We are slowing inching our way up the steep, bumpy road several kilometers from home. I am admiring the flora when Pecos lurches to a stop as we round a sharp curve. There, in front of a ramshackle house, is an aged pickup with several men and a heap of pots and pans tossed in it. A teenager is walking down the road ahead of us, carrying a tall stack of assorted pots and pans tied together on top of his head. A peddler! Pecos is thrilled and leaps out to get a closer look. We had already bought a few pieces of cookware in the city, but I could use a tortilla press. Our enthusiastic peddlers pull out several sizes and I choose a medium sized one and return to our vehicle for colones to pay for it. First I caution Pecos to not to buy everything on the truck while I step away.
The edge of the road is loose and I fall in the ditch. The peddlers leap from their truck, rush over at top speed and pull me up. Pecos is halfway there but not nearly as nimble as these men who hammer out pots and pans and save women in distress.
As we drive away I admire my new flat pan. It has handles on the sides and is unlike any I’ve owned before. Several kilometers further, we are assailed by the peddlers’ truck. It comes up behind us and all of the men excitedly jump out. One of them runs over and hands me my glasses that had been on top of my head when I fell. I hadn’t realized they were gone but they would have been sorely missed. How were these little wire glasses seen in the thick undergrowth, anyway? I am very grateful.
My little tortilla pan works great for making tortillas and pita, and also for serving as a lid for my largest pot, one of two that I own in this country. Best of all, it also cooks a great top-of-the-burner pizza, too.
The Peddlers
Coffee Thoughts
Am I writing too much? It is truly a pleasure to sit in the sun, and then in the shade, and then back to the sun with my laptop. There is so much to say, and so much to learn. The writing goes fast. Readers can leave messages at the bottom of the blog page, yes?
Each day we tell each other that we feel less tense inside, less stressed, although Pecos says my pint jar of early morning coffee winds me up for the day. I have nightmares of responsibilities from the inn and of grant deadlines looming, only to wake thankfully to the scent of orange blossoms, warm temperatures and the rising calls of the birds. It is so peaceful and beautiful, and if my family and closest friends were here I would stay.
Adults of the village are busy with the coffee harvest. Each day about 3 p.m. men and women and sometimes older children walk along the roads, machete in hand and a large sack or two of fresh-picked coffee beans slung over their shoulders. Occasionally a horse or mule loaded with sacks heaped on a rough-hewn pack saddle will be led along the road with a rope.
In the past and perhaps still in a few areas, coffee and other crops were laden on to wooden-wheeled carts pulled along the dirt roads by long-horned oxen. These carts, colorfully painted and decorated on every inch in symmetrical designs reminiscent of Dutch Pennsylvania art, are considered the national symbol of Costa Rica and its rich agricultural traditions. There is a beautifully painted cart hanging inside a barn at the corrals down the road – easy to see, as the barns here have no walls. There is no need.
Harvesters walk to the coffee weigh stations, which are colorfully-painted, open wood-framed structures at each village and sometimes at places in between. Delivery-size trucks ply these mountain roads to pick up the sacks at these tiny stations, often built at the edge of a steep precipice. At the pulperia in Socorro we bought a half kilo of fresh roasted, ground coffee and two bottles of juice for $4 total.
The coffee trees have bright shiny leaves, reminiscent of holly without the prickly part, and they grow to 15-feet tall. The mountainsides of the Talamancas are patched with deep green groves of coffee trees on their slopes and in the agriculture-rich valleys below.
I consider how shortly after meeting us Melvin had asked if we would use chemicals on our little finca – we quickly said no, no in unison – and how his father, Pa-pa, had stood proudly at the top of his mountainside and swept his arm over his coffee groves, saying no chemico, no chemico. We are spending a few months this year, and in years to come, in the heart of organic coffee production for much of the world. Signs proclaim that this is organico, fair trade coffee country. I am honored to be here.
Furniture, No
Furniture, No
Miguel comes over and with his machete begins hacking away at a fair amount of undesired growth on the flowering bushes and tropical trees that have been deliberately planted on the lot where our house sits. His arms move scissors-style in a rapid blur, whooshing in the air. He swings his machete with swift strokes that trim all dead undergrowth and misshapen branches faster than any person with high-speed, electric hedge trimmer in the entire continental U.S. He quickly rounds the house, trimming trees, bushes and giant tropical plants in his path, then works his way down the driveway, hacking furiously away on the sides of the long, steep slope. Huge leaves and branches lie everywhere.
I hurry to fix him a cup of coffee before he finishes. Miguel, I say, it is necessito that we have some furniture. We have the table that Melvin made and two ugly plastic chairs and a bed. I would like something comfortable to sit on. Pecos would like a dresser as for some reason he thinks it would be more secure against insects (not that we’ve seen any in our clothes, thanks to shaking everything before wearing) than a tightly-zipped suitcase. Miguel rapid-fires a few sentences and directs us to San Rafael, two villages over in the direction we haven’t yet been.
After he leaves I scale the hillside to admire his trimming. A tall crimson amaryllis has sprung wildly near many bright peach and purple-flowering shrubs. Grasses sway overhead in the breeze with variegated leaves in cream, green and red. I am wearing a short skirt with my mid-calf soft leather boots.
Suddenly I’m stung or bitten! I’m on fire! Above my ankle, a ferocious chomp from who knows what! I’m hopping and yelling across the yard when Pecos yanks my boot off and shakes it out. Fire ants drop peacefully to the ground and I know that an especially evil one has looked up to give me a malicious smile. No hope for Buddhism here as I stomp them out.
We head out and enjoy incredible mountain-crest vistas along the winding way. When we finally get to the second village, so identified by us as the second collection of houses we’ve come to with a church nearby, we enter the sole business, a pulperia (little grocery). I tell the friendly proprietor that we are looking for mesas and chairs. I do my pantomime routine again. He is perplexed. I finally ask, is this not the place, is this not San Rafael? No, senora, this is Socorro – two churches, yes, but only one village further from Aguas Buenas.
He writes down a name on a scrap of paper, gives us directions to San Rafael, and tells us to go in the pulperia there and they will direct us to the furniture maker. This is good news as we are eager to find an old craftsman of rustica for our rental house and later our cabina. It takes us a good half hour to leave as we chat a while. This proprietor tells us that Socorro is home to many Ticos, but also several U.S. residents and Canadians. We can easily identify the homes of well-to-do gringos – tightly gated, bars on windows, no doors wide open and sometimes the entire yard fenced with tight spears of iron that curl outward.
At San Rafael we show the paper and are directed to the ‘casa alta’ (tall house) of the furniture maker. He has a huge smile and teeth sprouting in all different directions. We follow him up several steps to his home – there is another home underneath it – and walk past his living room and through his open-air kitchen to enter a large showroom on the hillside behind. There is flawless, varnished, masterfully-built furniture in wood of all shades. The prices are about one-third less than in the U.S. We debate buying a chest of drawers for $210 (mahogany?) or a short burnished pew for $100. Neither is a necessity.
