Introduction
This is the journal I kept of my vacation that my sister and I took in Costa Rica in March 1998. This was the first time Susan had been really out of the country, in a country where English is not spoken. It was also the first time that Susan and I have really traveled together. It turned out to be quite an adventure. But we had a good time.
Departure lounge, Dallas Fort Worth International International Airport
Susan and I are sitting waiting for the next leg of our trip to Costa Rica. We grabbed some Chinese food from a fast food place for brunch. She picked me up this morning and we left Portland without any incidents. I’m sitting playing with a deck of cards as usual. An older gentleman comes up and sits down across from me. He says “I’ve been watching you — show me what you can do”, so I oblige. His name is Rex and he is also going to Costa Rica. I entertain him for awhile, then it is time to board. Turns out that he is our seatmate, sitting next to me. He has the aisle seat, I have the middle seat and Susan has the window.
Rex has been to Costa Rica before and tells us about San Jose and what to expect. I won’t repeat what he told us because that would make parts of this journal redundant. He is going to Costa Rica to visit a lady who is trying to get him to marry her.
Sue is very calm and relaxed on the plane, although she is complaining of some minor stomach aches. Valium is a wonderful drug.
San Jose
We land in Costa Rica and make our way through customs. Since Sue doesn’t have a Passport she has to buy a green tourist card from the American Airlines representative. We finally get her past customs and are met by a representative of the tour company, who drives us to the hotel. It is fairly late so we grab a drink in the hotel restaurant then call it a night. The hotel is small, but quiet nice. It is a converted mansion.
First Day
Tuesday morning, Susan is sick. She spent most of the night with diarrhea and vomiting. She has flu like symptoms, fever and chills. Since she is on other medication for her Crohn’s disease, she has to be careful of what other drugs she takes. She says she can take Tylenol, so I go out looking for a pharmacy. San Jose has a pedestrian mall in the center of town, about eight blocks south of the hotel.
The storefronts are typical urban fronts with steel shutters and grates protecting the windows and doors while the stores are closed. The streets are not as dirty as some places, but this is definitely third world. Perhaps two and a half world. There are a good number of homeless and beggars on the streets. Street vendors also abound selling lottery tickets, tee shirts and fruit (coconuts, papaya, bananas). On one corner a young woman warned me that it wasn’t safe to have my camera out.
I found the pharmacy and bought Sue some Tylenol. She is still in bed when I return and looks very ill. She had tried to drink some diet coke but had thrown it up. I gave her some Tylenol and then went downstairs to get her a bottle of water. I get myself a coke.
I take a second outing, while she rests, to the Museum of Gold. It was very interesting, but all of the pieces were small. Mostly hammered gold, but some lost wax cast pieces as well. Most of the native gold was taken by the Spanish. The gold pieces were representative of animals and birds. Quite interesting, although the displays were in dark rooms with spotlights for dramatic effect which while dramatic also made examining the work more difficult.
After the museum I stopped by an outdoor cafe at the Grand Hotel de Costa Rica for a coffee and sandwich. Of course I had pulled out my cards and was manipulating them. Everywhere you look in downtown San Jose you see private security guards. They have sidearms, mace, or billy-clubs. I entertained one of the hotel guards and the cafe workers with card magic as I had my coffee. This cafe is in a tourist area, so there are a good number of street vendors and beggars around. At this sidewalk cafe the vendors consist of:
- A guy that reminds me of Craig Carothers, selling flutes shaped like pre-Colombian artistic animals.
- A girl selling Costa Rican currency (crisp bills) for souvenirs. Normal currency here is quite dirty and worn from the climate.
- A guy selling cigars.
- A guy selling very bad paintings
- And a guy selling a mirror.
There is also a marimba band that sends a basket around for tips. I’m sitting under a covered walkway and the vendors are on the other side of a rail. They can see my magic and crowd around to watch. They are like children who want to see more and more. I find that the best way to deal with them is to do a few tricks and then put down the cards, smile, and say “Gracias”.
The guard especially likes my magic and keeps bringing over other hotel workers to watch. I finish with my coffee and the magic and return to the hotel to check on Susan.
