A Ride Like No Other

If not for needing the internet a time or two during the week for work, I would be happy to stay on our mountaintop. An occasional visitor comes by and The Kid checks in on us regularly. It is quiet and peaceful.

We break this cycle every few days by taking the bus to San Isidro de El General, where the noise, diesel smells and hectic pace cause us to appreciate our little village even more. The bus ride is arduous, to say the least.

The bus leaves the village in the dark daily at 5:30 a.m. and again at 12:30 p.m. We walk the half mile downhill to the pulperia to catch the later bus. To be sure we didn’t miss it the first time, we arrived at 12:10 and sat on the plank that serves as bench in front of the store. Shortly after one o-clock the bus was heard in the distance and finally it crested the road high above the village. It swept down past us and rolled up the hill to park under a tree for another 20 minutes while the driver had his lunch. We heard the engine start up again; a few minutes later the bus emerged, chugged down the hill and came to a stop in a cloud of dust in front of us. We greeted and paid the driver (700 colones each).

The bus is always empty at this end-of-the-line stop; it is red and white with a flat front and a battered body. I’m not sure if it is a several-decades-old passenger bus or former school bus. Windows open only at the top and one is shattered. The back windows have been boarded over.

Pecos walks down the aisle in front of me and the roof is only an inch from his head. There are no seatbelts. Seats are hard and child-size, two on one side of the aisle and three on the other. Pecos cannot fit into them without lifting his knees to his chest and therefore must sit sideways with knees in the aisle, folding them up and in whenever someone passes. He would rather sit in the very rear seat for more room, but the last two rows are missing. Heavy leather sandbags lay on the rear floor to help provide traction. A cracked plastic bucket is wired to a post at the rear door to serve as a trash receptacle.

Bus stops along the many kilometers down our mountain are marked by yellow wood stakes in the ground every so often. Our bus groans to a stop about 15 times, picking up passengers who wait under the shade of trees or in full sun under an umbrella. The brakes squeal with every stop. Everyone greets each new person who steps on. Nearly every passenger carries a small rag to first wipe off the seat.

On our most recent trip, we were sitting near the rear of the bus. At one stop as several passengers boarded up front, a young man darted from the bushes and ran behind the bus. We couldn’t see him pass the other side and assumed that he held on to the back for a free ride to hopefully somewhere close.

Our driver, a small man who looks incapable of wrenching the broad steering wheel around (let alone the vehicle) nonetheless carefully maneuvers our bus up and down steep grades, grinding gears smoothly and inching it sideways and slowly around sharp curves. He nonchalantly edges us past bottomless drop-offs. No one but me seems nervous.

The driver calls out a loud “Yo!” to people walking on the roads and nearly every house that he passes. A two-liter soft drink bottle, half full, dangles from a wire just behind his head. It swings wildly and nearly clobbers him on the sharp curves. I remind Pecos to leap into the driver’s seat to save us if our driver is knocked senseless.

The windows are all shut tight and it has to be more than 100 degrees inside the bus. I open mine for fresh air and clouds of orange dust blow in. I quickly shut it again. Passengers talk loudly to each other, whether many passengers or rows are between them or not. They ask us in a friendly way as to where we come from and what are we doing in Costa Rica. They laugh at our Spanish and I wonder what we’ve just said. I clutch my computer bag, shoulder bag and straw hat; Pecos clutches his shoulder bag, cloth hat and knees as we bounce up from our seats on the washboard road and crash against each other on every turn. I fear that my teeth will come loose.

Finally we reach blacktop and every passenger near a window jumps up to open it. Cool air blows in and suddenly the bus ride isn’t so bad, with the only worrisome part left being the aged suspension bridge over the Rio de San Isidro.

Two hours after leaving our village, we arrive at the crowded bus station in the heart of town. San Isidro is hot and muggy, always at least 10 degrees hotter than home. We have barely three hours to walk blocks away to an internet connection, buy groceries at two different places, pick up a few things at the hardware store, and get something to eat. As usual we buy two glasses of iced orange juice, freshly squeezed for each order, from a friendly Tico’s cart in front of the park. As we walk, I strategize on which restaurants or hotel lobby I’ll use this time for bootleg internet, sometimes bribing the waiter or desk clerk for the business’s pass-code and loitering until too obvious, then moving on to the next place. I avoid the internet cafes as have found these run-down places of outdated computers, usually located down an alley or over a store, are rather popular with persons who use the computers to view sites I’d rather not walk past.

Our return bus departs daily at 12:50 and 6:50 p.m. At 6:15 we walk back to the bus station, arriving just as our bus pulls into its diagonal parking spot. It is the same driver as early in the morning. I hope he was able to nap somewhere. A line of about 20 people on the sidewalk quickly board and toss shopping bags, backpacks, cardboard boxes filled with groceries, and tall sacks of coffee beans or seed onto the floor at the rear of the bus. People hold seats for others. We take a row of two seats – one with a spring sticking up – and decide to stay put. By the time the bus departs it is completely full and one man stands on the front steps near the driver.

About half a kilometer out of town, our driver pulls over to a bus stop and five people step on. They stand in the middle aisle, hanging onto seat backs and an overhead pole. A little further, we stop again and more people get on. This happens again and again and we keep asking each other how it is possible to squeeze anyone else onboard. Despite the many buses plying this highway, our driver stops for all who wait in the dark at the side of the route. The center aisle is packed with passengers who lurch and sway over those in the seats.

Several men sit on the heaped boxes and bags at the rear; others perch on the railing of the rear steps and stand in the doorways. Three burly men are seated at angles in front of us, arms layered over the back of the seat. Everyone is cheerful and nonplussed by the cramped conditions.

Passengers start departing about eight kilometers from town. By the time we turn off the highway, no one is left standing although the bus remains full. As the bus creeps up the mountain passengers get off at stop after stop. People sitting on their porches call hello to our driver as we follow the chain of infrequent street lights that curl upward far ahead.

By the time we get to our village, we are the last passengers once again. For the return trip home, the fare is paid as we depart. We gather our parcels, tell our driver buenas noches and step off to hike the last steep climb to home – first flicking on our head lamps to assure that no nocturnal creatures wait to greet us on the road. 

Scrabble, New Level

Hardscrabble, New Level

Pecos and I have both conceded the championship game(s) of Scrabble – or rather, we are both champs as The Big Game ended in an honest-to-god tie. All championships are now off and we continue to play a few times each week with the final scores always just a few points apart.

My grandson and granddaughter have spent a few days with us. We are playing with a bright orange Frisbee in the yard when Dario, a local villager, walks up our driveway to check on our landlord’s cows. My grandson throws the Frisbee to him and it lands at his feet. Dario picks it up, turns it over and looks bewildered. Pecos demonstrates how he should throw it and Dario sets down his backpack and machete. He tosses the Frisbee toward my grandson but it curves wildly and lands on the roof. Pecos hoists my grandson over his head and the toy is quickly retrieved. Dario tries again and this time throws it successfully to my granddaughter. He picks up his things and walks down the driveway shaking his head.

My grandkids have brought Swiss Family Robinson and we read aloud to them. After endless games of Go Fish and War, I teach them how to play Rummy. They catch on quick and beat me nearly every hand. It is time to show them something new, and I bring out the Scrabble game. They speak Spanish, English and French fluently – but my eight-year-old granddaughter reads and spells primarily in French and Spanish. She decides that she and I will play in all three languages. While I stick mostly to English and slip in a simple French or Spanish word here and there, she spells words like cerveza and crepes. She says that ‘scrabble’ is not a word she is familiar with in any language and that we should call this game Scramble. When we play cards, my grandson says he will shuffle and dial. I love their twists of language and treasure every moment spent with them. 

Artist Botanist

Everyone in the village, and even nearby villages, has heard that we plan to build a casa. The Kid says several men have stopped him to say they would like very much to be hired to work for us. The Kid, an experienced builder who has his own work to do this year, says he will provide part-time oversight while locals will do the actual construction. He will determine who to hire from the village, saying our timing is good as the local farmers are now in between two coffee harvests. We have a one-month window, starting next week.

We are walking past the local soccer field when our friend Marcos comes along. He is smiling and it seems he has been looking for us. We think he is inviting us to his uncle’s house, saying “Tio Ta-li” and something about ‘entrada’ and ‘casa’. He gestures for us to walk along behind his dirt bike, and we do, unsure if he is going to enter his uncle’s house, if we are to enter, or if something completely different – and misunderstood – is about to take place.