We ask for furniture that is more rustica and perhaps less cost, something simplico? He takes us to his workshop next door and shows us bed frames, mirrored dressers and tables in progress. Pecos asks the cost of a wardrobe, unfinished, and the furniture craftsman seems shocked. Why would anyone want such a thing? He emphatically but politely tells us that he will sell a table in rustica condition, but never such a fine piece of furniture as the wardrobe. We tell him that we are grateful for his insight and will come back when we have a house of our own to hold such nice pieces. He reminds us of the festival in San Rafael in a few weeks, complete with bull fight, and we plan on it.
The Hardware Store
Pecos is making a walking stick and considering building some primitive furniture. I’m more concerned with having screens on our windows. While, like everyone else up and down these mountain roads, we keep windows and front and back doors wide open during the sunny days, when evening approaches we shut everything tight against mosquitoes and moths. We need a few basic tools as well.
We risk our lives against other vehicles and drive up and down the busy Pan-American Highway near San Isidro until we see what looks like a hardware store, or is it an auto parts store? It is the former. Like most of the other stores we’ve been in, this one has about 20 clerks per customer. Everyone is eager to help us. Pecos goes off to gather a bow saw, hammer, hooks, sandpaper, varnish – each time calculating the price by currency conversion and remaining unsure if the items cost a little or a lot.
A helpful clerk is waiting to help me. I point to the windows and demonstrate the wind blowing through. Ah, yes, screening, how do you say in Costa Rica? I am told the word but the rapidly-fired syllables fly past my head. How do you say in English, senora? Shreen, si? Close enough, I nod, thinking how good I’ve become at pantomime and how I can now take anyone in a game of charades. My friendly clerk takes me to a back wall where several types of screening hang on huge rolls like linoleum tubes back home. Apparently the mosquitoes come in several sizes here. I demonstrate again and he cuts to my estimated lengths.
I pantomime the need for wood lathe to nail and hold this screen on the wood window frames of our house. He takes me out back to a huge open-air lumber yard, where wood of all sizes is stacked neatly on shelving three stories tall. I point at the screening in my hand, demonstrate building a frame for it, and he immediately leaps up for a hand-hold and swings his body around. He wrenches his legs up and scales the high shelving.
From about 20 feet above and sometimes dangling by one hand he pulls out board after board – all too thick. I keep demonstrating smaller, smaller, por favor, and he swings dangerously on the wall pulling out one selection after another. None are lathe but after this effort I feel I must take the three thinnest that he’d found, about an inch square and 12 feet long and suitable for another project at some point. No problemo and he falls far to the ground and scrambles to his feet. He will bring the boards around to our vehicle.
It takes about 30 minutes for two clerks to painstakingly enter all of our purchases into the computer and then to give us a receipt. We carry the receipt to the caja, cashier’s station, up front and Pecos pays with his credit card. I head to the car with the purchases and Pecos goes back in to look at a drill. My clerk rushes up to the car with my three boards and tells me to wait. He goes back in the store and returns to the parking lot with a handsaw, then without measure or question promptly cuts my boards at random places so that they will fit inside the car. I thank him for this extra service.
Pecos returns and has already decided that my boards are unsuitable. He asks why I didn’t simply request aluminum framing cut to size, necessary tools for working with aluminum, and a spline to roll the screening in its track. I am seriously tempted to smack him.
On the way home he pulls into a commercial saw mill and talks somehow to the owner while I sit in the car and study my Spanish language book. He tours the lot and is given three pieces of good lathe for free. These are then cut by the mill owner to a precise measurement for us to carry home. Without asking I am certain that like many men elsewhere and despite the language barrier, these two aficionados of proper wood have bewailed the bungling attempts of inexperienced builders everywhere, particularly if they are women.
Amigos
Nearly every day that we are home we have company, at least for a little while. Often our landlord Miguel will visit for a few minutes with a friend or two of his. Yesterday I saw a tiny movement on the mountain slope across from ours, and a while later I heard hard breathing as at last his head appeared at the top of our slope at the edge of our yard. He seemed to think nothing of meandering over from the next mountain, stepping down its steep uneven side through tall grass, dense shrubs and trees, then crossing a knee-high rushing creek at the bottom. Next, he slowly stomps up a nearly vertical grade that requires hacking at times in overgrown places and finally crests near our house.
Like most days, Pecos offers Miguel a cold beer, yes, gracias, very much appreciated. We stand in the yard and admire his cattle or point at the clouds. We tell him again that we will have a fiesta when The Kid arrives. He smiles a lot and when the beer is finished he walks off.
Other local men or boys from the village sometimes find a reason to stop by, mostly from curiosity, it seems. Yesterday two men were walking up our driveway, whistling loudly. One of them carried a frayed rope. With a big smile he said he was looking for one of Miguel’s horses. Pecos offered them his last beer and a soft drink, happily accepted. This most cheerful one, Marcos, tells us he is a friend of The Kid’s, and that he also works with him and therefore there is the possibility that he too will help build our cabina. Finishing his drink, he walks to the edge of the pasture, gives a large whooping whistle a few times, turns and smiles at us again, then waves goodbye and they go back down our driveway as they came. No horse.
Bernardo, a kid about 11 years old, grins widely and waves heartily whenever he sees us pass the local pulperia (tiny grocery store) where he hangs out after school. He had come to our house with Melvin one time and Pecos had handed him an icy soft drink. His eyes bugged out and Melvin told him yes, it was truly for him. Pecos is the soft drink hero. We must stay well-stocked.
As I write on our sunny porch, a large grey dove lands near my feet. She studies me, walking here and there while turning her head from side to side. I had heard the doves coo-ing in the nearby forest.
The two yellow, red and black toucans who delighted me with their calls when we first arrived have decided to stay close, spending much of each day with two additional toucan friends. All four of them perch in the rounded tree just outside the yard. The four whistle loudly back and forth to each other much of the day, but when they fly off for a little venture they always leave in pairs. I wonder if toucans pair up at an early age and mate for life – or if, like us, they find their true love and best friend most unexpectedly later on and that is that.
Family Fiesta, True Tico Style
Melvin stops by on his motorcycle and asks if we’d like to go to la casa of his ma-ma’ and pa-pa’ to have dinner with the family. We say yes and he tells us to meet him at his house in 20 minutes, just enough time for us to quickly ready a salad and some chocolates.
We follow Melvin a little ways down the road and turn into a steep grassy lane we hadn’t noticed before. We hug the side of the steep slope, a wall of clay soil on one side and assorted tropical trees on the other, and soon come to a colorful house with children and adults spilling out of it. Ma-ma’ is a lovely woman, mother of seven adult children and 14 grandchildren. She wears a flowered apron over her flowered dress, hair pulled back, eyes bright, and has a warm, engaging personality that immediately includes a big hug and a kiss on my cheek. She is busy in her kitchen, surrounded by several of her daughters and granddaughters who bustle around preparing the rice, beans, assorted salads and boiled yucca roots. To get to this kitchen, we turn at the back wall of the house and step up into an extremely narrow tiled passageway about six feet in length. To the right is the entrance to the house where one steps up into the main kitchen and to the left is Ma-ma’’s outdoor kitchen. This is an open air room with a sink (colorfully tiled, of course) and a small wood cookstove smoking away. The sink extends out, going all the way through the exterior wall. I love it.