Susan is still in bed sick. I try to get her to drink some bottled water, and then I lay down for a siesta. About 3:00 I leave again to walk some more. I end up back at the café (the only outside café I could find) and entertain the usual crew some more, as well as two Costa Rican women who graciously asked me to join them so they could watch. Neither speaks any English, which makes performing challenging but fun.
When I finish I continue to walk around San Jose and take photographs. San Jose isn’t much of a city. It is quite small and definitely third world. I spend some time watching school kids play in a park. The public schools here appear to require children to wear uniforms. Blue skirts or trousers and white shirts. Kids are required to study English from kindergarten.
When I return to the hotel Susan is still very ill. She can’t keep any fluids down. She tried taking a drink of water and immediately threw it up (missing the toilet). The vomit is very dark colored. I’m concerned that she is becoming dehydrated and we decide that it is time to see a doctor. I go down to the front desk to see where we can get one. The hotel is very helpful and arranges for a doctor to come to the hotel to examine Sue. The doctor arrives and speaks some English. He at least knows about Crohn’s disease. After examining Sue he tells us that she needs to be put on IV’s to replace the lost fluids and antibiotics for infection His diagnosis is dehydration and an intestinal infection.
The hospital
The doctor has left. He charged $100 for the house call. He gave us his card and told us to call him when we took Sue to the hospital. We are unsure of Sue’s insurance coverage, but she had to foresight to bring her insurance card. So I get on the phone and call Blue Cross in the States.
I can hardly wait to see the phone bill on the hotel charges. I’m calling from Costa Rica and Blue Cross puts me on hold listening to Irish music. It is amazing how much the world has changed during my lifetime. We fly to Costa Rica on a Boeing 757, and from here I can call Oregon with a clear phone line. At the hospital there is an ATM machine that accepts my VISA card and gives me 5000 colones. Thank God we weren’t taking this trip 30 years ago.
Getting Susan admitted turned out to be pretty painless. We grab a taxi to the hospital. She is currently on a gurney in the urgent care ward of the Hospital Clinica Biblica, a private hospital in San Jose. She is on an IV while I’m down the hall filling out admitting forms. She is all right except that the IV stings and her mouth is very dry. They will not give her any water yet, but they let me dip a towel in water and moisten her lips and tongue. The gentleman doing admissions speaks only a little English, but is very helpful. Most of the forms are bi-lingual.
After filling out the forms I have to go over to the Cashiers and give them a deposit of $800.00, which I put on my credit card. After about an hour we get her admitted and moved up to a private bed. I return to the hotel for a late dinner.
The nurses don’t speak English, but are very nice. Susan quickly learns that there is only a couple of words needed, the most frequent one being “pain” usually asked by a nurse.
At dinner I run into three women who had overheard about my taking Sue to the hospital. We talk for awhile. They are just finishing the tour Sue and I were going to take. We had to cancel all of our tour arrangements. The tour agency seemed very helpful and said that while there might be some cancellation charges, they would try to get as much of our fees back as possible. If Susan is out of the hospital in a day or two we will have to try to re-establish some of the tour arrangements. Perhaps to the coast. The women warned me that the coast was very hot, over 90 degrees F.
Wednesday Morning
Susan called from the hospital this morning. I am impressed that she figured out how to do that. She asked me to bring over some stuff to her. I shower and catch a taxi to the hospital.
After visiting her for awhile (she looks pretty good compared to other mornings I’ve seen her), I walk back to the Grand Hotel for breakfast.
As a sidewalk café this isn’t Paris or Nice, but at least it is outside and there are interesting characters to watch. This morning a shoeshine man tried to get me to shine my shoes until I pointed out to him I was wearing tennis shoes. Another flute man came by. Three young children, two girls and a boy, are playing.
I order an asparagus omelet and papaya juice. The omelet is pretty good. I also have a couple of cappuccinos. The papaya juice was also very good. It had a thick consistency, like a puree. Very refreshing. I figure that I will have to enjoy the food for both Sue and myself until she is back on solid food. After I finish breakfast I end up entertaining the help some more with card magic. A expatriate retiree comes up and joins me. He is from Texas. We talk for a while. He is interested in if it is possible to catch people cheating at cards, especially Gin Rummy. I demonstrate some of the ways people can cheat and that you can’t really catch them if they are good. I then show him how he can protect himself from those techniques. He has lived here for seven years.