Suddenly Marcos dismounts and signals for us to follow him along a short path to a house situated in a very small clearing. It stands in the midst of a patch of tall jungle and hardwood trees. Giant tropical plants dwarf the house on all sides, many leaning over the small structure. Thick bunches of bougainvillea in several shades of crimson cascade from the roof. Underneath the trees there are dense plantings of cultivated palms, shrubs, tree ferns, flowers, vines and smaller trees of all shapes, sizes and colors. Narrow footpaths lead from the house through the plantings. The scents of orange and wild ginger fill the air. We have come to a magical place.

The house is constructed with a tin roof and the front room has horizontal planks with gaps of a few inches between each rough-cut board. Window openings have pencil-size strips of bamboo nailed up to form fancy panes but there is no glass or screening. There is a small concrete porch at the front, shaded by rusty tin. A wide plank has been carved and mounted on two rocks for comfortable seating. Tio Ta-li’ is seated by his front door on a small stool cut from the bent root of a tree. He has a warm, engaging smile and his face is worn smooth. He is wearing a brown stone rosary and an old guitar leans against him.

Marcos introduces us. Tio Ta-li’ nods as if he’s known us a long time and gestures for us to come inside.
The front room is dim. No electrico, Marcos tells us. The gaps in the wall and the open doorway let in light. We sit on a worn sofa, one of the few pieces of furniture. One corner of the room holds a homemade altar with a plaster statue of Christ set on a little wood platform decorated with candles, rocks, moss and fresh flowers and leaves. In a combination of sign language and Spanish, Marcos explains that Tio Ta-li’ is a woodcarver and that he carves what he sees around him.

From another room Ta-li’ brings in his works, each time carrying in just one piece for us to see, then after a while replacing it with another. A large wooden pitcher crafted from a tree branch – and that pours – is covered with intricately-carved vines and flowers and the initials of our village and then P.Z.C.R., for the former provincial name of Perez Zeledon in Costa Rica. Wood burls are carved into bowls and mugs. Toucans, parrots, monkeys, tanagers and hump-backed cattle are carved from twisted or curved pieces of wood. Each piece is masterfully made and some have been varnished or carefully painted, colors now faded. Ta-li’ is a true artist.

His wife is busy in their kitchen, which holds a small wood cookstove. Ta-li’ invites us to the back room – his workshop, which may also be a bedroom? Leaning against the walls are boards of all sizes, most still with bark. A wooden platform holds a large mound of clothing. Another foot-high platform of stick legs and rough-cut planks has just a worn, flattened pillow and a crumpled blanket on top of the boards.

A few planks held up by knotty posts serves as Ta-li’s workbench. It holds a few old tools and above it several small pieces of twisted sticks and knots of woods hang from rusty pieces of wire. Ta-li’ picks up interesting pieces as he walks about, to later let his imagination determine what each will be.

Marcos asks Ta-li’ to show us what he has brought us to see. From behind the workbench Ta-li’ drags out a large V-shaped piece of bent wood about six feet across and a foot thick. This interesting piece of blond tree has been worked over and over to smooth perfection. For above the entrada of our casa, Marcos explains. We like it and Pecos asks how much. Ta-li’ smiles and signals for us to wait.

He pulls out another large piece. It is a perfectly-crafted, realistic boa constrictor fashioned from a thick, curved vine. This wood creature is loosely curled and holds its head high. It is about four feet high and three feet across. Just as I feared, Pecos loves it. Now Ta-li’ will tell us the price for the snake and the entrance piece: an amount equal to $40 total. Pecos cannot pay him fast enough. I ponder where Pecos and this creature will sleep at our new house, certain it will not be indoors or near me. Ta-li’ tells us he will apply varnish to the wood and we all shake hands. I say, “No mas serpentes, por favor, Tio Ta-li!” and he laughs quietly.

Ta-li’ takes us outside to show us his gardens. Neat rows of rocks form narrow pathways among shady beds holding plants, shrubs, ferns and trees of every color. The gardens are simultaneously at foot level, eye level and above us. Nearly every tree and shrub in his yard has several other smaller plants hanging from it. While some are in planters made from old tin cans, small wood boxes, or pieces of bark sewn together, most are growing from clumps of moss fastened on small pieces of planks. The moss is tied with strips of grass or vines against flat wood pieces just a few inches in length that hang from twisted bits of wire. Bright flowers and leafy plants hang down from these homemade planters.

Brightly-colored bromeliads with variegated leaves and tinted streaks of golds, pinks and purples are rooted high to low along tree trunks and branches. Epiphytes with long dangling roots are growing from every woody crevice from ground level to high overhead. Some of the lowest tree branches have moss tied around their entire horizontal lengths, creaking under the weight with a rainbow of flowers and foliage growing along them, sometimes just a few feet from the ground. A staghorn fern, larger than a wheelbarrow, hangs from an overhead branch. Other feathery ferns tower over our heads and thin, silk-like sheets of green and gold moss hang from some of the largest trees.

I suddenly realize that many of the bright flowers from plants arching in containers or from crevices in the trees are exotic orchids of many colors and varieties, some quite large with thick stalks. Monkey-faced, polka-dotted, furred, lipsticked and bottle-shaped flowers dangle in the speckled sunlight under these trees. Ta-li’ also grows vanilla-producing orchids and shrubs of pepper. I am dazzled by all of it. I think I can feel the plants moving slightly toward him as he leads us along the paths; is this possible?

Ta-li’ shows us everything, from tiny rooted plants tucked into moss, to large specimens of panama hat palm, floor- and canopy-creeping liana vines, and multi-colored bird of paradise and shrimp flowers. He demonstrates taking root and stem cuttings and which mosses are best for certain plants. Behind the house he directs Marcos to climb a few tall trees leaning far over a steep ravine. These trees are heavy with oranges, and he points out which fruits should be picked and tossed to us for taking home. He explains through Marcos that he grafted these trees as saplings. Later we tell each other these are the sweetest, juiciest oranges either of us has ever tasted.

Tio Ta-li’ is a true botanist. His gardens, a paradise. He must hold genetic identities known only to him. He tells Marcos to let us know that after our casa is built he is willing to provide us with plants as desired for our finca. I am so excited by this that I later lay awake for the next few nights, thinking of the possibilities.

Shortly after we get home, Pecos digs through his trunk and in the very bottom is a complete set of new woodcarving tools he’d brought to Costa Rica. He takes out every other tool, ties them together with string, and walks back to the village just before dark to give the bundle to Tio Ta-li’. 

A Quiet Morning

For breakfast my standard offerings vary from oatmeal with sliced fresh bananas – or yeast-raised banana fritters, deep-fried and battered banana chunks, banana pancakes, fried plantains (cousin of banana), sautéed banana strips, or egg dishes with yet more bananas sliced on the side. Note: Diagonal slices dipped in yogurt and brown sugar are also nice; from experience I do not recommend attempting banana curls or scalloped bananas.

Today Pecos is cooking for us. He is making itched eggs (otherwise known as scrambled, several countries north of here) with peppers and onions and is peeling green bananas to boil on the side. Delicioso! Boiled green bananas are often served in local restaurants as a side dish, ordered or not. They cook quickly and with added salt and butter taste like white potatoes, only better with an unexpected dense texture and corn flavor. From a nearby wild tree Pecos cut a rack of bananas with more than 70 fruits on it, thus our daily consumption. To protect it from birds and insects the rack is covered with a burlap bag and hangs from a post in the yard.

Pecos is trying to build a set of bookshelves from slab wood. This will keep him busy for hours, if not days. I’m doing some writing for work and congratulate myself for having finally become a one-person, paperless society. Back in the States I used one to two reams of paper per month. Here, grant narratives and budgets roll around in my laptop and in my head.

As I write, a tight flock of about a dozen red and yellow parrots suddenly burst from our jungle patch and chirp loudly all the way to a distant tree where they descend quickly and are silent again. I’ve read that many visitors to Costa Rica are taken aback to find that the forests are very quiet at times. They’re surprised again when a sudden loud chatter of birdsong erupts from flocks of birds that burst from nearby trees.

I can hear someone singing a good distance away over the bawling of a small herd of cattle being moved to fresher pasture on the mountainside. It turns out to be our landlord, who comes over later to tell us our utility payments are due -- $14 total for water and electricity for the month.

A dirt bike or two putter in the distance and I hear the familiar “Yo!” being called in greeting. Besides ‘yo’, the other greeting when quickly passing someone on foot or by vehicle isn’t the hello of hola or buenas dias. Instead, it is adios. This makes sense, as when you pass someone you are leaving them, so it’s goodbye – much like the hours of this fleeting morning. 