Next, Melvin hustles us back outside on a narrow path alongside the shed leaning behind the house. We step into a roofed corral that is partly sided, roofed in tin and connected to the shed, and there is Pa-pa’. Clearly master of the house and brood, with a long wooden paddle he is stirring a huge iron cauldron that rests on a stand over a roaring fire. Pa-pa’ has a well-worn face and a broad smile. He is high energy, dancing around his fire and wielding the paddle. He wears an alligator sports shirt, nylon shorts and a nautical cap and gives us a hearty welcome. His legs are skinny and he is barefoot. The cauldron is filled with huge hunks of meat that boil and turn in the oil. I recognize pieces of meat, bones and long strips of intestines as they simmer past the surface. It smells delicious. Hanging from a low rafter, not too far from our heads, are the entrails of some animal. I ask if we are having cow, la vaca? No. Sheep? Baaaa? Everyone laughs. No. Is it goat, I baaah again? No. Finally I say, porco? And yes, it is pork, although they have another name for it.
Someone brings us two plates loaded with rice, yucca roots and red beans. Pa-pa’ pulls out big pieces of pork with his paddle, pressing first on the inside of the kettle to drain the oil before dropping the meat on our plates. A bowl of cabbage salad is placed between us as we sit on a uneven heap of lumber and logs and attempt conversing with Pa-pa’ and the family members who come in and out. We are given pieces of oranges and acido, a citrus fruit somewhat like an orange and lime combination, to squeeze over our dinner. Everything is utterly divine. This is a feast beyond compare – the smoky pork, seasoned beans, fresh yucca, tangy salad, fresh citrus. Pecos is given a beer and I opt for water.
Pa-pa’ talks to us nonstop, not minding at all that we can barely keep up or understand. He demonstrates how he butchers and the best way to cook large quantities such as this. To keep the oil temperature constant, from time to time he has one of his sons help lift the heavy cauldron from its stand to rest briefly on the dirt floor before being returned to the fire. The relatives interrupt at times to ask us questions: do we like the meal, why do many Americans choose to be vegetarians (note: the fact that we do eat meat puts us in good stead with this family), how do we like the village, why did we choose Costa Rica.
Pa-pa’ shows us the expanse of his farm and pulls onions from his garden for us. He is pleased to hear that I have a large garden back home. This farm, one of two that they own, extends nearly a mile in breadth and is filled with coffee trees and many types kinds of fruit. The view of the valley far below is breathtaking. Ma-ma’ invites me in to visit with the women. Ma-ma’’s older sister and her husband have also come to dinner. Ages range from newborn baby to quite elderly. This home is simple yet bursting with love from these parents who so obviously enjoy having all of their children, grandchildren, extended family members and a few Americans come to the holiday Sunday dinner.
When the meat was all cooked, the men helped Pa-pa’ pull out every last piece from his cauldron. This remaining batch of about 30 pounds of cooked meat was then carried into the house in large pots and pans. Pa-pa’ then peeled fresh plantains and cut them lengthwise on a plank. He dropped them into the hot oil and we soon ate them on paper napkins – soft and steaming sweet inside and pork-crisp on the outside. This bright orange fruit, much like a cross between a sweet potato and a banana, is my favorite Central American food. We were regaled with a few stories of The Kid, who apparently has also enjoyed this warm hospitality. As we were leaving, Ma-ma’ pulled homemade tamales wrapped in large green leaves from the fridge and insisted that we bring home a bowlful. We had a wonderful time.
Las Sodas
Our favorite places to eat are the sodas. These small, open-air roadside cafes, usually located on the patio of a residence or shop, are run by Ticos or Ticas who can cook up a home-style storm. There are usually four or five tables for patrons. The food is authentic and oh, so delicious. Full meals typically cost $2-4 each, including beverage. For breakfast (desayuno) regardless of what one orders – whether eggs, accompanying meat, or cereals – a plate of gallo pinto accompanies the order. This dish of mildly flavored black beans mixed with rice is considered the national staple. I cannot imagine eating bland hash browns or toast again with my eggs. Eggs are bright orange in color, fresh from the chicken, and this fowl itself is mighty tasty. Breast meat is rich and juicy and compares in color to dark meat of mass-produced chickens in the U.S., and the dark meat is even more dark and flavorful.
We try the casado at each place. Literally meaning ‘married’, this dish is the standard fixed plate of each soda. Heaps of gallo pinto are surrounded with fried plantains, pickled cabbage, greens/tomato salad, spicy red beans and any of the following choices: sautéed or fried chicken, shredded beef or beef steak, pork on bones, fish filets or entire fish, plus tortillas. We eat slowly, usually visiting with the owner/cook and other patrons, and enjoy strong café with crema or black (negra).
The bathrooms at these roadside places are very primitive but clean. The toilet is in a room to itself; sometimes walls are open near the ceiling. The sinks are most often on an outside wall and shared by both bathrooms. There is soap but no towels. Even though we must dry our hands on our clothes, this seems more sanitary than having the sink near the toilet and then touching a potentially bacteria-laden door handle.
Pecos has become friendly with a barrel-bellied man who wears a white apron at his little soda and market stand at the base of our mountain. This proprietor stands at the ready over huge kettles of broth which hold the most delectable, often unrecognizable hunks of meat. He smiles as he sees Pecos coming and with long tongs fishes out a piece for us to taste. He recognizes a true fellow carnivore when he sees one. Putting the meat on a cutting board he hacks off a slice with his machete and hands it to us on a toothpick. Yes, we’ll have it, whatever it is, and please, senor, accompany with the yucca or plantains that you have simmering next to your kettles over there. Pecos is in heaven. Sometimes we stop and for a thousand colones ($2) purchase a plate to take with us – enough to share for dinner and leftovers to flavor our own pinto gallo that we make at home.
We also enjoy eating at this place. We sit at an old wooden table with a colorful tablecloth. Squashes, gourds and fruits hang overhead. Palm fronds shade us. Like the other sodas, this one too has a canning jar of assorted pickled vegetables sitting on the table for patrons’ use. Some of the other customers are given plates of food and a toothpick for dining, but without asking we are given a fork and knife with our meals. I ask the proprietor’s wife for an extra fork so that I can pull out some pickled cauliflower and onions from the jar. She smiles, si, si, and takes a used fork from another table, quickly rinses it under water at the sink (presumably cold water), wipes it with a clean cloth and brings it to me with a smile. I assume that since we’ve eaten at several sodas that by now we must have built up resistance to at least some germs. I think of my friendly health inspector for the inn back in Oregon and wonder what he would think of this type of open air, most hospitable, yet casual dining experience. I fear that he knows too much and would not survive.