San Jose
Downtown San Jose reminds me of some of the cities I saw in India. Bad roads and bad sidewalks are the norm. Sidewalks are narrow here and in poor repair. You constantly have to watch your step or you will trip. They are especially bad at the street corners where you often have to jump from the sidewalk, over a broad gutter, to the pavement of the street. In addition to the sidewalks being narrow, vendors have their carts on them, making it even more difficult to pass by.
Buildings all have iron bars over the doors and windows, or if a shop, then the shop may have a set of steel shutters that can be pulled down or across the windows and doors at closing time. Walls and fences have barbed or razor wire on their tops. Private security guards are in front of about every third building. In front of a bank I see a guard wearing a bulletproof vest.
Driving in San Jose doesn’t seem much different from driving in Paris. Actually most of the drivers here seem to be polite. They use their horns a lot, but usually it is a polite tap on the horn when passing another car or when a pedestrian looks as if they are about to step in front of the car. As far as I can tell, pedestrians don’t have any right of way and it is the pedestrian who yields to the car (which considering the difference in mass is a good thing). Taxi drivers here drive like taxi drivers everywhere. Cabs here are all red colored, except airport cabs which are orange. The cabbies will rip you off if they can. I took cabs to the hospital from the hotel and never was quoted the same fare. Rates ranged from 300 colones to 800 colones for the same trip.
Homeless people sleep on the sidewalks here. I saw several that were sleeping with their heads inside cardboard boxes to keep the sun out. I don’t see as many here as I do in downtown Portland, but those that I have seen look in pretty bad shape. Unemployment here is at 5%.
While it’s relatively safe here, I do look over my shoulder when walking around, especially at night since I stand out as a tourist and am carrying a camera bag. So far I haven’t seen anything suspicious.
Well it is now 9:45 AM and I have to figure out what to do today. There doesn’t seem to be much to do in San Jose. There are a couple of other museums, but I’m not much into museums. I’ll head back to the hotel to see if they have any suggestions I don’t want to go too far in case I need to do something for Sue.
At the hotel I check a tourist map and see that San Jose zoo is near. So I walk over to the San Jose zoo. It is a very small zoo, but the animals seemed to be well cared for. They even had an African lion. But in the mid-afternoon sun it was too hot for most of the animals and they were all laying down in the shade. They had several jaguars, different types of monkeys, parrots and toucans. Some of the monkeys were playing so I took some photos.
It’s 2:30 PM and I’m back at the sidewalk cafe. Fransico, the street vendor who reminds me of Craig Carothers came by selling flutes. I haggled slightly and bought two flutes, one to give to Jim Walker and the other for Tim Ellis (guys who sing and play guitar at Al Amir’s restaurant in Portland.) These flutes are two flutes in one. They each are several different animals and if played one way, the have high notes and another way they each play low notes. Francisco is very good on them, but when I try it doesn’t sound the same.
I decide to have lunch before returning to the hospital. I’m becoming well known here now. People keep bringing others up to the table to see me work with the cards. Working with cards here is very difficult because of the high humidity. It is interesting to note the cultural differences in how different people in different countries react to my performing. In France, for example, after I perform people will typically offer me a drink. In Costa Rica they watch, and then want more. I have to put the cards down and say thanks, before they will leave. The men are more interested in gambling than in magic — although this could be in part because there is a casino right next to the cafe. At one point I have about ten people watching when a security guard comes and asks me to quit. I quit and the crowd disperses, except one gentleman who stays behind to talk. He watched me earlier with the guy from Texas.
This gentleman’s name in Norbert and he is from Switzerland. He was an architect in Switzerland and sold his company. He was planning on moving to St. Paul de Vence in the south of France, but Mitterand became President of France and changed the tax laws. Norbert was surprised that I had been to St. Paul de Vence and we talked about Nice for awhile. Norbert looked into moving to Canada where some friends of his had gone, but decided to come here to Costa Rica instead. He is now a professional gambler who plays Caribbean Poker (5 card, no draw, Ace and King to open).
