Costa Rica Travels Part Four: Upriver with Jungle Tom
CC and I are arguing about whether we are on a sand spit or on a peninsula. We could both be right. What is absolutely certain is that we are further from civilization than I have ever been – a couple hours on paved roads from San Jose, then another hour plus on unpaved roads, then 45 minutes up a muddy waterway to the riverfront village of Tortuguero.
Bienvenidos a Tortuguero
I mean, it’s not exactly the heart of darkness, given that there are both Canadian retirees and goat cheese pizza here, but on the other hand, you can walk the beach 22 miles and not run into anything the whole way. As in, nothing.
I meet the Caribbean for the first time
Next stop, Moin, 22 miles up the beach
This is a sweet sign, no? And behind it, Tortuguero’s one and only street. No cars at all. There were usually just some street dogs and cute kids riding bikes.
The little river village of Tortuguero is would be where I would come to write my novel. It is about half a mile long and on about 200 yards of dirt wedged between a river and the Caribbean. The people are a gorgeous mix of Black and Latino, Costa Rican and Nicaraguan.
I would sit out on the dock at Casa Marbella and write and write like Hemingway. Except better. (Snort). I would drink semi-frozen ginger ale in the wet heat and listen to the howler monkeys and write the hell out of that thing. I would.
Our dock at Casa Marbella
When we had to go back to civilization, we caught a ride with Jungle Tom. We had heard tales of Jungle Tom from some Dutch guys we met the night before when we were drinking bad white wine and playing Crazy 8s on the dock with Roberto, who ran the hotel.
Tom’s boat arrived first, at our dock, where his skinny, silent driver picked us up. The boat driver took us over to the public dock, never saying a word. We waited and waited, until a large, sweaty man, who looked for all the world to be the victim of a very bad hangover (i’m not saying he was hungover. But he really LOOKED hungover), showed up and climbed aboard.
The public dock, where people just hang out in the shade.
We began speeding up the 32 km of canal, flying along the glassy water in our flat little tourist boat. Jungle Tom made a pile of life vests, put his head down on them, and fell fast asleep.
He awoke only to harangue some German ladies about switching seats on the boat and throwing off the boat’s balance, and later to bolt awake to point out exotic animals inhabiting the river banks, like the Jesus Christ (because it walks on water) lizard.
The little lizard is that bump standing on the hindmost tree root. How Jungle Tom spotted these things from the middle of the river is beyond me.
Once Tom spotted some animal, he would gruffly demand – not ask for, demand – people’s cameras to take photos. People were starting to get a little freaked out by Jungle Tom’s behavior.
After about an hour speeding up the river, we came to a landing. We got off the boat and in to a Mercedes 14-passenger van. We had been told that we were returning to to San Jose, with a stop for a prepaid dinner along the way.
We drove for about 90 minutes on unpaved road through the banana plantations, the stones in the road sometimes as big as basketballs. The van made this weird bubbling sound from the suspension or maybe the brakes, and we had Bob Marley blasting on the stereo. We lurched and bounced along slowly over the rocky road. When we finally got to the paved road, everyone cheered.
Jungle Tom opening a gate in one of the banana groves
We arrived in Liberia, a town with an airport, and let the German ladies off. When Jungle Tom got back in the van, he asked a passenger, “Are you going to San Jose, or Cahuita?”
My heart seized up a little. San Jose was one direction. Cahuita was in another, about an hour down the road or more.
“San Jose,” the man replied.
“Oh, good,” Tom said. “That sounds right.”
Great. It seemed like he had no idea where he was supposed to be taking us. At this point, I realized that the chances of us stopping for the prepaid dinner were slim. I gave thanks for the fact that I had wisely stashed some Clif Bars in my bag. (Word to the wise: Clif Bars are a traveler’s best friend and have saved me many times).
We caught traffic and crawled along for hours. It would not have been so bad except that Tom continuously honked at the traffic in front of us and tried to pass anywhere he could, stupidly, impotently, dangerously, gaining a few feet of ground at the cost of many grey hairs among the ten of us left on the bus.
At the pee stop, the French women hissed in the bathroom “C’est horrible!”
“Oui, oui,” was the only thing I could think to say.
As we reboarded the bus, Tom told us in Spanish “When we get to the mountains and it is raining and dark and you can’t see the road, don’t scream “We’re all going to die!” because I can see the road and I’m a good driver, so sit down and be quiet and let me drive.”
I began praying then. I had been annoyed and amused before, but now I was afraid of this madman. The darkness fell and the rain began to hammer down and we were in the mountains and I don’t know how it was because I had my eyes closed and was breathing four counts in, hold four, four out, hold four…trying to keep a grip on my sanity.
