices - I'd say that Tamarindo was about 5 times as expensive as what I was used to in Peru, Ecuadorian prices somewhere between the two. The beach filled right up after my parents left, as it was Easter week and the entire country was on vacation. Ticos (thats what Costa Ricans call themselves) turned out in droves to populate the waves, enraging the local surfing population. With dry sand in short supply at high tide, the beach in front of town got crowded. A couple of hundred yards out of town, however, there was always ample room to relax on the beach. I continued with my lax routine and consumed a large portion of the monster jar of JIF crunchy my mom had brought from the US, as she had received my telepathic communications of crunchy cravings while in the PB aisle the day before leaving home.

Midnight on wednesday of easter week the country imposes a ban on alcohol sales, ostensibly to observe the religious holiday. In practice, this means a run on liquor wednesday evening, which inevitably leads to people buying too much booze and getting drunker than they would have were beer available for purchase on demand. It also means another reason to celebrate the resurrection on sunday, when the seals come off the beer fridges in the supermarkets. I myself bought a couple of big cans of Imperial, my favorite cheap Costa Rican brew with a fantastic eagle logo in black on a yellow and red can. I polished them off over the next couple of days, waiting for busses to begin running to San Jose, the country's capital, on saturday.

I packed up the tent and rucksack saturday morning and rushed to the bus, sadly leaving behind my peanut butter, which had been stolen or moved late the previous night, the likely culprit a hostal employee with the munchees. (I wasn't too upset, as this fellow, a Tico named Ali, had shared some booze with me the night before and given me a ride home from another unfortunate encounter with the Mambo bar...) I rode most of the 6 hour trip south to San Jose next to an early adolescent named Jose, and we discussed fishing and soccer to no end. A fine young man, who said I could date his apparently attractive older sister if I wanted, and gave me half a package of buttery cookies as he left the bus. I rolled into San Jose at dusk, paid only slightly more than I should have for a taxi cab to luxurious Hostal Pangea (pool and bar and free internet!), and began to investigate my new city.

A walk around Barrio Amón that evening led me to a sportsbar called "Sonnys" next to Hotel Hemingway, where I talked about Paolo Coelho with the security guard for twenty minutes before deciding to dine on the daily special "casado", a $2.50 plate of rice, beans, meat (I made the wrong choice with the lambchop), and veggies. If not for the food, I could have been in any bar in america. I sat on a barstool next to a white-bearded trucker-capped guy named Clyde who drank five beers while i had dinner, and the woman that served me my food had the bangs and demeanor of any podunk barbacker named Deloris or Charlene. She called me "mi amor", which i think would have been "honey" if she were american white trash. A nice filling dinner, and I walked home down steep paved hills, seeing clearly under the yellow streetlights that this would be an ideal place for me if I were in the mood for a transvestite prostitute. Lets just say there are some shady neighborhoods in Barrio Amón where I ought not to have been by myself after dark, it turns out. I later met some people who had been physically attacked on those same streets.

In all though, San José seemed a nice enough city. A few nice plazas and colonial buildings, but no major defining characterstics apart from extraordinary urban sprawl. I'd come in search of employment, hoping for a response as I'd blanketed the city's NGOs with my resume. I had a good feeling I would soon be calling San José my semi-permanent residence. (This the segue to a blog which might actually bring this train up to date.)