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. 