Until we came to the bandits. A car was parked in the middle of the dark mountain road, flashers on, rain pounding down. A lone man stood in the road, waving us down. I thought “This is exactly like they say in all the guidebooks where they tell you not to stop because you’ll get robbed or kidnapped.”
Of course Tom stopped.
The man told us his wife was sick, they couldn’t get a cell signal because of the mountains, the car was broken down.
Tom invited them to ride with us. He didn’t even know what the woman was sick with, and he invited them to ride with us. Could have been anything – something highly contagious – who knows. Thank God the man said no, all he wanted was for us to report the breakdown at the police station on the top of the mountain, past the tunnel. So he was not, in fact, a bandit. Whew.
It was about 6 hours total on the boat and in the van. Finally the rain stopped and we saw the lights of San Jose in front of us, and all of us, French, American, Argentinian, every one, clapped and cheered just to be alive.
As we saw the city grow closer, the Eagles came on the radio. I don’t even like the Eagles, but CC and I didn’t care. We didn’t care if people thought we were insane American middle-aged ladies.
We both started belting out “So put me on a highway, and show me a sign…take it to the limit, one more time.”
Costa Rica Travels Part Four: Volcanoes
Holy cats this country has a lot of volcanoes. About 110, and I think seven active.
Poas, the gasses from which made my mouth taste like the worst thing a mouth has ever tasted like.
Turrialba, making a perfect puff of steam
Arenal, which often spews lava that is visible at night, and which gives birth to a bunch of hot springs.
And I didn’t even get to see them all! If you’re a big volcano fan, you know where to go.
Costa Rica Travels Part Three: Home Sweet Home
I have only traveled internationally to 2 countries, Mexico and Costa Rica, and I did both the same way: had a home base with a host family and took excursions to other places. CC found our hosts through her Spanish school.
The families are used to hosting people. They provide meals, laundry and housekeeping (Doña A. would not let me lift a finger) and insist on speaking Spanish at home (though both Don E. and Doña A. lived in New York for 20 years and speak excellent English). All this for $150-200 a week.
The breezeway in our lovely home away from home
The cool part about this set-up is that the visitor can get important hints about where to go, where not to go, where the bus stop is and learn about local customs and quirks.
For instance, we were told that the “tu” form isn’t commonly used in Costa Rican Spanish the way it is here. Here, as soon as you learn someone’s first name, you can start calling them “tu” without being considered rude. Costa Ricans are a little more reserved and formal, so I stuck to the “usted” form unless I slipped up.
I learned quickly that most Costa Ricans are proud of their environmental efforts and take recycling and not being wasteful very seriously. Doña A. had a rule about eating all the food we took and encouraged us to think about the number of plastic bags we used.
There are separate trash containers for glass, plastic and paper in many public spots and reminders all over that we need to save the earth.
Save the Earth – a mural at a girl’s school in downtown San Jose
I also saw cabbies waiting at the taxi stand shut off their motors and push their cars by hand ahead to the next spot in line rather than starting them up again.
We visited a coffee plantation and learned how the coffee by-products, such as the outer part of the beans and the plant clippings are used as fertilizer or to fire drying equipment.
The clippings are gathered and mulched or used to burn for heating the bean-drying equipment.
The coffee machinery was built in 1908 and is still being used.
These milk crates were being recycled into a staircase – later in the week they added sides.
Art made out of an old tire
I love traveling this way. I feel like both times, I have gotten a special window into the place I am staying, a sweeter, deeper feeling than just dropping in, seeing the sights and leaving.
Costa Rica Travels Part Two: The Way to San Jose
San Jose street
San Salvador welcomed me with a tiny, stinky airport bathroom with 2 out of 3 toilets not working. Bienvenidos a Centroamerica! As much as I like to complain about my US homeland, I must admit that we truly rock at plumbing.
From San Salvador to San Jose in Costa Rica is a one-hour flight. I arrived tired, literally red-eyed and feeling like I had been beaten with a stick. Waiting for luggage felt like it took four hours, but it always does, right?
It’s always the same – the waiting, the circling, the mistaken luggage sightings, the inevitable annoying French couple and their annoying, perfect little French offspring and their well-made cute luggage.
I let myself get reamed a little at the airport money changer with the crappy exchange rate, covering my bases in case I couldn’t find CC and had to take a taxi somewhere, even though I didn’t know where that would be since in Costa Rica they do not have street addresses. I am not making this up. No street addresses. For instance, my hosts’ address is “Go to the (name of the) shopping center, go 10 meters northeast, turn left, go 50 meters east, turn right, second house on the right.”
I asked Doña A. how they get mail and she said “We have a PO Box. I have no idea what other people do.” Doña A. is Salvadoran and thinks the no addresses thing is wacky.
I emerged from the airport into the moist Costa Rican air at the pickup area to find CC and Don E. smiling and waving. Oh, wait, no I didn’t! I emerged to find overly helpful taxi drivers and…no one.