Unfortunately, he says, he recently lost $16,000 and is now broke. He lives in an apartment near here for $5.00 per day and is borrowing money from friends to slowly build up his bank account. This, of course, means that he can’t afford to buy himself a drink, so I buy him a coffee. We talk for a couple of hours while I entertain him. He recommends Playa Flamingo as a beach to visit when Sue is out of the hospital. He is difficult to place age-wise. I’d guess about 49 or 50 years, but very fit looking. Like most Europeans, he smokes constantly, but since we are sitting outside the cigarette smoke is blowing away from me.
I was planning on lunch, but with the entertaining, and the talking I end up having a papaya milkshake (pretty thin), a cappuccino, and a cup of coffee that came with milk already in it. So after a quiet afternoon I walk back over to the hospital to check up on Susan.
She is dozing when I enter, but then opens her eyes. She is looking very well now, but still isn’t on solid food. I want to get her discharged tomorrow if possible. I’m planning on taking a tour tomorrow to a volcano. Norbert said the scenery is very good. Sue said that she could get to the hotel herself if she is discharged. I leave the hospital at six thirty and catch a cab back to the hotel ($2.00 or 500 colones). I decide I’m too tired to go out and I eat again in the hotel. My dinner entertainment this evening is a couple that sounds like they are from New York. They are bragging about the places they have been thrown out of. After my dinner a couple from Maine come in. They overhear the waiter asking about Susan. They have been in Costa Rica for six days and have spent time on the East side of the country including a river trip.
It is now 8:30, and I’m on my second glass of wine after dinner. I’m too tired to go out, yet I don’t want to go to my room (too boring), so I’m nursing the class of wine. Tomorrow my tour starts at eight AM. I’ll set my alarm for six and grab a light breakfast of coffee and fruit before I go. I should clean up my camera bag and gear tonight as well.
Thursday Morning
Susan called this morning and confirmed that she will be discharged today. I grabbed the Grisham book (The Partners) and headed down for breakfast, which consisted of a glass of orange juice and French toast. The tour will stop for lunch so I’m eating light. After breakfast I sit in the lobby reading the book and watching people. This hotel appears to cater to the American crowd.
At 8:30 the tour guide, Carlos, comes in looking for me. He is a middle-aged man and very friendly. I’m the last pick-up to join the tour. Also on the tour are two other guys from Portland, one is an ex-Marine (Semper Fi) with a U.S.M.C. tattoo on his biceps. The other is an ex-biker type with Harley insignia tattoos. There is also a couple from Wisconsin, a couple from Louisiana (both overweight and southern loud, she had a ton of makeup on, especially eye makeup).
She had a Nikon and he had a Canon camera. They were both shooting like mad from the tour bus windows at just about anything. There was a couple from Venezuela as well, so Carlos had to repeat everything he said in English and Spanish. Then there was a couple from Bermuda, Helen and Ed. It was a colorful group, but it reminded me of the American tourist stereotype.
The Irazu volcano is about 25-30 kilometers from San Jose. The drive took a long time because of road conditions. The roads are narrow and you have to consistently look for potholes. Then as you get closer to the volcano you start going up mountain switchbacks. But the small towns we went through were interesting. Going up the mountain we had some nice vistas and could see a layer of cloud tops below us.
The volcano itself was pretty disappointing. I’ll put Oregon’s lava flows or Mt. St. Helens against it any day. The Irazu volcano consists of three closely grouped craters.
The largest and oldest forms a large basin about the size of several football fields. The parking lot is right next to this crater which is shallow and filled with pumice like sand. There is a trail and fence around the edge of this crater, but you can also walk across it. The two other craters are right next to the large crater. The second oldest crater is also filled with sand and is about 20 meters below the large crater. The most recent crater is just to the left of the second crater, but is even lower down the side of the volcano. This crater is filled with water that is bright green in color.