Market Day

Thursday is market day in San Isidro de El General. A wide variety of produce is grown in the surrounding valley. We’re told that the weekly farmers’ market here in the center of this agricultural valley is the largest in the country. The market is an open, roofed structure about the size of two gymnasiums. Vendors line their crates and tables tightly end to end, forming long, narrow aisles for shoppers. They hawk their goods loudly and enthusiastically. One end of the market is dedicated to organic produce.

Mountains of pineapples, mangos, guavas, watermelons, oranges, acidos and papaya are heaped everywhere. Table-height wood bins hold two-foot high piles of lettuces, cilantro, ginger root, garlic bulbs, parsley, green onions, sorrel, spinach and other greens, several types of dried or fresh beans (shelled or not), blackberries, plums, star fruit and other fruits. Cabbages, peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, and root crops such as potatoes, beets, onions, carrots, sweet potatoes, yucca and yampi in various colors, textures and shapes fill large wood crates that are stacked high. Tall stalks of sugarcane are bunched together and piled on the floor or leaned against tables. Bunches of bananas and plantains, each stem holding dozens of fruits, are heaped high on tarps on the floor.

Prices are noted on torn pieces of cardboard that are placed on top of the piles of produce. Everything is dirt cheap, pun intended. I am in mother-of-all-markets heaven.

Besides the seemingly-endless offerings of fruits and vegetables, there is homemade yogurt and cheeses – also meats, baked goods, wines, jellies and fruit drinks. Brown eggs are sold by each and then are placed in a plastic bag; sellers blow into the bag before sealing to make an air cushion to avoid breakage. Herbs are sold in little bunches tied with string, or as leafy syrups or tinctures aged in old glass soft drink bottles that are plugged with strips of cloth.

The market opens on Wednesday evening and runs all day on Thursday. The amount of produce and goods is staggering and even at the close of the market there are literally tons of produce that the farmers must carry away. The leftover fruits and vegetables are then sold to the many fruit and vegetable stands in the city and along the highway.

I buy a dozen avocados, equivalent of 15-cents each. As I select which ones I want, the farmer takes them and places them in a bowl which is then placed on a tabletop scale. I nod my head, yes, that is fine, and the avocados are put in a plastic bag, tied tight. I look at the green beans – about 35-cents per pound - and the farmer hands me the plastic bowl. I place a few handfuls in it and it too is weighed. This process is repeated several times. Tomatoes cost 250 colones per kilo, less than 25-cents per pound. Potatoes, 100 colones per kilo. Yucca roots, even less.

I buy assorted greens (not sure what they all are, but assume they are edible) in an amount equal in size to two gallons, hand the producer a 1,000 colones note (less than $2) and receive 600 back. The prices seem so ridiculously low that I give up trying to calculate costs and just hold out notes of colones each time, receiving more and more change. Each time I insist that my selections don’t need to be bagged as I have my own canvas market bag – to no avail.

Pecos has been staying busy, hanging around the confites and baked goods areas, sampling the many sweets he doesn’t get at home. Besides homemade candies, cookies and pastries, there are thick berry cobblers, granola bars and sweet custards.

At another stand I buy tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, a few handfuls of blackberries, two mangos, a pineapple, a bundle of fresh chamomile, and two bunches of green onions. The seller weighs everything, counts the amount, shakes his head, and then re-weighs again. He turns over the signs and weighs a few things once more, setting my bags in a row this time, but remains confused. I try to help but am unsure as to how much my items have weighed – and which were sold by the piece – and struggle trying to calculate conversions of colones, cents, metrics, poundage and produce.

I hold out a fan of colones but the farmer simply shrugs and rubs his chin while re-checking the cardboard price signs once more. A friendly Tica shopper steps in. She sets her own bags down and quickly weighs everything for us, then takes money from my hand and gives it to the farmer, explaining the transaction to both of us at high-speed Espanol. He flips open his taped-together cigar box of money and she pulls out my change, which seems close to the amount she took from me in the first place. She smiles and shakes hands with both of us and moves on.

Clean public restrooms are located in a cement building adjacent to the market’s huge parking lot. Fee for use: 25 cents. Men and women wait in line to enter their respective sides. The attendant at the entrance to the building accepts the payment and inquires politely as to how much toilet paper will be needed, depending on one’s anticipated activity inside. I mumble that a few sheets would be fine. Que?, she asks loudly, cuanto papeles del servicio sanitario, senora? Everyone leans forward as I gesture to the desired amount. As at most restrooms here, the sinks were located outside with plenty of soap but no towels for drying.

San Isidro de El General seems more crowded than ever on market day. The park benches are full and the restaurants and sodas are packed. Resident gringos and gringas and many touristos seem to gather at the open-air sidewalk restaurant of Hotel Chirripo on the busiest street right across from the park and cathedral. Many talk to us and we quickly realize that the ex-pat community in this part of Costa Rica is not all that large. Everyone seems to know everyone, and when they learn that we are related to The Kid we are immediately accepted.

Over fresh fruit drinks served by kindly Tico waiters, these former and part-time U.S. residents share stories of isolation in Costa Rica ‘among the Ticos’ and the importance of ‘we Americans [!] hanging together’. The Kid has warned us to be careful, saying that Costa Rica is sometimes considered the country “where people who don’t fit in other countries come to live.” We are friendly but cautious, grateful that our own Costa Rican experience doesn’t depend on being with other gringos. We feel comfortable and welcome in this country and appreciate the many kindnesses shown us. The authenticity of our little village is most special. As more tourists and future residents come here from distant places we hope it will not change. 

La Playa Hermosa

The Kid’s kids have arrived! My granddaughter is eight, almost nine, and grandson is seven years old. They will spend a few months with my son here in Costa Rica, just a mile down the road. The kids think our attempts at Spanish are comical. They’ve taken it upon themselves to educate us on the language, culture and green living of this place. First, my granddaughter takes us on a little jungle hike, rattling off the names of the plants and letting us know which are edible. My grandson shows us the mimosa plants growing out of a little hillside – we’d walked by these plants several times but had not noticed how they fold up when our shadow falls or we brush against them. Having seen too many sci-fi films, Pecos is convinced that these plants, if larger, would lean over to bite us. The kids calmly tell us a true story of seeing an eight-foot boa constrictor emerge from the nearby forest a few years ago to swallow their pet cat in one huge gulp and then - as they watched - to devour it over the next two hours. Pecos is extremely rattled to hear this. He goes in the house and returns with his machete, setting it near him on the porch. I consider how these children have seen so much at an early age and wonder what they will be like as adults. Like their dad, they seem worldly and fearless.

We were finishing breakfast the next day when The Kid and my grandkids pulled up in the jeep, brakes freshly re-repaired. Would we like to go to the beach, la playa? Most certainly! We were ready in five minutes. Because it hasn’t rained in four weeks, The Kid says we’ll take the back way, down the mountain slopes on rugged roads, rather than to drive a much longer, circular distance through San Isidro on pavement.

Before coming to Costa Rica, the only map I could find that shows our village is the one from National Geographic. It shows the road to our village as ‘seasonal only’. The route we are about to take down the mountain is depicted as ‘footpath’ and it ends part way down. No problemo, says The Kid. He’s done this many times.

The ride down the mountain, a distance of about five miles, took nearly an hour as we crept along ever so slowly in four-wheel drive. The views were breathtaking. Where the jungle and hardwood forests broke, the ocean was visible far below. At one point we crested a nearby ridge to find a 360-degree vista of distant mountain ranges. It felt as if we were looking across all of Costa Rica. We passed through narrow spots where the road did seem like a footpath; dense jungle plants brushed both sides of the vehicle. Where foot-deep furrowed ruts ran lengthwise with the road, the jeep jumped and buckled and snorted. We sat on our belongings and held on tight so that they (and we) wouldn’t bounce out.

Playa Hermosa. Beautiful beach, so appropriately named. Flocks of pelicans flew by us in long strings as we swam. There were only a few other people there, at the far end of this two-mile cove. Shade trees hung horizontally over the soft sand and the water was clear with huge waves pounding close to shore. This was the most gorgeous beach yet.

We spent half the day playing in the water and picnicking. My grandkids are fearless swimmers, taking their little boogie boards out in the water up to their necks, then catching the peaks of cresting waves to flop on their boards for a ride of thirty feet or more. Pecos and The Kid gathered large pieces of driftwood to use for carving while I looked for shells. Sand crabs scurried back in their holes when we came near. The water was so warm and the day so clear with a gentle breeze. It couldn’t get any better.