Ha ha! My favorite scenario – barely awake in a foreign country with no one to pick me up and no idea where I am supposed to go. I freaked the hell out for about two minutes, then peeled myself off the ceiling, found a nice clean bathroom, splashed cold water on my face and went out to call Don E’s cell phone.
Once I figured out the phone and the 8-digit phone number, Don E. said they were about 15 minutes away because traffic was bad, so I passed the time speaking bad Spanish with a guy who hangs out at the airport waiting to help people with their bags.
CC and Don E. showed up in a Toyota 4-runner. The little airport guy helped me hustle my bags and got a tip for the effort. He sent me off with a “Pura vida!” the national saying of Costa Rica and the first of many, many times I was to hear it over the next 10 days.
It’s really a sweet thing, a national saying that can express so much – good wishes, happiness, excitement, good-bye…People say it ALL the time. I wonder what our national saying would be in the US.
Costa Rica driving and traffic reminded me of being in Mexico, with smoke-belching buses and manic, lane-hopping taxi drivers. The difference was that there are coffee plants RIGHT there by the side of the road. I gaped as if I had never seen a plant before. Coffee! Right there! Why it should be so stunning to me that coffee comes from somewhere, I don’t know, but I was impressed.
I was happy to be back in a Latino country. I love the lively streets with the stores open right to the sidewalks, the people hanging outside, the crazy mix of restaurants next to tire stores next to lumberyards – everything feels so filled with life.
CC unlocking the security gate at the home where we stayed.
Our hosts live in a lovely, bright modern home where they rent rooms to Spanish students like CC. They welcomed me in, fed me toast and fruit, and sent me off to bed for about 4 hours of complete collapse. Costa Rica would have to wait.
Costa Rica Travels Part One: The Red-Eye
A red-eye flight seemed ridiculous to me. I know that there are people in the world who are able to board an airplane, drop into blissful slumber and arrive at their destination bright-eyed and ready to take on the world and everything in it.
I also knew that I would not be one of those people because I am a pretty, pretty princess who can feel a split pea buried under a 12-inch Tempur-pedic mattress and who cannot sleep because of it.
Yet somehow, in some crazy way, I performed the mental gymnastics necessary to convince myself that I could board a 12:25 a.m. flight out of Los Angeles and wake up in Costa Rica at 9:40 a.m.
I imagined the flight as a dark and peaceful respite from the rest of the world. We would board, find our seats and the staff would lower the lights as a hush descended over the airplane. The 2 inches we could recline our seats would allow our bodies to relax and slumber as comfortably as if we were at the Ritz-Carlton.
What the hell, people? Clearly, my brain has begun to rot.
First, I underestimated the cheerful energy of Latinos traveling home. The four Honduran ladies in front of me started chatting across the aisle before they buckled their seat belts and did not stop for seven hours.
The two Colombian girls beside me were even worse. In addition to being absolutely stunning and chic (and there isn’t anything more galling than someone who can look chic when stuffed into the middle seat of a Row 17 economy class airline seat at 2 a.m.), they alternately chatted happily and then fell suddenly and simultaneously into hour-long naps.
I was envious to the point of fury. Just as I would nod off for 30 seconds, they would awaken and begin to talk with great gusto. When I pried my red, sticky eyes open to regard them balefully, they would descend back into sleep, lithe bodies gracefully twisted like pretzels in the tiny space, their perfectly blown-out hair fanning out around them.
Then there was the staff. Most of the American airlines I have flown recently have been staffed by crews who are surly and reluctant to leave their jump seats. I haven’t gotten an airline meal since I was in college.
But the TACA/LACSA flight crew performed their duties with a busy, machine-like, almost cruel efficiency, considering the time of day. Every fifteen minutes or so, they would come by with food or drink or to clean up the trash or to ask incomprehensible questions in Spanish as I desperately tried to conjugate the right verbs in my head.
They even served breakfast of french toast and eggs at 4 a.m. Four o’clock in the freaking morning. The smell of eggs is a little touch-and-go for me at any time of the day, but the 4 a.m. breakfast almost sent me reaching for the Adios bag (you know, the one with the little twist tie on the top located conveniently in your seat back.)
I think the total of sleep interruption opportunities was two drink runs, two food runs, four trash runs, a pass to hand out headphones, another to give out duty-free catalogs and another to sell duty-free items. All in a four and a half hour flight. God bless those hard-working people. I hope they get a discount on Dr. Scholl’s gel insoles.
So I ended the first leg of my flight in San Salvador at 6 a.m., tired, gritty and with my hair stuck up on one side in a most fetching and unfixable fashion. Meanwhile, the Colombian girls smoothed their white skin-tight jeans and strolled around the airport in 5-inch heels, stretching a little and tossing back their impossibly thick and straight hair.