Birds Watching
Roosters crow in the distance while it’s still dark. Each day we rise early in the morning, just before daylight to watch the sun rise over the far-off mountains. The weather has changed dramatically in the past several days. No more torrential downpours. Our mosquito bites are few and far between. The air seems clearer and the clouds that drift in on us in the late afternoons bring only cool breezes and no more rain. As the day breaks the sun shoots long colorful streaks as back-lights behind the clouds that rest on the mountains. The Talamanca range is tinted pale pink, then soft tangerine then the streaks of orange as the sun rises higher. When the sun finally blazes over the rugged horizon the far-away mountains return to their normal shades of dark blue.
Pecos and I bring our chairs to the front porch and sip coffee. Our camera and wildlife book is ever ready. Pecos comments that never, ever in his former wild-living New York days did he ever consider being interested in birds - let alone becoming an active bird-watcher. He seems slightly embarrassed but says it is cool.
Birds had been pecking at the huge bunch of bananas hanging from our front porch. We covered the bunch with a bag. Pecos took a few bananas, peeled them down and placed them on a high horizontal post in front of the porch. Rainbows of birds sweep in to peck at the fruit and dance and jump along the post as they wait their turns. We’ve identified yellow-streaked warblers, purple hummingbirds, orange Baltimore orioles and tanagers in every popsicle color imaginable. These birds let us come close and Pecos hatches a plan to eventually feed the tanagers from his hand. A huge white heron sits like an ornament at the very top of a rounded tree on the pasture hillside nearby and observes our antics. A pitch-black squirrel with a huge bushy tail peers at us from a branch. Chicken-like brown guans run on the ground at the edge of the forest. We look at the birds and are studied in return.
Christmas
Christmas in Costa Rica seems pretty much like any other day, except that many Ticos head to the beaches with their families for overnight camping or an all day picnic. Decorations are simple with the most elaborate being fake Christmas trees decorated with tinsel garlands, ribbons or balls and an occasional string of colored lights. Most of the homes put their tree on the front porch next to the front door. Occasionally a home will also have a string of tinsel in the window. Stores, streets and parks in San Isidro are not decorated and we didn’t see any Christmas lights downtown. San Jose had decorations in the largest park along Avenida Central. Despite being an overwhelmingly Catholic nation, we also saw few nativity scenes. We are told the main holiday is Easter.
The radio station that we like – and the only one that we can get that’s in English – plays rock and roll from the 1960s and ‘70s, mostly by obscure artists with an occasional Rolling Stones song thrown in to keep us listening. For the past week this station has also played a Christmas song over and over and over. Incessantly, as in every other song. This song is in Spanish, sung by chipmunks or some other type of rodent, and is set to a tune that we’re not familiar with but we do recognize the words Feliz Navidad – heard over and over and over. Christmas doesn’t feel like Christmas. I’m glad that we celebrated with everyone at Thanksgiving, especially as all of my children and Pecos’s son and their families were present.
Because it has finally stopped raining, we decide to head to the beach. As we’re getting ready our landlord Miguel comes over. We hadn’t met him before. We tell him we like music and he sashays around our (his) living room. He tells us he has 20 cows, two horses and no wife. We immediately like him.
The highway off the mountain to San Isidro has plenty of traffic for it being Christmas Eve. I’d thought that everyone would be home visiting or in church. We left the city and headed straight west to Dominical, famed Pacific surfing town of gringos and gringas. On the way we stopped at a well-known reptile park where we viewed assorted poisonous lizards and snakes – an unnerving experience that we thought necessary in case of encounter. On to Dominical. We found this dirt-laned seaside town crowded as ever with bronzed, buff Americans and Canadians who wear very little and who carry big surfboards. Driving on south, we came to Uvita, seaside village not yet overrun with touristas.
The internet café at Uvita that I knew about was closed for the holiday! Oh, no! I was devastated as I’d planned to send email messages to my kids and mom. I had written them at home and put them on my jump-drive so that I wouldn’t have to worry about leaving my laptop on the beach or in a hotel. How could Christmas go by without greetings to my family?
We saw a house with nice looking cabinas alongside it – and a sign that said wi-fi! An immaculate room with private bath and air conditioning was available for $18. No hot water we learned later (and forgot to ask), but that seems to be a luxury that is not available everywhere. The temperatures are so consistently warm that a hot shower is not a necessity. I asked the owner if he had a computer for public use. When he said no, I must have looked pitiful as he quickly said I could use the one belonging to his grand-daughter. He set me up at her desk in her bedroom and left. I felt funny sitting at her desk surrounded by stuffed animals and other toys.
When I turned on the computer – disaster! The screen was sideways and I didn’t know how to put it upright. Everything was in Spanish, including the keyboard. It took me a good while to translate the instructions by hit and miss at the 90-degree angle and to upload the messages. The ‘@’ symbol was hiding and it took forever to figure out what key to hit to make it come up. I typed hurriedly and sent everything off. Meanwhile, the living room had filled up with guests who came to visit my hosts. When I stepped out, all of the noisy chatter stopped and everyone stared at me. I mumbled my thanks to my hostess. Our host was lying flat on his back on the colorful tiled floor of his patio out front, reading a newspaper. The place was so clean and pleasant, just a short distance from the beach. We will stay there again.
From my children’s family farm, you can look down a distance of about five miles to the Pacific. A sandy peninsula extends out from Uvita. It is called The Whale’s Tale due to its shape and serves as the northern area for Playa Bellana National Park, an incredibly beautiful protected area extending from Uvita to 15 kilometers south. There were about 25 other people at our mile-long beach cove who were having family picnics. Pecos alternately waded in the water and visited with locals while I alternately swam and got tossed up on the sandy shore by the pounding waves. We could see surfers far to the north. The water was clear and tinged with streaks of azure and turquoise as the waves crested high. Pelicans dove in the waves for fish. Coconut palms provided shade. We met a world-traveling couple from Holland who own a hotel in France and we exchanged contact information. This is their second trip to Costa Rica and they plan a yearly escape and eventual land purchase here, too. They will visit us in Oregon.
The Bites
We have developed leprosy of the arms. The many red spots that itch like hell are mosquito bites, according to people in the village who look at us in amazement. We are extra tasty to the mosquitoes, a flavor they hadn’t had in a while. We’d been wearing jeans and t-shirts or short-sleeved tops. I counted the bites on Pecos’s left arm from just above his elbow to wrist and when I got to sixty-eight he looked so stricken that I stopped. He favors going in the farmacias in San Isidro, where he talks to the pharmacists as if they are old friends. His language barrier is forgotten as he shows them his arm and looks pitiful. They look at him strangely and I regret telling Pecos that pharmacists are able to provide a diagnosis and prescribe medicine in Costa Rica. He goes from pharmacy to pharmacy to hear the same – that these are simply mosquito bites, not anything fatal.