But it did. Just a little ways back up the mountain we stopped at a soda for lunch. This open-air tiny restaurant also featured a trail that the proprietor said would lead a short distance to a waterfall. There would be a charge of 700 colones per adult, about $1.20. We decided to do it. We hiked down a short, steep hillside on steps cut from a rocky wall and came to a pretty waterfall that dropped about eight feet to a shallow pool a few feet deep. It was so beautiful; we were glad we’d hiked down. A couple emerged from a path in the thick jungle and said the larger waterfall was just around the bend. We could hear it.

We climbed down the short path and across boulders the size of cars, and there it was – a magnificent waterfall about three feet wide with a 20-foot drop and a rounded pool at its base. The pool was edged on half of its circumference with tall rocky cliffs; it was about 25 feet across and rimmed at its open half with heaps of boulders. The falls were loud as the water crashed into the pool about two feet from the rocky wall behind it. The pool had a deep drop-off; we couldn’t touch bottom. The water was warm and clear and light turquoise in color. This setting was so beautiful we kept saying it seemed so unreal. We all played in the water for a good while. My grandson and granddaughter were fearless once again, climbing up on the rocky rim and jumping in water over their heads and then paddling across. The Kid slowly made a few toe-holds on the rocky wall to climb up about five feet above the water, and leaned in behind the waterfall before jumping back in the pool. We all clapped and called for him to do it again and again.

Soon four young Tico men came along and dropped their towels on the edge as they dove in the water. One swam across the pool to emerge near the base of the waterfall and then looked at us and nodded, as if to say, watch this. He pulled himself out of the water and slowly, slowly climbed the entire 20-foot smooth rock wall, catching hands in tiny crevices and balancing on ledges just an inch or two across. It was frightening to watch. When he reached the top and stood on the flat rocks next to the cascading falls, he jumped up and down and his friends cheered from below. Then he walked out of sight. His friends kept cheering. Suddenly, he appeared again, flying downward head-first on his stomach, sliding at high speed down the chute of the waterfall, riding on top of the rushing water and landing with a crash in the pool! It all happened so fast, we could hardly believe it! Everyone was shouting and we and his friends all jumped up and cheered and yelled when he surfaced. Thank god he was still alive! This was a level of daring never before seen! Next, he and his friends entertained us for an hour by repeatedly climbing half way up the rocky walls and diving into the center of the pool. One of his friends climbed to the top of the waterfall and then edged along the top of the cliff about 10 feet to the side to dive into the pool from the entire height. Our masterful falls jumper did his ride down the rushing waterfall chute once more. It was just as frightening and thrilling to watch the second time as the first.

Back up the mountain the jeep’s brakes failed once again. The Kid took it slow, giving me time to admire the many wildflowers and leaves very close up once again. The grade was so steep that at several times with the jeep put in its lowest possible traction gear we all leaned forward to help it inch upward. We passed a house again where a Tico family lives year round, inaccessible except by horse or foot for more than half the year. They waved hello again, as they had on our way down hours earlier.

We arrived home safely, just before dark. The Kid and his kids dropped us off and headed brakeless over the next crests to their finca. With all that we’d seen during the day, we figured they would make it home safely, as driving on mountain roads without brakes is nothing compared to jumping a tall waterfall. Exhausted from an entire day of swimming and hiking, we ate fruit for dinner, went right to bed and fell asleep immediately. It was 7:36 p.m. 

Bamboo Farm

Pecos has stayed busy on and off for several days, building shelves from slab wood for the kitchen and bedroom and two side tables. Pecos hauls planks to our yard from the nearby patch of jungle, cuts desired lengths with The Kid’s skill saw, then peels the bark with his machete and uses a bow saw to cut legs to fit. Very rustic. Some of the wood has narrow rainbow streaks in it, cut from a eucalyptus – not native to Costa Rica but now common in this region on cultivated tree plantations. The streaks are gold, brown, army green, bluish-grey and lime green.

The Kid has come to help Pecos install a suicide shower at our rental house. This is the common name of the gadget that is often installed just above a showerhead, found with exposed wires in even the finest hotels in this country. With a flick of the button, water is diverted through the 8” round box, where it is heated to produce a consistent tepidly-warm, but not hot, temperature. After a month, Pecos was tired of taking icy cold showers, although I found it wasn’t quite so unbearable if one also carried in a bucket of hot water to offset the cold splashes. Once the body and brain begin to go numb, the frigid water actually starts to feel warm. The $22 cost would be worth it as long as the suicide shower doesn’t live up to its name. We remind each other to be careful when one of us enters the bathroom – no touching the wires while bathing. Luckily for me, they are far over my head.

The Kid stays for dinner. We are having a brown, hairy vegetable I’d bought at the market and whose name I can never remember. It peels to reveal a red skin like a radish but cooks and mashes nicely like potatoes and tastes like sweet and white potatoes mixed. Pecos has made a tomato, onion and avocado salad and a few pieces of chicken are on the grill. For dessert we have a fresh pineapple that our landlord has brought us.

The Kid sits politely on the living room’s cement floor so that we aged ones can have the two plastic chairs that comprise our entire household seating inventory. These chairs are hauled around countless times during the day – now to sit in the sun, then in the shade, then to use as an impromptu laundry basket or sawhorses, then again to sit on the porch – and are brought inside after dark so that we have a place to sit other than the bed.

We tell The Kid how we’ve looked at the offerings of several furniture stores but that the upholstered furniture seems expensive, nearly identical from place to place, and not all that well made. We’re concerned that built-in upholstery may mold while our future casa/cabina is closed up for several months each year. We’d hesitated over wood furniture – handcrafted pieces being of excellent workmanship and good prices, but nothing was just right for our temporary living.

The Kid asks if we would like to visit a bamboo farm the next morning. Pecos especially is excited as he has visions of raising bamboo, although it is unlikely we can grow more than a few clumps near the creek on our high, dry finca. We are still undecided about what we will grow to sustain our finca and keep it in some sort of production.

We head out of San Isidro in a direction we hadn’t yet been, first winding past dense residential areas before leaving town. The Kid tells us this well-paved road, like so many others, will run out of blacktop soon and a few dozen miles ahead will dead-end high in the mountains. We pass sugar-cane fields near the road and a few new hotels are located in the narrow valleys below. The Kid turns onto a dirt lane and suddenly there is a dense bamboo forest on both sides. Tall bamboo towers high above us, nearly forming a tunnel for us to drive through. We have shrunk to the size of insects, driving quickly under this monstrous grass. A few clearings have heaps of bamboo scrap and neat piles of bamboo logs.

Restored to human size, we arrive at the center of the farm and park near the office and racks of 30-ft. bamboo spears that are drying upright in the sun. Inside two huge open-air workshops the size of small hangars, half a dozen workers craft furniture in every style. A fifty-foot row of bamboo rocking horses line the edge of a platform-turned-showroom high overhead, reached via a tall staircase. The showroom is full of chairs, tables, sofas, rockers, dressers and furniture of every bamboo-imaginable type. Floor lamps are constructed from one thick bamboo stalk and bamboo roots in order to balance. The bases look like crocodiles that would sneak across the floor.

From the rows of look-alike bamboo furnishings we pick out a small, sturdy sofa and two chairs that are different from all the rest. Price: equivalent of $160 total and Pecos convinces the clerk that he should throw in a tall side table at no cost. This set, however, has been sold and we are told that if we return in three days the workers will have built us identical pieces. A few days later The Kid goes in his jeep and returns with our new furniture tied on top. We visit Las Ropas Americanas and buy several solid color cushions and pillows that look like new for seats and backs –these changeable pieces are velvet and silk - some with beadwork, fringe or pleats.

Our living room is now furnished! It is colorful and cheery. Our two chairs of ugly plastico are no longer allowed indoors and I plan to recycle them the minute they are no longer needed – to a far, far distant market. 

By Bus or Bust

Costa Rica is a country that moves by bus; hardly any locale is without this essential service. Buses carry passengers great distances for fares the equivalent of a dollar or less. While occasionally this mode of transportation consists of an old yellow school bus filled with people, produce and a few chickens, most often the bus resembles an older Greyhound from the States. Windows open, or window-less, curtains and dark diesel smoke blow freely as these buses cut in and out of traffic in the city and pass without hesitation on the highway.