The miracle of flight is a wonderful thing, and I give thanks that I have the opportunity to see other parts of the world. But I do think God could be a little kinder and not make me sit next to Colombians.
Estoy en Costa Rica
I can’t upload photos, and I am dog-tired after a crazy trip with a madman driver across most of the country today, including 32 km of beautiful jungle canals.
But trust me, I’ll keep you posted.
Honey, there’s a problem with the girls
This is a display of girl toys at Target. Welcome to your life, girls.
Feather boa, check.
High heels, check.
Cell phone – got it.
Mop and gloves – of course!
Now get out there and clean the house and look pretty doing it!
You’re not doing anything else, are you?
Psalm 23 of the Designer on a Budget
istockphoto is my shepherd; I shall not want.
It maketh me lie down in vibrant green pastures with skies blue as turquoise and white wispy clouds
It leadeth me beside waters so still you can see pink and gold reflections of city skylines in them
It restoreth my soul with deeply saturated colors
It leads me in paths covered in artfully arranged autumn leaves
for the sake of good design.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of copyright infringement,
I will fear no evil,
for you have allowed me to make purchases of images at a reasonable price
your choice of formats and your smiling multicultural staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me overflowing with sharply focused healthy food
in the presence of my enemies whom I know by their exaggerated facial expressions
you anoint my head with oil or maybe with attractively placed sweat beads
my cup overflows and glistens with condensation.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the perfect, clean, shiny world of istockphoto
forever.
Pink Ladies
My mom makes me nuts. Like this:
Mom: I’m getting so stir crazy. I never get out anymore. (She can’t drive and can’t walk).
Suebob: We can go out whenever you want. (This has been said over and over again).
Mom: You don’t like to drive my car.
Suebob: I’ll drive your car.
Mom: But if you don’t want to, I don’t want you to.
Suebob: I’ll drive the car.
Mom: But you’re so busy.
Suebob: Any time you want to go out, I’ll make time.
Mom: But you always have so much going on (sighs).
Suebob: I’ll make the time.
Mom: I wouldn’t want to take you away from the things you want to do.
Suebob: ANYTIME YOU WANT TO GO OUT JUST TELL ME AND I WILL MAKE IT WORK
Mom: You don’t have to raise your voice.
Like that.
Let me tell you a funny story from Mom’s life, one I have heard, oh, 600 times or so. But I still like it.
My parents met when my mom was still a schoolgirl and he was a ranger at the park where she lived. She grew up some, he went to war, and when he came back, she was all growed up.
Mom’s family aren’t heavy drinkers. She had never been to a bar and the only cocktail she knew was a Pink Lady, which is what her friend’s mom always drank at home.
Dad brought his friends to meet my mom and they took her out to a bar. When asked for her order, she blurted the only thing she could think of: a pink lady.
Dad’s friends took him aside and told him not to get involved with her. She was obviously a barfly! How else would she know what to order?
Thankfully, Dad did not listen. They were married for 64 years, in which time Mom probably consumed 10 beers and a dozen glasses of wine total.
The greatest love of all
I awoke in the middle of the night thinking how far from being a Christian I am.
People assume that, because I attend church regularly, that my church is a Christian one, but it isn’t. Last Sunday my pastor called it a “Buddheo-Christian” church, which got a big laugh, but people knew she was joking. We like Jesus – the nice, happy, encouraging Jesus, anyway – but truly we do talk a lot more about Buddhist concepts than traditionally Christian ones.
I grew up without religion. Because of my faith-free background, the Bible has no emotional charge for me. It seems a most curious document and the attachment to it baffles me, really. If you want to make people start talking in circles, ask them “Could you be a Christian without the Bible?” As a non-believer, this is a perfectly reasonable question – since Christians say their God is a personal, communicative God, a book seems to me a poor substitute for this direct knowledge.
I tend to see the stories of Christianity as I do the stories of all religions – as rich, meaningful and fascinating myths. Sorry to any believers out there – I’m not trying to insult your faith, only to explain what goes on in my head.
I heard an interview with Sebastian Junger, who wrote a book on Afghanistan and made the movie “Restrepo.” He talked about how the men in the platoon would all give their lives for one another. Even if they truly can’t stand each other, they would still, without ever hesistating, take a bullet for their fellow soldier.
It seems to me that those men are Christians in the purest form. They may hate someone, but they would give their very life for him because of the bond they have. All that business about “if a man asks for your coat, give him your cloak too” pales in comparison. This is truly the greatest love – big, irrational, all-sacrificing love. How little most of us ever do to approach that mark.
What kind of world would a truly Christian world be? With everyone doing everything to make sure other people stayed alive and healthy and loved? If everyone was put first, no exceptions, where would we all be?
Suebob's Red Stapler 