He buys medicinal creams and applies them liberally to his arms. I tried to suffer in silence with my own bites, but acquiesced and used some antiseptic creams from his new collection. They help a little, but these bites are wicked. They are large and hard and red and itch for hours – at all hours. They form blistery clusters that raise long strands of mosquito-bite welts. We put on long sleeves, but that was too late as we were already bitten.
Pecos tells me that he will try to stick it out, but is unsure if he can if the bites continue for the duration of our three-month stay. The mosquitoes are so tiny that they are nearly impossible to see. They are silent, stealthy attackers. Then he tells me that he will come back every year, but not until the rainy season is over. I try to imagine being here without him. I could do it in dry weather but am undecided about doing so in the heavy rain.
Finally the rain subsides and everything is bright and sunny once again. On the morning of Christmas Eve we drive the long way to the beach, nearly a two hour trip since the roads going straight down the mountain’s steep sides are impassable from the rain. A family of friendly Ticos gives him a beer while I swim. They admire his mosquito bites, clap him on the shoulder while laughing, and tell him that in a week or two there will be no more rain and no more mosquitoes. Pecos is elated to hear this good forecast. He loves it here. He will stay.
What Water?
For several days before Christmas, it rained. It rained and it rained, as much as 30 hours straight before taking a four-hour break and starting again. Dark clouds floated alongside our mountaintop and brought a soft mist that turned to a gentle rain and then an outright downpour. The amount of water was mind-blowing, especially in comparison to that in Fossil where it rains an average of 11” per year.
The rainy season in Costa Rica extends from mid-May through mid-December. Rainfall totals can exceed 19 feet. We have come early, ahead of the many tourist gringos who flock to the coastal areas far below our mountain range. Since our arrival, it had rained lightly for an hour or two at most in the late afternoon and not necessarily every day. This new stretch of wet weather was unlike any precipitation either of us had seen before.
The rain continued without a break or even a slow-down. Our muddy road became bright orange clay with a mud-sucking glossy surface that was nearly impassable on foot and fully impossible by vehicle. I put on my blue rain slicker with its hat tied tight and went for a walk in the pouring rain. At the edges of the road there were deep, narrow gullies of swift-moving orange water. I used my machete to break the miniature dams that were building from stones carried by the fast-moving currents.
Down by the sloping concrete bridge near the village, the creek’s bouncing waters had receded to just a few inches below the surface of the bridge. Leaves and sticks hung like assorted laundry from a nearby strand of barbed wire that hung over the creek, showing that the rushing waters had risen several inches over the bridge during the night. As I headed back up the hill, the rain was nearly blinding. My jeans were saturated below the raincoat. Rivers of rain fell from my sleeves. I was glad to have my tall rubber boots. An old, old man came walking along, wearing a clean short-sleeved white shirt, baggy pants and tall boots. He carried a raggedy umbrella with a large hole in the top center, where the rain poured in and ran down the sides of his head as we chatted for a few minutes. “Mucho agua!” I told him. He looked around and seemed surprised, unsure of what water I was talking about. Yes, the rain, I signaled. It seemed to be a lot, at least to me.
La Mesa
Today is sunny and Taller, a local villager, has come on his motorcycle to help Pecos build a table (mesa). We are using an old bark-covered slice of tree from a pile kept under a tarp in the jungle patch near our rental house. The planks belong to The Kid, who surely won’t mind.
Taller is the Tico caretaker for the family farm. Yesterday he spent the entire day with us and we hiked our little finca and also the family farm belonging to my three children and their spouses. Amazing. Our finca is situated in a wide, sloping bowl that faces southeast to beautiful vistas. In the distance is the great Mt. Chirripo. Taller has agreed to be our caretaker, too, telling us he will work for us on Tuesdays. Already he has planted rows of pinas (pineapple), bananas and other frutas on our farm. We hike through chest-high grass (to be mowed this coming Tuesday, Taller tells us) and select a site for our little house. We admire every metre of the property and imagine our gardens, orchards and flowers.
At the family farm Taller patiently walks us through groves of fruit trees, telling us about each one. Our Spanish improves by the minute – which, at this point, means we can understand one word out of thirty. We converse using much sign language. Taller tells us a story of going to Toronto, Canada for his honeymoon six years ago. He and his bride were handcuffed, held in jail for three days by immigration officials, and then deported back to Costa Rica. We lament the actions of immigration officials everywhere and discuss the plights of Nicos (Nicaraguans) coming into this country and Mexicans coming into the U.S.
Past the fruit groves we enter the dense jungle, following Taller on a narrow path as he points out various trees, shrubs and vines – including the sacred Costa Rican mountain palmetto, whose huge fronds are used in catholic churches from North to South America, he tells us. Costa Ricans would never cut a mountain palmetto.
We follow a path that turns into steep mud steps, carefully cut into the mountainside by machete at what seems nearly vertical. Down, down we go, hiking more than either of us has done in years or possibly decades. Finally we come to a magnificent waterfall that plunges straight down to another waterfall below and then continues its whitewater fall down the mountainside. We stand on slippery rocks, clutching to thin vines for dear life. Taller explains in sign language that The Kid had once moved mucho rocks here to make a swimming hole on the landing between the waterfalls. He demonstrates how The Kid runs off the rocks, grabs his ankles and leaps through the air to land in the pool of icy, rushing water. I am certain that this story has been told over and over in this village and beyond. The Kid is fearless and strung with high energy.
Taller and Pecos haul the two planks from the jungle and lay them on our grassy lawn. Then they leave in our rental vehicle to go to the home of another man to borrow a chain saw. They return shortly and Taller has me show him the desired size of the table. He cuts three equal lengths from the slab of wood with the chain saw and then turns each over to cut a striped series of half-inch cuts on the back side, top to bottom. Pecos is then directed to use the machete to hack out each cut. This is rather worrisome as Pecos is more of the city gringo type than the village macho type. Valiant once again, he leans each shortened plank against a small tree and hacks away.
As Pecos finishes each one, Taller uses his own machete to cut away the bark from the edges and stays busy running a hand belt-sander over and over each plank, smoothing it down to lumberyard perfection with smooth edges. He took another smaller plank and cut it into two equal lengths and then crosswise to make four legs for the legs and two side braces. Using his machete again with the blade against the wood and a hammer striking the blade, he meticulously spliced and fit all parts of the table together and nailed it tight. Scraps of slab wood were cut to size, trimmed machete-style, and then sanded to make side edges for the tabletop, finishing it off nicely. We were impressed. The table is heavy and we think it is built from ironwood. The legs resemble red oak.
Pecos worked alongside Taller for quite a while, but clearly Taller was the mastermind of Tico furniture-building, crafting this attractive kitchen-size table to perfection without modern tools or measure. While here, he also used a weed-eater on the entire lawn. Total cost for the day: $16 US. I will always treasure my Costa Rican mesa. Best of all, Pecos now knows how to build furniture Tico-style and we need a houseful.