We walked around the large crater taking pictures and moved up to higher ground to see the panoramic vista, which at this time consisted mostly of cloud tops. Then we headed down the mountain toward Cartago, a small town that used to be the capital of Costa Rica. There we stopped to visit a church that the tour guide seemed proud of. I took a photo of the exterior, but having been in several churches in the past, I was pretty certain that they are all pretty much the same inside.
After the church we drove down to the Lancaster botanical gardens that proved to be a high- point of the tour. These gardens are known for the variety of Orchids they have. This is worth seeing. The orchids are very beautiful.
They also have sections of gardens devoted to types of broad-leaf tropical plants and to palm trees. I took lots of photos of the flowers and I hope they come out.
I return to the entrance of the gardens ahead of the rest of the tour and I stop in the gift shop to buy a soft drink. It was now 2:30 and we still hadn’t stopped for lunch and I was hot and hungry. The can of soda cost 150 colones (250 colones equal 1 dollar). Since I had three 50 colones coins, I paid for the drink by producing each coin magically. The clerk loved it and called some others over, so I pulled out my cards and entertained them while waiting for the rest of the tour. The workers didn’t believe I was a magician so I gave them one of my business cards.
The rest of the tour showed up, and I returned to the bus to read my book some more before we take off again. As I’m sitting on the bus, one of the workers who had been watching me brings another up to see some magic. This has been very typical behavior here (as opposed to someplace like Japan.) As Norbert explained, “they lack sophistication here”. I show the guy a couple of tricks then Carlos arrives and kicks him off the bus (graciously) so we can leave.
The tour now goes into the Orozi valley, a beautiful valley where they grow coffee. Part of the valley is a man-made lake. We are finally headed for lunch at a restaurant on the lake edge. The road we are on circles the valley. The vegetation is very lush. The farms remind me of the vineyards of the Willamette valley. We finally arrive at the restaurant. I’m pleasantly surprised by the quality of the place. We had stopped briefly at a restaurant on the way to the volcano, a restaurant which was pretty squalid. That place’s claim to fame was having every wall covered with patrons business cards.
Anyway this place is very nice. It appears to be part of a coffee plantation and is on the shore of the lake. A bit of trivia here, there are no natural lakes in Costa Rica. All of the lakes are man made and most are for hydro-electric power. We are having a buffet lunch of typical Costa Rican fare. Typical Costa Rican meals consist of rice and black beans, meat (chicken or steak), salad and some fruit such as fried banana. I sit with Helen and Ed, the couple from Bermuda.
While we are eating, a young couple with a small two-year old boy is sitting at a table down near the lake shore. The boy keeps walking by the table playing with a small ball. I want to get his attention and do some magic for him, but I can’t seem to grab his attention. Finally he stops his wandering right in front of us, on the lawn. There is an iron fence between us. I pull out my cards and spring the cards from hand to hand. The noise gets his attention and I have an audience. I begin vanishing coins and reproducing them. He is delighted — his eyes keep getting wider and wider. I then pull a small scarf out of his sleeve. He smiles widely and stretches out his arm, pulling down is shirtsleeve and peering up his arm. Then he points his arm towards me and signals that he want more taken out.
So I pull out another coin from his sleeve. His parents are laughing at this. Finally I take my camera and signal his mother to ask if it is okay for me to take her son’s picture. She nods yes and I shoot a couple of frames. His mother is stunning, wearing a long white sleeveless cotton dress. The parents come up to retrieve their boy and she thanks me in Spanish. I reply that I can’t speak Spanish and she switches to English and tells me how much they enjoyed watching and thanks me for entertaining their child.
We leave the restaurant and drive to another small town with an old Spanish style church dating to the 1720s.
The one thing I notice is the use of bamboo as a sub-roofing. The chapel was small but there were quite a few people in it, due to it being “San Jose” day. Another thing I notice is the “modernization” of the place. The podium in the church has a microphone and the beautiful bell in the bell tower has a large loudspeaker installed in front of it.