In the rural villages, there are few household cars. Most families have a dirt bike or two – or none - and rely on the buses for necessary travel. From a distance the buses look like caterpillars slowly plying their way up the far-away slopes. These vehicles climb the steepest, most remote back roads to serve villages once or twice per day – even those that are sometimes not more than just a few houses clustered in a mountaintop opening. Our village fits that description and stands as the last bus stop on our mountain after the slow, steep climb up the narrow, twisty road. The bus returns here at 7 p.m., just after dark, and leaves again in the morning at 5:30 for San Isidro de El General and connection points from there. The bus driver sleeps in the bus, which is parked overnight on the side of the road across from the pulperia.

On the busy Pan-American Highway bus stops are located about a mile apart. In the rural areas the stops are at the villages and surprisingly also at every four or five miles along extremely remote stretches of road. Bus stops consist of four posts and often a roof of palm leaves or rusty tin. Usually there is a concrete bench, wood slab or large rock for seating. Residents walk to the bus stops carrying colorful umbrellas or huge banana or palm leaves to shade themselves. Where there is no roof, the leaves provide much-needed shade while they wait. We are told the buses stay on schedule and that often there is standing room only.

When we arrived in Costa Rica we rented a SUV for a month. Our time is up. For the last two weeks we’ve looked at several used vehicles that were for sale. Most cost two to three times what they would sell for in the U.S. Prices stay high due to the exorbitant duty taxes required to bring a vehicle into the country and the rigorous red tape needed to keep one here. Vehicles are well cared for. They retain their value and it’s not uncommon to see vehicles that are 40 years old and still in mint condition. We’ve perused the used vehicle lots in San Isidro and have stopped at almost every vehicle parked on the side of the highway with a for sale sign on it. We’ve followed a few drivers home after seeing “Se Vende” written on the back windshield. Of the few dozen vehicles we’d looked at, only two cost less than $5,000.

Then last week, there it was – a little formerly-white sedan, equal parts rust and body, parked in front of a mechanic’s shop on the highway. The sign on the windshield offered the bargain price of 350,000 colones or approximately $700. This would be perfect for our two remaining months here. Our only criteria were that whatever vehicle we would buy, it would be dirt cheap and it would have passed this year’s thorough government inspection, required annually. We would sell it just before going back to the States.

Pecos pulled in to check it out. Two men hurried out to make this sale. Pecos first asked to see under the hood. Hmmm, he said cheerfully, not knowing much about engines in the first place but wanting to make a good negotiating impression. Then he opened the door. It fell to the ground and dangled by its one hinge. From my vantage point I could see there were no back seats. The car sat about 6” from the ground. Pecos climbed in the driver’s seat, careful to not put his foot through one of the gaping holes in the floorboard, and looked dumbfounded. There was no steering column and no dashboard. Nothing. Nada. The car was stripped to bare metal inside with just the front seat remaining. La cuesta buena, the men told him. Yes, Pecos agreed, a good cost, as the car was definitely the cheapest we’d seen. We thanked them for showing it to us and sped away on our good wheels.

We returned our rental vehicle on time, meeting the driver as arranged near the park in San Isidro at the designated day and time. As we often did, we paid a one-man security force (who was loitering nearby in anticipation of such opportunity) a few colones to keep an eye on it while we shopped. Car break-ins and theft are common in the city. Later that day the Kid came to town in his jeep and picked us up. His jeep runs well – having just been tuned up with new brakes installed. The mechanics cleaned it thoroughly and even gave the interior metal a new paint job without that being requested.

The jeep sits high and has a welded metal roof and no sides, but it does have front and back seats. The seatbelts click together to close, but they also pop open on the largest bumps. The Kid and Pecos climbed up front as I scaled the rear tire to heave myself into the back, surrounded by produce from the market. I clutched my seatbelt strap and straw hat for dear life as we sped home down the highway, closing my eyes whenever we were passed by speeding vehicles on blind curves. Halfway along the slow up-and-down climb on the mountain, the brakes overheated. The Kid used his cell phone to call the mechanic, several miles away, who said he would come up at dawn and that we should wait there for him. I thought about nocturnal snakes and pondered walking the several miles home, wondering if I could possibly get home before dark. No chance of that as Pecos and The Kid decided we would drive on. Thus we scaled up the steep hills in first gear, then careened down every slope without brakes. A few people came to their doors to see what vehicle was plowing past as I waved feebly from the back seat as we whizzed by in a blur.

We are home now for a few days. I welcome the quiet, unhurried pace. To use the internet for my work we’ll take the bus round trip to San Isidro every few days, although we also have a plan to take the bus into town on some Wednesdays and stay overnight. We can ride home again in The Kid’s jeep when he comes to the city on Thursdays for market day. If the brakes aren’t fixed, we’ll rely on the bus for round trip. I’m just hoping the bus ride itself is as slow and steady as it looks and that those in charge drive defensively and most attentively. 

La Fiesta Civica

It was the much-awaited day of the annual civic festival of our village. Celebrated the week after New Year’s, this event includes a soccer match (teams comprised of players, young and old, from several villages around), horseback contests, food, a raffle and a hired band from the city to provide la musica.

On almost any rural route, no matter how remote, there are signs for the fiestas civicas. Each village takes it turn hosting these community events shortly after the rainy season ends. Funds that are raised are used to put the roads back in shape.

We walk to town with little flashlights stuffed in our boots for the later walk home. We arrive at what we think would be just in time for the dinner – 5 p.m., considering that it gets dark within the hour – and learn that the food will be ready shortly (this turned out be two hours later) and that the music would begin at 8 p.m. (actually, almost 9 p.m., past our usual bedtime).

A dozen men on horseback were gathered in front of the pulperia and scattered residents sat at the edge of the road. A tight wire had been stretched diagonally across the road high over the horse’s heads and several foot-long pieces of bamboo were strung horizontally on it. Horses pranced in place and snorted. As each person’s turn came, he would canter his horse up the road and would then approach the bamboo at gallop while holding a stick tied with a long piece of string. The goal was to thread each of the bamboo pieces. Much excitement and laughter as no one succeeded in passing the string through each piece.

We also watched the last part of a soccer game, held at the well maintained field at the edge of the village. Boys sit in tree branches hanging over the goal posts and the rest of the spectators sit on the ground a respectful distance away. Everyone cheers loudly. Whenever the ball is inadvertently kicked over the mountain’s steep slope on the long side of the field, it sometimes takes minutes for one of the players to leap over the edge and climb down through the jungle to retrieve it.

When the game ended, players gathered at the community hall, or salon, hours early in order to avail themselves of the high stacks of Imperial beer and a homemade table crowded with bottles of rum and whiskey at a makeshift bar. An attractive mural inside the hall showed this tiny village next to the world with the Costa Rican slogan “Pura Vida!” – pure life – painted on it. The salon was built from concrete blocks with three full walls and a half wall that had iron grating to the metal roof.

We were quickly handed bottles of beer by two of our neighbors who served as bartenders. There was one other woman present, other than the two women at the far end of the salon who were busy cooking. Large pots simmered over a fire built in a raised, tiled stove.

The Kid showed up and assured me it was not a cultural infraction for me to be there, but as the time passed I kept wondering why no other women had come. Finally, just as the food was ready, by silent signal several Tica women arrived with children and grandchildren.

I ordered two tamales (equivalent of 50-cents each). They were handed to me on two large platters, wrapped banana leaves extending end to end. I couldn’t finish the second one of these delicious pork, salsa and corn-filled treats. Pecos ordered a tamale and also chicarrones to go with his beer, thinking for his $1.50 he’d get a few fried pork rinds. Again, two platters, with the chicarrones one bearing a heap of crispy pork, boiled yucca roots, black beans and a salad of picadillo mango.

The men spent much time, like Pecos, ordering several selections of both food and drink. They were ravenous. This was because after the strenuous soccer tournament a few of our male Tico friends danced while the food cooked. They twirled, spun, jostled and laughed to ear-splitting salsa music blasted over loud speakers. I was surprised to see these normally-reticent farmers cut loose like this.

The Kid was engaged in several conversations with friends who were happy to see him, and we held our own, too, in our usual responses of “Mucho gusto!” and “Bien, bien!” along with our ever-improving Central American charades. A few of the men spoke a little English and translated for others. Diego, a cheerful teenager from the next village who we’d once given a ride to, showed up with some friends and told everyone how I’d excitedly told him my little boy was coming to Costa Rica, the thirty-plus years of The Kid somehow not communicated. The Kid was teased for that.