Bugs and Birds
One of the many things that Pecos and I have in common is that we are both terrified of spiders. Bugs, too, are not favored. Back in Oregon, it was rather hilarious to watch Pecos jump into a frenzy at the sight of a bug in his house. I would watch as he panicked while trying to figure out how to get rid of it. Pecos is also a pacifist. Much as he despises having insects in his house, he also respects them and would try each time to get them outside, alive.
Here in Costa Rica, he is a changed man. For the first few days in our rental house he courageously killed large spiders and chased a few flying cockroaches that thought this place still belonged to them. The house had been empty for nearly a year. Huge moths attack our porch light in the evenings. Wasps guard the porch in the day time. Ants file up and down the exterior walls. After just a few days of cleaning and maintaining bare floors, very few insects venture in. Like most of our neighbors, we have our front and back doors open during the day. Pecos is ever vigilant, keeping the broom handy for any curious beetles or other creepy-crawlies. I am grateful. Our bed is away from the wall. Because we have no dressers, we keep our clothes in tightly zipped suitcases. We shake out our shoes before putting them on. Foods are kept in plastic containers. Plastic bins hold assorted household items. Not one cup or dish is allowed to stay dirty in the sink. Not one crumb hits this floor. We can scan each entire room in a glance to assure that no monster-size insect is waiting for us. I like this bare-bones living. It is comforting, offering a homey calm far different than the clutter of antiques that make up the inn’s ambiance in Oregon.
Because Costa Rica is so close to the equator, daylight extends from approximately 5:15 a.m. until 6:30 p.m., year round. We wake before daylight, called to the day by the howler monkeys in the distance who call out in baritone cries to each other in the jungle trees above the Pacific. Their cries announce the dawn and the dusk. A cacophony of birdsong starts softly and then rises to a surprisingly high crescendo as the day breaks.
On our first morning here, I ran outside as the sun was coming up. Several hump-backed, long-horned cattle chomped at grass just over the thin strand of barbed wire that separates our little yard from their large pasture. Surrounding them, on the ground and perched on their backs, were a dozen white egrets! The birds flew up in a great flock, wings flapping loudly, to land on a nearby tree where they could keep an eye on me. Just then, a pterodactyl-sized black bird with long tail feathers, wide wingspan and crested jewel-baubles on top of its head swooped down toward the egrets’ tree and chased them away to the circular patch of jungle above our driveway. Soon the egrets returned and the scene was repeated twice more for my benefit. Finally the cattle egrets settled in a distant tree, bright white against the dark green mountainside, and the large bird moved on.
A loud but pleasant screeching soon came from the trees down the road – animal? bird? – and was answered with an identical call from the jungle patch. They trilled to each other for at least 10 minutes and then suddenly their calls stopped and a toucan flew from the tree to meet the other, then together the two brilliantly-beaked birds flew low, right over my head. Seeing a toucan in the wild is thrilling!
Homeward
To get to our village, one must leave the blacktop highway several kilometers south of San Isidro and begin a long climb upward. This is the end of the five-month rainy season and 4-wheel drive is a necessity. Narrow muddy roads wind along the crests of the mountains, with nearly vertical slopes often falling away on either side. The views are spectacular – blue-tinged distant mountains, slopes alternating between with lush hardwood and jungle forests, coffee plantations tiered on the hillsides, open pastures and swift-moving clouds below us. We pass village after village, each with its cluster of small homes, church, school and pulperia (small grocery). Everyone waves or calls out a hello – the formal buenas dias or informal hola! We follow a hand-drawn map The Kid has given us. It seems vague and we hesitate at turn-offs that look impossible to follow, from blacktop to gravel to muddy lanes, but carry on as noted and pass village after village.
It is late morning when we enter the pulperia and meet the store owner’s wife, who is very friendly. She gives us the keys to our rental house and we turn on an even narrower camino next to the store, wind past a hodgepodge of corrals, uphill on a muddy path that is really a road for about a quarter mile and then finally up a steep gated drive to the house. We’ve been sharing the rent ($70 US) with The Kid for several months so that we’ll have a place to stay while we build a cabin on our finca. He uses the storage room to hold his belongings while in the US during the rainy season. We passed the house on the road when visiting here last year, but had not been inside. The rental house is about a half mile from our little farm and a mile from the family farm belonging to The Kid and my two oldest daughters and their husbands.
The house is similar in size and style to the many homes we passed on our way to the village – a simple concrete structure with a living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and porch. A storage room is situated off the porch. It takes us an hour to get the door unlocked as the lock spins with the key.
It seems as if the rental was started, but never finished. Stucco/wood exterior, tin roof, concrete floors, interior stucco walls partly covered with gray paneling, wood plank doors. The kitchen consists of a sink and two narrow shelves at one end and a tiled laundry sink at the other. The bathroom has a toilet and concrete shower stall with a metal pipe. Bare light bulbs serve as ceiling fixtures. There is no hot water, but there is louvered glass in the windows – unlike some of the homes we’d passed that had only screens or nothing at all.
We unloaded quickly and drove back to San Isidro, at least an hour away. First stop, following The Kid’s map, was to the Bogeda de Plastico, or market of plastics. You cannot buy plastic bags, food containers, etc at the supermercado (supermarket). The store was extremely crowded and noisy with shoppers, clearly the most happening business off the city square. Shelves held all kinds of house wares. An eager clerk followed us around and held basket after basket for us, taking each one to the long counter in the rear where several clerks wrapped every item in newspaper. A wall of shelves held plastic and paper bags, each size carefully priced. We bought cups, glasses, plates, a few pots and pans, laundry basket, food containers, bowls, mop, broom, clothesline, and two chairs (plastico, of course). After everything was tallied, our friendly clerk carried everything up front for us to pay the cashier, who sat behind glass. Then our clerk loaded our heaviest bag on his shoulder and cheerfully insisted on carrying it six blocks to our vehicle.
Next stop was to leave our dirty laundry at the lavanderia. I tried to explain about the garlic odor, mentioning the airport and that something had happened to our ropas (clothes). Charged at the rate of 1,000 colones per kilo (a little less than $2 per pound), laundry is washed, dried, folded and pressed within two hours. I quickly memorized the location of this precious place.
We bought a complete bed and two pillows at the furniture store. I wanted a futon for double duty but none could accommodate Peco’s length and he seemed insistent that his feet not hang over the bed. There are no separate mattresses and box springs; everything is in one piece. The furniture salesman and another employee spent nearly an hour tying the bed on top of our vehicle, a half block away from the store. Furniture costs about half, maybe even less, than in the U.S.
Appliances, however, are another story. We could not find a full stove with oven at the furniture stores and were told that most homes don’t have ovens. Not a problem; we can make pita on a hot plate. The two-burners at the furniture stores averaged $100 US. We went directly to the propane dealer and bought a new two-burner for equivalent of $50. Propane would be available in the village. Refrigeradoras are exorbitant. A vehicle refrigerator, the size of a cooler, costs $160 US, and three-quarter size ones $500. In a weak moment we considered having just a cooler, but a small one would cost $50. Asking around, we were directed to an electronics store that carried both new and used goods. Apparently the place was also the busy center for a loan shark who operated out of a desk in the rear. There was a new 4-ft. stainless fridge with a scratch on it for $200. I demonstrated to the clerk that it had a three-prong outlet and that our house has two. I couldn’t imagine giving up the plug converter that is attached to my laptop. No problemo, senora. He took money out of the register and ran up the street to buy a plug for us.