After the church we head back to San Jose. I return to the hotel about 5:30 to find Susan in our room looking well. We figured the hospital bill for Tuesday night, Wednesday, and half of Thursday to be about $800.00. Blue Cross should pay 60% of that. Sue had to pay 40% on her credit card in order to be released. I have been telling her about the sidewalk cafe, so we decide to walk up there for dinner. When we get there I call over one of the managers who has enjoyed my magic and explain to him my sister’s circumstances. He has the waiter bring her a bowl of soup and some mashed potatoes. I order grilled garlic sea bass and a beer. Sue has a diet coke. After dinner she has another and I have a cappuccino.
While sipping coffee Norbert shows up and I invite him to join us and introduce him to Susan. I buy him a cappuccino and he regales us with gambling stories. As usual, I pull out my cards, but tonight I’m better prepared and do some levitations. I tell him that I can show him a great trick, but I need a lady (and not my sister). “Does he know any of the women seating around us?” He doesn’t know any of them and neither does the security guard, so Norbert approaches a table with two women and convinces one of them to come sit with us. I perform the “floating match” trick, where a woman seductively rubs the back of the right hand which causes a wooden match to float up and levitate off my left hand. She is a very receptive audience and I do a couple of more tricks for her. I then thank her and she returns to her table.
Norbert then gives us a tour of the casino, which is quite small. Then we then call it a night and return to the hotel. Tomorrow Susan has booked us a full day tour to Arenal volcano.
Friday, the Arenal Volcano
Susan books an all day trip for us to see the Arenal Volcano at night. The volcano is north of here and is an active erupting volcano. If the weather is clear you can see the lava glowing red at night down the sides of the volcano. The tour bus picks us up at 10:15 AM and is suppose to return at 10:00 PM, so it really is an all day affair. One reason it is so long a trip is the condition of the roads. While I have seen potholes just as big in Oregon, I haven’t seen as many. And the roads are very narrow here, and they wind around switchbacks. It is a real challenge when two tour buses meet at a sharp curve. At least everyone is polite. Both buses are likely to start to back up to let the other pass. One will then signal the other to go ahead.
The scenery is very beautiful. Rain forest jungle vegetation, coffee, banana and ornamental plant farms. Small communities scattered about. Most of the homes are cinder block construction, one story tall with corrugated tin roofs. Colorful laundry hangs on lines outside.
Occasionally you see dogs in the yards. A surprising number of horses and several times I see people riding. We also see small herds of beef cattle (Braham steers), so the horses might be used in cattle ranching. Unfortunately, on a guided tour it is impossible to stop where I would stop to take pictures.
On the way to the volcano we stop once so Adonis, our tour guide can show us a sloth up in a tree. Apparently sloths eat the leaves of this particular species of tree, so it was a good bet that there would be one in the tree. And since they only come done once a week to defecate it was probably a sure bet that it would be in the tree. There are both two and three toed sloths in Costa Rica. This one wasn’t much to see. It looked like a ball of fur hanging in the tree. It was very difficult to see, since it blended so well with the tree. There was one couple from Japan on the tour who are having trouble understanding what they are looking at and I try to explain to them. By miming very slow climbing movements they get the idea.
Helen and Ed from Bermuda (they were on my Irazu tour) are on this tour as well. This tour bus is a much larger bus than the one I was on yesterday. This one even has a bathroom on it. It also has good air conditioning, too good, for I am getting cold. The seats are terrible however. They are much to close to each other and it is very difficult to get comfortable. The bus is only half full and most couples are sitting one behind the other so they have two seats to themselves. Susan is behind me.
We stop for a roadside snack about noon. Lunch won’t be until 2:30. The stop is a typical tourist stop. We get some bottled water for Susan and I buy a ginger ale for myself. We continue on towards the town of La Fortuna. A good 1.5 hours of the trip was taken up by gathering all the tour members from the different hotels in San Jose.
Then the first part of the trip was on the Pan American highway. This highway is a two lane road, probably similar to the old Oregon coast highway. Shortly after our rest stop, we reach the town of San Ramon, which according to Adonis, most of Costa Rica’s presidents have come from. We turn off of the highway onto highway 15 and go through San Carlos. When we reach La Fortuna we stop for lunch.