Despite not playing for at least a few more hours, the band members showed up at 5:30 p.m., all seated up front in a rusty panel truck that pulled right up to the planked bar. The five men of the group quickly set up the equipment and then joined their friends at the bar. The young woman in the band sat in the truck’s front seat and painstakingly put on make-up just a few feet from us until just before the show. She wore a tiny mini skirt with halter top and very high heels and looked about twenty years old.

Finally the band started. The young woman was the lead singer. She stepped up to the microphone to whistles and catcalls. She fixed them all a steady look. The bar fell silent. She picked up a percussion instrument – a wide metal tube with a chain hooked on its side – nodded to her band, and broke into fast-paced song with a rich, melodious voice that filled the community hall and surely carried over the mountains. Electric bass and lead guitarists, electric piano player, snare drummer and double-congas drummer could barely keep up. She shook her instrument, shimmied her hips, strutted up and down the little stage, and gave a nonstop Tina Turner-style performance that lasted for hours. The other band members’ shirts were drenched with sweat but she showed no sign of fatigue or even slowing down. The crowd cheered as each song ended and led into another with hardly a break in between.

Most of the town women had arrived about 9 p.m. Several entered the community hall in a procession, all carefully made up, hair piled high, and wearing jewelry, tight strappy tops (some sequined) and skin-tight jeans or miniskirts like the women in the Costa Rican cities. The men jumped to their feet and politely escorted them to the tables, one hand placed gently in the small of the women’s backs or on elbow.

Such dancing! Part fiery cha-cha, part tempestuous tango, these coffee farmers and their wives and girlfriends spun back and forth at galloping speed from one end of the hall to the other – dipping and swirling and fast-stepping to the loud music at a dizzying pace and never missing a step. A few children danced alone on the sidelines – even toddlers seemed to have the right rhythm – and others slept across a few chairs. Drinks were set aside as the adults danced song after song.

The band was still in high swing and the dancers still twirling when we said our goodbyes. As we headed down our road, Pecos took out his flashlight and set it to shine on-off, on-off to the beat of the music. We watched for snakes as we blinked our way home. A six-foot stalk of sugar cane lay in the road at the bottom of our long, steep driveway. Pecos picked it up and talked nonstop from there to the house about raising cain and cane in Costa Rica. Bright stars shined down on us and on the hardworking villagers who partied much of the night away just down the road, this one night of the year. 

The Kid Arrives

The Kid is here! He flew from the U.S. to San Jose, then took a bus to San Isidro. Our instructions were to meet him directly in front of the cathedral at one, two or three in the afternoon on the designated Thursday – depending on when his bus would arrive.

We have only a few more days left on our rental vehicle. The day before we were to meet The Kid, we decided to take an overnight trip to Quepos, the quaint fishing village on the coast an hour north of Dominical and about two hours from home. We had visited here last year and this time we returned to the same hotel – immaculate room with air conditioning and hot water, also a lovely terraced garden and close to the downtown for $28US. It was market day in Quepos so the streets were crowded. We arrived late in the afternoon and wandered in and out of shops and ate at one of the market sodas.

I found an internet café (no café, just rows of computers) and did some work on my laptop, 550 colones or $1 per hour. This was much better than my usual tactic of standing in an alley with bootleg internet at San Isidro, or begging the daily internet passcode from a friendly clerk at a hotel where we’d stayed once, and then loitering briefly in the lobby with my laptop.

Pecos discovered that the downtown casino near the waterfront was having its weekly poker tournament. While he played for a few hours I wandered in and out. I tried the slot machines and when it was time for my small pay-out, the attendant came over and took a digital photo of the machine, of me, and of me and the machine together – I assume for verification of the amount she gave me. I soon realized that several of the other tourist-appearing gamblers were actually casino employees, hired to cheer at unexpected times and to encourage real tourists to step up to the bar.

I walked down the well-lit block to a restaurant/bar called Dos Locos, where a gringo rock band had begun to play. The lead guitarist and harmonica player were outstanding, even if the band did know only four songs that they repeated several times over. I ate at a sidewalk table and watched the prostitutes proposition several men (sometimes successfully) who were standing at the open wall of the restaurant and inside. This trade is legal in Costa Rica and I’d read that there are more than 15,000 prostitutes who are registered with the government – and that it’s anyone’s guess as to how many others don’t bother to register their occupations. It seemed that no other women, except those who were engaged in financial transactions of the evening – and me – were out alone at night.

I returned to the casino to watch Pecos come in fourth and one successful hand short of winning several hundred dollars. We had a late dinner in a bar. As I returned from the restroom, two scantily-clad women – a beautiful young Tica and a quite aged gringa – were moving in, stepping very close, elbowing each other aside, and trying to catch Pecos’s attention. He stared studiously at a hanging on the wall. Good old Pecos.

Much of the coastal highway between Quepos and Dominical is graveled in washboard, brain-jarring condition, although in some spots there is new pavement. Surprisingly, the blacktopped areas are quite broad, sometimes the equivalent of six or seven lanes wide. Then, without warning, the smooth pavement ends – sometimes with no signage and a foot drop – and the road suddenly is one lane wide and back to its conversation-ending, car-rattling condition.

Plantations of palm trees, grown for their oil, line much of this route. The rows of tall palms are broken by the occasional cluster of homes for the workers, each organized around a grassy field with soccer posts at both ends. Seedheads of palm, basketball-sized and ready for pressing, were heaped in large wagons for hauling to a centralized processing plant. Wagons were drawn slowly along the highway by tractors or oxen.

We stopped at a roadside stand for pipa fria. The proprietor quickly chopped a hole in the top of a coconut and stuck in a straw. This cold drink lasted several miles. We stopped at two secluded coastal villages where I swam in the clear, warm water. Pecos sat on the shaded, sandy beaches and watched for whales. Signs warned of riptides so I stayed close to shore. A few surfers were out quite a ways and a family or two were having picnics at each place.

We arrived back at San Isidro at 1:05. No sign of The Kid sitting on any of the park benches by the cathedral. But suddenly a shadow jumped up from the ground under a shady tree, and there he was! It’s good to have him here. He laughs hard every time I use my Spanish and smiles constantly. We visited the market and did a few errands before heading up the mountain.

The Kid offered to drive and he brought us slowly through village after village where he was greeted happily by all who saw him. When we neared our village, several people also called out to him from their homes. Two old men sitting on the bench in front of the pulperia greeted him heartily and swung their canes in the air. Mauricio, the proprietor, came around the counter and gave him a warm hug while talking excitedly for several minutes to fill him in on local news. Away for half a year, The Kid was expected and had been missed. 

Barbecue

Pecos is trying to start the barbecue grill, again. He had bought a bag of briquettes at the grocery store in San Isidro. For the starter fluid he was shown a small waxy block that smells like kerosene. These briquettes are actually blackened chunks of scrap wood and many of the pieces still have bent nails sticking out of them. The wax starter never ignites. I watch as Pecos gives up and once again takes our bottle of rum and dashes it on the few scraps of newspaper that he has added to the mix. This process keeps him busy for a good half hour, accompanied by much cursing, and when there finally is a good fire it is ready in a few minutes and won’t last long. I suspect that soon all of our cook-out fires, like everyone else’s here, will be made from wood that we’ll gather from the jungle trees.

Our barbecue grill was purchased for a few dollars and found roadside along with several others in front of a rural house. A two-gallon propane tank had been cut in half lengthwise for one side to serve as a rounded grill and the top half to serve as lid. It is hinged and stands high on four stork-like legs of re-bar that are painted black to match the tank.

What are we barbecuing? We are unsure. The carneceria selections are rather overwhelming. These meat market / butcher shops are everywhere – glass cases up front and unrefrigerated carcasses hanging behind them. I focus on only the display cases and avoid breathing deeply. We buy chicken and chorizo and a few lengthy, fat-striped pieces that may be from either a pig or a goat. We avoid the displays of heaped pig tails, chicken feet, kidneys, tripe and other unmentionables. As for actual cuts of meat, there is not much that we recognize.

The chicken is so flavorful! And the chorizo, delicious! The chorizo is encased in what appears to be a strip of true intestine. As I cook cut-up pieces in the skillet, I press on it with the spatula and the ground sausage falls easily out of the rubbery casing, which I throw away. This chorizo is lean and tasty, not at all greasy like that found in the U.S., and a small amount can season up a few bean or rice dishes.

Pecos has put the long pieces of meat on the grill. The fat miraculously melts away and they turn out to be meaty ribs of pork. I make a barbecue sauce from the thin sugary ketchup (which comes in a plastic bag), flakes of brown sugar, fresh lemon juice, olive oil and garlic. The cabbage salad (mayonnaise also from a plastic bag) and mashed chayote are ready, too. We dine by candlelight on the porch as the sun sets over the mountains. 