Before coming to Costa Rica we had agreed to never come home after dark, due to the treacherous roads. Here it was, our first full day of shopping and we came home in the dark. What a pleasant surprise to find broadly-spaced 1950s-era street lights at the villages and in several places in between. People walked along the dirt roads or plodded along on horseback. They visited outside on porches and called out quiet greetings or waved. The stars were incredibly bright, white spirit clouds drifted over dark mountain slopes below, and insects and birds twittered loudly. Occasional floral fragrances added to the forest and jungle scents. For once Pecos managed to drive up steep grades without stalling out or burning the clutch. It was a most pleasant ride home.
Passages
We stayed two nights in San Jose, explored a neighborhood and met a few interesting characters. A restaurant owner from Venice, Italy lamented his inability to find anyone capable of making decent pizza crust and offered me a job as manager (and presumably, crust maker) starting the next day. We also wandered down a gravel lane to discover a lushly planted Persian courtyard with replica mosque, reflecting pool, houka lounge, and authentic Iranian food and music. The owner told us he was from Persia (interesting introduction, since the country has been known as Iran since 1935). He bragged that he won awards as best gown designer in North America in the 1990s, took his fortune, and built his own paradise in Costa Rica. He designed the furniture for his place – twisted driftwood and wrought iron tables, chairs, stools, bars – including huge tables built of driftwood tree trunks with rings dating 1,800 years (he said), where one dines between the roots. Overhead, moss hung in long sheets from giant banyan trees. Every available surface was painted with Persian murals or motifs - a heady mix of cultures, for sure.
We became lost, so incredibly lost, leaving San Jose for our village four hours away. We weren’t able to leave until mid-day as it took hours to find another rental car at a reasonable price, after learning that the cost on our original reservation would not be honored. Finally we were on our way. Our directions were to follow the main highway into the heart of the city, then travel down Avenida Central, the main avenue that crosses San Jose east-west. We would follow the avenue heading toward Cartago, about 20 kilometers east of the city, where we would then head south on the Pan-American Highway.
Ticos drive with wild abandon. Motorcyclists weave in and out of traffic, between lanes and often coming in sideways. Very few drivers signal. Trucks and buses change lanes at will, regardless if a vehicle (like ours) happens to be next to them or if they run off the highway and back on again. All of this at high speed with horns blaring, drivers yelling, brakes screeching, and an occasional pedestrian trying to run across. Somehow we found Avenida Central (thanks to my guidebook, which noted the busy street by its huge park and hospital). Driving on city streets is as treacherous as on the highway, with the added features of disregarded traffic lights, narrow streets, fearless pedestrians and up-close wild-eyed drivers. Street signs are a rarity, and one should not depend on their accuracy. I read that San Jose did not name or mark the streets until the mid-1990s – and when signs were placed, city workers often put them up at will, not always in the correct locations. No problema for us, as we never saw one street sign anyway.
Avenida Central vanished. We were headed in the wrong direction, according to the sun. Much later we found the highway east toward Cartago (not marked either). This was after Pecos and I had a major breakdown in communication in that he could not understand that when I said go around, go around, that it meant to enter a busy round-about at six o’clock and leave at 12. We circled several round-abouts at all hours on the clock and each time as the busy traffic came at us at all angles, it became more confusing as to which way we’d entered and which way to leave.
The Pan-American Highway is mis-named. It should read instead as a snaky two-lane, no-shoulder blacktop road with huge potholes and with edges crumbling away over the hillsides. Highway 19 to Fossil would compare as a super highway, perhaps an interstate – perhaps an inter-continental route, much as the Pan-American claims to be. Hairpin curves, crazed drivers hauling all kinds of produce and products, and motorcyclists and bicyclists weaving in and out. A sudden slow-down ahead of us, then the traffic stopped. Trucks, cars, motorcycles, even buses hauling crowds of passengers left the pavement to drive on the grassy slopes to get around. It was an accident, a fatality, a mangled bicycle and crushed vehicle. People came pouring out of houses and buildings to stand and watch la policia and medical personnel. We were shaken. About five miles down the highway we came to an open roadside chapel, where we stopped to send a prayer to the victim.
The P-A Highway rises steeply from San Jose as it winds upward into the Talamanca Mountains, crossing the summit at 3,491 meters (approximately 9,000 ft.) before descending through the clouds to the valley where the agricultural city of San Isidro de El General is located. This is called The Mountain of Death, so named due to the many traffic accidents that occur there. We took it slowly, noting that besides the lack of guard rails along the steep cliffs and the fathoms-deep potholes that the highway itself was eroded underneath in a few spots, thus reduced to one lane. These were marked with a few orange cones. Apparently whoever speeds into the good lane first can have it and oncoming vehicles must swerve to a stop. Many drivers passed us on blind curves. We drove through patches of dense fog and past mixed hardwood and cloud forests. An occasional house clung to the edges of the highway with steep slope underneath. The air was cool. When the clouds and forest broke, the views of the valleys far below were stunning.
We arrived in San Isidro as it was getting dark. No chance of finding our way to the village in the dark, so we took a room at a downtown hotel – the best in the city, according to the guidebook. Rather run-down, it should have cost less than the Costa Rica rate of $28 US for a deluxe room w/ private bathroom and the option of hot water. We slept on top of the bed. The hotel is situated at one side of the huge city square, which is anchored at one end by a towering cathedral and edged with busy shops. Attractive patios, benches, gazebo and tropical plantings fill the square, which is much used by persons of all ages for social gathering. Cars and motorcycles circle the square endlessly, including an aged pick-up truck with blaring loudspeakers on top. Three or four Ticos wedged up front give a non-stop staccato advertising message, over and over and over. Our quiet village would have to wait until daylight and then we would be on our way.
Shifting Sands of Arrival
Rather than the eight hours, including two-hour lay-over, that it should have taken us to get to the Juan Santamaria international airport in Costa Rica, it took us nearly 36 hours to arrive due to mechanical breakdown of our plane (lost hydraulic fluid just before take-off, needed for steering), unexpected re-routing to Dallas and Miami, and delays at every turn. We did arrive in CR in style, though, since we were both bumped to first class on the last two flights.
What a coincidence to find Dorothy, a member of our little writing group in Fossil/Condon, on our first flight as we attempted to leave Portland. She was heading to New York, via Dallas.
And most fortuitously, we also ran into the author of the Moon Handbook travel guides for Oregon and the Columbia Gorge - who shared flights, layovers and much conversation with us all the way to Costa Rica.[Love that handbook, which gave my inn a great review and called me ‘an inspired cook’.] Stuart also wrote Moon’s early editions on Costa Rica and is currently employed as a travel guide in the country. What luck for us to catch up with him on mutual acquaintances and to get good travel and cultural tips from someone who knows the country so well. He plans to meet up with us again at Aguas Buenas for a visit and possibly the national CR blues festival in February.