La Fortuna is very small and not very picturesque. It does have a nice view of the east side of the volcano. ‘The east side is the side of an old eruption and has vegetation growing. The west side of the volcano is the active side now. Lunch is good; a typical Costa Rican meal, -which again means beans and rice and some type of meat. We finish lunch and climb back on board the bus. We are headed to the man-made lake Arenal. We pass the Tuareon Resort where we will have dinner. Sue and I chose not to bring bathing suits, but part of the package is to bath in the hot springs at the resort.
We drive to the lake to view the west side of the volcano. The road on the lake edge is over the earthen dam that created the lake. The lake is nice, but I’m surprised to see no activities on the lake. There are no boats or jet skis, etc. We drive back to the resort about 5:00 PM.
Adonis tells us that we can choose to stay and swim, or go on a short nature walk of 15 minutes up a trail and 15 minutes back. At the end of the trail is a good view of the volcano. Most of the tour opts for the walk. It turns out to be pretty strenuous. The first part of the trail is on an easy path, with a concrete walk-way about ten inches wide, but that ends and you are climbing on a trail of volcanic rock, with quite an elevation change.
For Sue and I it was difficult because we were at a much higher elevation than we are normally use to. I don’t mind because I can use the exercise and am wearing my hiking shoes, but Sue is wearing street shoes and her feet and ankles are swelling. She is doing okay though and is pushing on. We finally reach the end of the trail, at a small algae filled lake and with a good view of the mountain. I shoot some photos as we listen to the guides lecture. A woman offers to take Sue and my picture with my camera if all she has to do is point and click.
We then start back down the trail. Talking with the woman who took our picture we discover she is a lawyer from the Dominican Republic attending a conference on the Haitian refugee problem. About 1/3 of the way back I notice that I have forgotten my camera bag at the end of the trail. I try to run back but the elevation is killing my lungs. I get to the top but I’m out of breath and sweat-soaked. I grab my bag, remove my shirt and start back down the trail. It is now dusk and the forest is alive with bird and insect sounds. About 1/2 way down the trail I see a huge owl butterfly on a leaf. I’d estimate that from body to wingtip was about three inches. I tried to get a photo but I couldn’t get the camera to flash, so I gave up and continued down the trail. I finally made it back to the resort were Susan was waiting.
I was completely soaked with sweat so I decided to use the resort’s locker room to take a shower. I asked Susan to buy me a fresh shirt and I went and took a shower, which felt great. While I was showering Susan watched my tripod. After my shower Susan gave me the shirt she had bought. She got a nice golf shirt, tan with the resort logo on it. I felt human again.
We retired to the pool area bar. The lawyer from the Dominican Republic was there and I talked with her briefly. Then I sat with Susan at a table and waited for dinner which was served at 7:30.
On the way up to dinner we met two other ladies on our tour. One asked me where my cards were. She had seen me playing with them at lunch. The other woman didn’t know what the first was talking about, so I pulled out my cards and showed them some magic. The first was totally frustrated by the magic, so I asked her what she did.
She is a lawyer from New York! The other gal was a New York banker. We head up to dinner and meet up with the lawyer from the D.R. talking with another couple. I introduce the lawyers to each other and surprise! The woman the lawyer from the D.R. was talking with is also a lawyer from Baltimore.
So we all end up sitting together for dinner. The boy friend or husband of the Baltimore lawyer works for the German company, Zeiss. The last dinner companion was a gentleman at the head of the table who is Swiss. Before we are done with dinner the banker has told everyone else at the table that I am a magician. The Baltimore lawyer loves magic so I did the floating match routine for her, with all the risqué patter. I then did coins from hand to hand for the banker. We all had a great time. The couple from Baltimore were especially lively. At first he wouldn’t tell what he did for a living. He made things up or agreed with the guesses others made. What made this so funny was how convincing he was, no matter how absurd the guess.
At one point he and the lawyer had stood up and moved away from the table. She had been sitting next to me, but when they returned, he started to sit down next to me. I explained “NO!, you can’t sit there” (I didn’t want him rubbing my hand in the floating match effect). He catapulted from the chair as if I had shot him..