Hardscrabble Two

Hardscrabble Two

On our last trip home from San Isidro, Pecos stopped at the busy saw mill on the highway and sifted through a heap of scrap wood. The Ticos at this place seem to like him; when we arrive they all stop whatever they’re doing and follow him around, helping him pull out this board or that log. It’s clearly a macho place in which I have little interest, so I wait in the car. The selections are cut to desired size and loaded for us. Again, there is no charge for the wood or the cutting. They stand in a line as we pull out and all wave good-bye. Pecos will bring them some jerky that we’ve brought from Oregon.

Pecos has built us a standing shelf for the kitchen, a bench seat for the living room and a side table for the bedroom. I’m pleased, and spent a few hours re-arranging our meager belongings. It took him several hours and even though he had his shirt off for less than two of them and alternated between yard and porch, his very white self is burned lobster red. Luckily his collection of antiseptic creams also serve for eritema solar.

We decide to have our true championship Scrabble play-off. Pecos perches forward, unable to lean back due to the sunburn, while I relax confidently back in mine. For once I’m in a slight lead throughout. At the finish, despite being stuck with the Q since Pecos deliberately placed all four U’s in tight places, I win by four points. Clearly, a champion. I ask Pecos to admit that I am the best of the best.

Instead, he points under my chair where two tiles lay. During this all-important game I had jumped up to get a glass of water and accidently dumped half the bag of tiles on the floor. I thought I’d picked them all up. He says this game, too, cannot count for the championship as the M and the P from the floor are necessito for a fair and square play-off. No problemo, I say, adding that I can win this championship (again) when we play next. By then Senor Pecos may be able to even sit comfortably in his chair. 

Las Ropas Americanas

Las Ropas Americana

On our very first day in San Isidro de El General, my instincts of bargain shopping kicked in. A magnetic pull drew me from our parked car to four blocks up and three blocks over to find a large shop with a sign overhead proclaiming “Las Ropas Americana!” It was a thrift store.

Unlike a lot of North Americans, it seems that most urban women in Costa Rica – regardless of age or shape – wear high heels and skin-tight capris, little halters, miniscule skirts, or high-riding shorts that barely cover much of anything. Even grandmothers look as if their clothes were spray-painted on. I am noticeable on the streets for my jeans and non-clinging tops. I feel frumpy.

The clothing in this thrift shop was interesting – besides loose blouses, long skirts, baggy dresses mixed in with summer attire, there were also wool sweaters, tweed jackets, corduroy pants and a few ski jackets mixed in. Since then I’ve found four more Ropas de America type stores in San Isidro. There were also two quickly noticed in San Vito.

I browse and ponder how so many North American touristas could have come to Costa Rica, found the weather so utterly perfect with its near constant 75-degrees, and discarded what they didn’t need. They shed their warmest clothes, adopted the Costa Rican look, or realized they brought too much in the first place? Besides racks of clothing, each of these places also has huge bins that are churned over by many shoppers who shop ringside. So many thrift shops and so much clothing!

Two weeks ago when we were going down the mountain to town, two villages over I noticed a sign in a house window that hadn’t been there before – “Ropas Americanas”. This house was connected to a pulperia. We stopped and an elderly woman came out from her kitchen with a large black plastic bag heaped with clothes. I picked through a few things on top, but really, like other touristos, we’d brought too many clothes and there is nothing we need. We thanked her and as we made our escape she kept trying to press the entire bag on us while talking rapido en Espanol. Were we supposed to buy the whole bag? Or was she asking us to take the bag to town for her?

The next time we came through we stopped at the pulperia. The woman was happy to see us again. Her daughter was visiting and she could speak a little English. Her mother, Maria, is starting a clothing store, she told me, and she had been asking us to look through to help set the prices. We talked a little while and before leaving, Pecos asked for a pack of cigarettes, using a tangled, self-invented mix of Espanol and English. Maria asked, uno? Si, said Pecos, proud to be able to hold up his end of the conversation at last. Maria reached into a cup on the store shelf, handed him one cigarette and told him the cost. Chagrined, he accepted it.

Yesterday in San Isidro I found yet another Ropas de America type store down a side street. As I stepped past the open front (like most stores, no front wall and a steel garage door for closure at night), a large truck pulled up. Two men jumped out, opened the back of it and with crow bars pulled out a wired, 5-ft. square bale of tightly packed clothes and rags that they dropped on the street. When the store owner clipped the wires the bale sprang up with a big pop. I asked him where all these clothes came from – de touristas, possiblo? and he said, no, from Los Angeles, from the Goodwill. But the shoes, he signaled, come from somewhere else and he will not say. Mystery at least partly solved.

Boruca, continued...

We spend most of the day perusing the village, looking at masks offered roadside or on the residents’ porches but return a few times to this tiny workshop. One corner of the floor inside serves as the community’s archaeological museum, holding a few petrified bones and some unusual rocks shaped by ancient hands.

I think of Fossil and its exposed hillsides of fossilized plants dating to 53 million years ago and its overflowing displays of pioneer goods at the local museum. I wonder how this tiny collection of archaeological findings was able to be found in the dense jungles of this remote place, forged from oceanic mountain crests just a geologically-recent two million years ago. Do these few pieces represent a few lifetimes of collecting, possibly more? Who has saved them for display?

Boruca is also known for its native weavings created from balls of cotton string and dyed with jungle plants. Primitive looms stand on nearly every porch and a communal grass hut holds the many-hued weavings of the women’s collective. There is a table displaying colorful belts, table coverings and bags of all sizes. Inside is the largest single plank I’ve ever seen, about five inches thick, five feet across and ten feet long. Its seat edges are worn smooth as stone from decades of use by women weavers.

The women’s collective is strong. Pecos gently attempts to negotiate a few prices on weavings and these women let him know that is not an option. He will not ask again. As he pulls out colones to pay, the women stand ready, palms outstretched. The artisan men sign their masks with their name and under it write that they too are part of the women’s collective.

I’m excited to learn that a Peace Corps (Cuerpo de Paz) worker has lived recently at Boruca! She has encouraged the continuation of traditional ancient arts, preservation of language, and increased recognition of the value of this almost vanished culture. She may have helped strengthen the collective. I stand on the sunny road of Boruca and feel tearfully proud to be the mom of a soon-to-be distant Peace Corps worker. I imagine Bri wearing colorful native dress and walking up the dusty paths of such a remote village with passion and good intention.

The Festival of the Devils is centuries old. Each year at midnight on December 31, a three day mock battle begins. A person costumed as a bull challenges one after another of tribesmen – all wearing colorful wood masks. The oldest men of the village put on head scarves and blow conch shells to announce the battle. Each time the bull wins. Finally, on the third day the bull is killed.

The enactment represents the invading Spaniards of centuries ago from South America and the success many years later of the indigenous peoples of Costa Rica to repel these aggressors. As we watch, a burlap bull takes on several masked young men of the village – and wins, temporarily.



Late in the afternoon, we wind our way through the mountains again. It is not scary this time. Several miles from Boruca, a faded wood sign hanging in a tree bears a mask and points to a jungle-lane. We turn in to find a primitive house a little ways in. A cheerful man communicates that he too is from Boruca and we admire his displays of tribal masks, jewelry and a totem pole.

I buy a few necklaces of tiny drilled stones and seeds and Pecos buys a mask. We actually converse for a while as my Spanish has inexplicably taken a turn for the better and this man is also good at charades. We are each interested in the other’s lifestyle and have many questions.

As we are getting ready to leave our new friend tells us to wait. He returns with two icy-cold cups of something that is similar to hard apple cider with shallow foam on top and a decidedly corn taste. It is chi-cha, the traditional native drink of fermented corn! Not available on the market, this is comparable to moonshine, only of the centuries-old variety. I drink half of mine and give the rest to Pecos as fortitude for the driving. The chi-cha is delicious but strong.

What a great day to begin the new year! We are happy to have had the chance to taste the real Costa Rica or perhaps I should say, the real Boruca. 

Boruca: Festival of the Devils

A hand-painted weathered sign edging a narrow dirt lane off the Pan-American Highway states that we have entered the reservation of the indigenous peoples of Costa Rica. This lane is hardly visible to speeding passers-by and we have found it by studying our map and every open patch of trees along a remote section of the Central American route. We are on our way to the tribal village of Boruca for the Festival of the Devils, or Fiesta de Los Diablitos.