Notes:
• Chaos, commotion and much jostling and shouting as we worked our way through the crowds at the airport to collect our baggage. Balmy temperatures, bright sunshine and the scent of flowers (mixed with diesel). We’d finally arrived!
• Unfortunately, three of our four checked bags had vanished. Pecos noticed that another of our bags had been removed from the conveyor by someone, and he was able to retrieve it. We left information at the claims office and while I sailed through Customs without remembering to show the necessary paperwork or being stopped, Pecos followed correct protocol.
• Stepping outside, our hotel shuttle driver was waiting, holding a sign for identification. A nimble Tico jumped between us to grab one of our pieces of luggage and he carried it to the nearby van while the driver and Pecos carried the rest. Pecos tipped the helpful one $1. Not good enough. What a tirade followed – helper was shouting, driver was shouting back, Pecos and I were stunned as the driver kept prying the man’s arms off the van as we tried to leave and the man kept leaping back, trying to grab the steering wheel through the window. The helper was shouting “Dos [two] dollar! Dos dollar!” and the driver was yelling something to him that I think meant we were gringos, what did you expect? And then with a mighty shove, we were off. I looked back and our helper was already grabbing a suitcase from a surprised-looking woman. Feeling guilty and stupid, we tipped the driver $5 when we arrived at our hotel near the airport.
• Too tired to eat dinner, we decided to get bread and fruit at a nearby market. Much of the produce was unrecognizable to us. A young, pregnant mother with a two-year-old in tow stood ahead of us in line and purchased a small bag of cornmeal and one diaper. We needed toothpaste; no one spoke English so I demonstrated brushing. A girl of about 12, clearly a market employee, brought me a small box. At first I thought it held a can of anchovies – like at Trader Joe’s – but it was toothpaste. Yes, ‘anticaries’ reads as ‘anchovies’ when one is exhausted.
• Pecos saved my life, more or less, when I nearly fell into a four-square-foot open sewer hole on the walk back from the market.
• Today, after a good night’s sleep and a breakfast of fresh eggs con pintos (with beans), orange/carrot juice, breads and an array of sweet fruits, we checked on line and found that our luggage had arrived. Thank goodness, although I was already thinking we could get by with what we did have, if necessary. We took a cab and had to wait a long time outside the airport near policio wearing bullet-proof vests and carrying guns, and then were escorted in to Baggage. Much paperwork involved, then another cab back to the hotel.
• Most people do not travel with white powder in their luggage. Not Pecos. While packing kitchen items, he tossed unopened jars of spices into one of our canvas duffle bags. Customs agents must have had a field day tearing through that bag as everything was in upheaval and the plastic lining was sliced into shreds. The large jar was half empty and garlic powder had sifted through everything and coated the contents – clothing, boots, opened CDs and DVDs, batteries, silverware, towels, hats, etc. We shook everything out in the courtyard, but the odor has permeated everything.
• We took another cab back to the airport to catch a bus to San Jose, 20 miles away. After a high speed, harrowing, turn-on-two-wheels, knock-you-around ride, we successfully found the administrative offices for Association of Residents of Costa Rica, where we joined as members of this service organization for ex-pats, mostly from U.S. and Canada. We received much information on ARCR health insurance plans, pensionado resident status for Pecos, and shipping/mail services. Staff was surprised that we own property and could bypass much of the basic information on culture and tourism. We were cool. Apparently, most of the other people there had stumbled in not knowing anything at all about Costa Rica.
• On the other hand, none of them reeked of garlic.
Last Minute Flurry
Yes, a flurry - much like the dreaded snowfall we had last night, which was something I'd hoped not to see before our departure for Central America. We leave in a few days for Seattle to drop off the dog, and then back to Portland for our flight on Dec 13.
Still much packing to do - not just personal items but also things we need for the Costa Rican home and a huge stack of files so that I can continue working from there. Work clothes for the farm, beachwear for the coast, shoes, sandals, towels, blankets, cosmetics, papers, files, books, kitchen utensils etc are stacked everywhere - along with some things I never thought I'd be the owner of, such as field guides to insects, a mosquito net (just in case), knee-high rubber boots, and the antique bowie knife that my sweetie, "Pecos Bill", gave me for my birthday (I'd actually asked for this thing). My carry-on will be jammed full of clothes and my video projector (for watching movies) and my small bag will be my briefcase with laptop.
I'm excited and scared and worried that I'll forget something essential. All major airlines, including our flight, have an embargo to Costa Rica this month, allowing only two not-oversized checked bags per person. This is going to be a challenge to see what fits. Time is running out and I have much paperwork to do before leaving. I'm freaking out.
Pecos, however, remains calm. He has been packed for a month. His luggage includes a trunk and a duffle bag with a large boom box, an African drum, harmonicas, batteries, sunscreen, small tools and household goods, extension cords, fishing gear, books, vitamins, bandaids, a large stack of music CDs and DVDs and who knows what else he considers essential. His clothes fit in his carry-on. His small carry-on consists of another drum with small items packed into its case. He's wondering if I'll have room for the guitar. I wonder if I can squeeze some of my things into his luggage...
We have a small house to rent, about a half mile from the village and one mile from the 100-acre farm owned by my three oldest children and their spouses. My son ("The Kid") is at their farm part of each year. My daughters and their husbands visit when they can. My former daughter-in-law ("K") and two grandchildren have 30 acres next to my children's farm. They also live in Costa Rica during the winter months. The house costs $70US per month and utilities are a flat rate of $11. We've been paying rent for several months, to be sure that the house will be available for us upon our arrival. Upon questioning my son recently, The Kid casually mentioned that electricity at the rental is intermittent, there is running water but no hot water, and there are no appliances. The house is completely bare and the floors are concrete.
The Kid will arrive in Costa Rica sometime in January, as will K and my grandkids - a fact I learned when I asked him who in the village will be speaking English, besides us. Apparently we're on our own until they return after the first of the year.
We are arriving in San Jose and will have a rental car the day after we get there. The car is reserved for two weeks. We'll drive for four hours over an 11,000-ft. mountain pass and miles of narrow mud roads to the village, following The Kid's hand-drawn map to the home of Melvin, the caretaker for my children's property. We'll try to explain who we are and Melvin will lead us to the rental house. We'll have to determine what we need (a table, chairs, and a bed would be nice, perhaps a hot plate and lamp, too, for starters), drive back an hour and a half to the nearest sizeable town to find and buy these things, then back to the rental. All before dark - as the roads are treacherous at best - steep drop-offs, huge potholes and wild drivers who seem to think that traffic laws are suggestions at best.
In the daylight we'll traipse over our own little finca located about a mile from the rental house - four acres with an incredible view, year round creek, spring, and planted in hardwood trees -- if we can find it, that is.