The Borucas are one of three remaining indigenous tribes of Costa Rica, today numbering only a few thousand persons. They practice matriarchy and communal land ownership; their faith is a mix of Catholicism and animalism.

The road is treacherous at best and Pecos picks our way along it, dodging old mudslides, deep ruts and dense undergrowth on both sides of our vehicle. At other places our narrow road hugs an open mountainside. The road rises higher and higher. We go for miles, periodically asking each other if we’re crazy and agreeing that yes, it is so. A meticulous driver until now, Pecos especially would never have attempted a road like this in the States. Then again, there really aren’t many options for turning the vehicle around on this passageway.

While I favor adventure, I begin to worry if we will find our way back or what might lie ahead, and wish we’d brought a machete to hack our way out or protect us from wild jaguars or pumas if we slide off the road.

A few times we pass a cluster of homes, some are quite nice and others are tin shacks. These tiny settlements are marked on our map as villages and bear missionary-imposed names such as San Antonio. Here and there we pass a corrugated tin lean-to or rusty-roofed corral and realize that these too are homes. The farms are attractive and the open range cows and horses look healthy.

We push on for another hour or two and around a bend a handsome, thirty-ish man steps from a former coffee stand and puts out his thumb. He carries a leather attaché case. We stop and he introduces himself as Fernando, a teacher, originally from Boruca but now working in Columbia. His English is a little better than our Spanish. He hops in the back seat. He has very dark skin, tall tight features and perfect white teeth. He guides us the rest of the way and without him we would have made a few wrong turns. I am relieved that he is with us. If we sail over one of these cliffs and through the clouds below, he will help us find our way out.

Boruca lies at the bottom of a deep valley in the heart of the Talamancas. This very old village of a hundred or so persons lies at the center of the reservation lands. It is still early in the day and only us and a few other non-Borucans have ventured in so far for the festival. Later in the day a few vans will arrive, filled with Asian and French tourists who will rush noisily around the town.

Simple homes cling to tumble-down dirt roads; some of them have palm-leaf roofs but most are stucco-built with tin on top. Most have four walls. There is a five-room hotel (for sale), a soda, pulperia and community hall. Everyone is friendly. Fernando shows us the one-room museum of art, takes us to the woodworking workshop of his friends, and is off.

Inside this workshop two men carefully carve tribal masks from logs. Features including macaws, monkeys, snakes, parrots, jungle plants and tribesmen are painstakingly cut in reverse relief showing fine-lined feathers, delicate fronds or rippled muscle, and are then painted in brilliant colors to the finest detail. These masks are exquisite, each one a unique piece of art worthy for its carving or color alone.

Continued...

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A City Besieged

To celebrate New Year’s Eve, I convince Pecos that we should visit San Vito, a small community a half day’s drive south near the Panama border. I’d read that this scenic town of a few thousand people was founded in the 1850s by Italian immigrants and that its many restaurants offered the most authentic meals outside of Rome. On the way home we would take a distant side trip to unchartered territory in the heart of the mountains. We would search for the tiny Indian village of Boruco and its annual festival.
About 30 miles south of San Isidro de El General, the land widens for a few dozen miles as we pass sea-green oceans of pineapple plantations – a most fragrant drive. These spiky, knee-high plants went on for miles and were broken occasionally by rusty, lopsided shacks of corrugated tin, presumably housing for the agricultural workers. We pass two ultra modern Del Monte processing plants and I vow never to buy a can of pineapple again. We’ll have our own on our little finca and will eat in season.

We turn off the Pan-American Highway onto Highway 2, the southerly route to distant San Vito. We are in farming country – pastures and patches of forest, both tropical and hardwood – but a few mountains away from the highway the map shows huge areas of mangrove swamps and dense jungles running to both oceans. Caution signs warn of monkeys. There are no other highways, paved or even gravel, that run east and west in the southern third of this country. For the north-south routes there are only the Pan-Am, Highway 2 and a narrow partially-paved road winding here and there along each coast.

Highway 2 is an extremely rugged blacktop road, sometimes two-laned and most often not, twisting sharply up and down the crests of the mountains. The views are spectacular and my guidebook claims this is the most scenic route in all of Costa Rica. I think the vista from our village is just as beautiful. We take it slow due to the dozens or possibly hundreds of bread-box-deep potholes, a few four feet wide. Pecos drove as if it was a slow-paced game, dodging holes this way, then that, and missed most – until he hit one deep enough dead on that knocked my pierced earrings out.

San Vito was delightful. This place has a completely different feel than the Costa Rica we’d seen to date. Here the men strutted and wore pointy boots and cowboy hats. Women dressed differently, too, many wearing long dark skirts and carrying straw baskets. We heard Italian spoken on the steep busy streets and several shops had Italian names. Many of the residents were fair-haired with light eyes, reminding me of my Italian mother. Not one other tourist or gringo in sight. We bought baby clothes for a friend and army-green olive oil for us. We browsed a few boutiques and clerks spoke to us first in Italian, then Spanish.

We admired the life-sized friendship statue of two children with umbrella in the central park, dedicated to “La Fraternidad Italo-Costarricense.” We checked into the historic El Rino Hotel on the main street and walked up the street to dinner for the best cannelloni and lasagna a la Bolognese either of us had ever had.

The main church in the heart of town was having a New Year’s Eve service. The choir songs filled the downtown and attendees spilled out onto the lawn. From our hotel balcony we watched as groups of people walked down the streets afterwards. Girls were dressed in organdy dresses; boys wore bow ties.

Soon all was quiet except for an occasional dog barking. It was 8:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. The streets were deserted; not even the taxis passed by any more. The few taverns that we’d seen were closed, steel garage doors pulled tight to the sidewalk.

We walked to the only store still open, a small grocery a few blocks away, and bought a dusty bottle of champagne and two glasses and returned to our balcony. Clearly, this heavily Catholic town was not the partying type. We later watched New Years being celebrated in Berlin and then an old episode of Bonanza voiced over in Spanish on the black-and-white TV in our room, and went to sleep.

Suddenly we were knocked awake by blasts that shook our hotel walls. Bombs were falling! Machine guns set off noisy series of pow-pow-pows! Blasts of fire lit up the sky! We ran to our hotel window and saw fireworks – massive fireworks, that is, with those shot from many houses alone being comparable to the full municipal show of any rural town in eastern Oregon on July 4th. These were set off at every few houses and every corner throughout the entire town of San Vito.

Colorful streamers of falling fire filled the sky. People were cheering, dozens of car alarms were screaming and dogs howled across the valley. The noise was deafening. Night turned to colorful bursts of day. The exteriors of entire houses were completely lit up as huge fireworks were torched, exploded upward and then fell in flames onto tiled roofs and canvas canopies – repeated simultaneously at house after house after house. Bottle rockets were shot off dangerously low at sharp angles, barely missing some roofs and sometimes streaking between buildings. Bonfires were set at a few street corners. This mind-blowing performance lasted a good twenty minutes and when it ended the entire valley was swathed in dense gunpowder smoke. It was all so surreal. Hours later we could still hear loud music and happy shouts coming from the many taverns that had re-opened.

The people of San Vito celebrate New Year’s Eve in colossal style! 

Hardscrabble

While not my usual blogging here, I can’t resist mentioning today’s trouble.

Most nights we play Scrabble, using the game that my parents had since I was an infant. Likely they never expected it to last this long or to go so far; I’m sure they’re both pleased.

Pecos and I play close, each only a point or two ahead of the other and it always comes down to the last play or two to determine who wins. We are evenly matched. While this man often can’t remember what day it is or retain constantly-repeated, basic words in Spanish, he has an uncanny ability to pull obscure words from deep within.

Today was our planned championship game. Throughout it I lagged behind a constant three to five points. As it was getting down to the wire I was sweating it. But there it was – my opening, unnoticed by Pecos! I quickly put down my Q on a double letter to spell ‘quilts’ on a triple-word play for a hefty 72-points in one move!

On our very last turns – with me still far in the lead – I noticed that a word of Peco’s laid down two plays before ‘quilts’ had been misspelled. Neither of us had seen it. We tried to un-do our plays to get back to where we had been, to no avail.

Pecos conceded this game in the sense of ‘it was a wash’ and says we still need the championship play-off. I say, No, Pecos, this was no wash – I won the championship with my score exceeding 300 and it was Today. I racked up 72 points in one play, buddy, and I’m keeping them.

If I’m wrong, don’t tell me. 