Sunday Morning
I’m getting behind on my journal. After dinner last night we clambered aboard the tour bus to go to a viewpoint to see the lava flows on the volcano. Unfortunately, the volcano was cloud covered so we couldn’t see anything. I think they drove us to the east side of the volcano because it was on the way back, while the west side is the better side for viewing. Next time I’m down I’ll drive myself to the volcano and spend the night so I can be more likely to see the lava.
The ride back to the hotel wasn’t much fun. It was too dark to see much of anything, and the seats were very uncomfortable. Susan was feeling claustrophobic. We finally got back to the hotel about midnight, much later than we had been led to believe. But while it was disappointing not to see the lava flows, I enjoyed the ride up and the visit to the resort.
I’m now a full day behind on my journal and will be writing about yesterday, Saturday. Susan and I both slept well and were up at 7:00 for breakfast. The car rental company is picking us up at 9:00. I finish the Grisham book and write in my journal.
9:00 the rental agency shows up and drives us the the rental company. We have a black Isuzu Sidekick, manual transmission, 5 speed, and air conditioning. I sign my life away for the car including a $1000.00 deposit against damage and we are off.
Sue is navigator but fortunately the way to Jaco (pronounced “haco”) seems to be pretty well marked. The first part of the journey is on the Pan American highway. Near San Jose it is four lanes, but very bumpy. We turn off the highway onto a two-lane road through the mountains. Driving here isn’t difficult, just nerve racking. Narrow roads, one lane bridges, pot holes the size of Montana, and very windy roads. They haven’t figured out the concept of passing lanes yet. So you get behind a bus of a truck and get stuck there for the longest time. My strategy was to tailgate the car or bus in front of me, and when they went to pass, I tagged along. The closer to the coast, the worst the roads get.
As we near Jaco the road becomes a very bad washboard gravel road for 15 or 20 kilometers. We pass the entrance to the Contara reserve where we will go hiking tomorrow and drive another 30 minutes to the hotel. The turn off of the main highway to the hotel looks as if was shelled. The road is pockmarked with large potholes. Several cars have opted to drive on the wrong side of the divided road rather than try to dodge the potholes on our side.
The hotel is a Best Western “resort”. While the outward trappings look like a resort I class it far below what you would find in, say, an Hawaiian resort. The hammocks are worn to the point of being unusable, the bar by the beach was doing very loud Latin karaoke at 4:30 in the afternoon, the room had a bad odor, not really mildew but something. We got checked in and I went to the restaurant for a bite to eat. It is about 12:30.
It must be 95° out. We change clothes and check out the beach. The beach here is sand with scattered rocks and pebbles. Some entrepreneurs are renting horseback rides on the beach, which of course means you need to watch where you step. The good news is that they don’t allow vehicles on beaches here, so you don’t have to deal with that.
We decide to drive into town, really just a strip with tourist shops, restaurants and the like. They do have a clinic. As we drive through town we come on the scene of an accident between a pickup truck and a cyclist. As you can imagine the truck wasn’t damaged at all. The cyclist was on the ground, lying still but obviously in pain. His knee was torn open — not a pretty sight. A little further down the road we were passed by two ambulances going to the scene.
We drive out of town and back on the main road to Quepos. The road climbs up to a bluff and I stop to take a photo of the Jaco beach. We then head back down to town. Sue had seen a pizza place called “Killer Munchies” that has a wood oven for baking the pizzas. We stop and check it out. The accident scene now has three or four policemen in place of the victim, who must have been taken to the clinic. We decide to wait until tomorrow to eat at the pizza place, and Susan checks out a gift shop next door. She sees several items, but decides to wait until we return from Quepos.
We go back to the hotel and decided to rest outside if we can find some shade outside. I am hauling my tripod around today. I want to see if I can get any decent sunset photos. Susan plants herself in a beach chair under a Palm tree. I see a squirrel like animal in a Palm tree and go to try to get a photo. Then I go for a walk along the beach. The water is quite warm and feels good. Later as the Sun is beginning to set I set up my camera and tripod on the beach to wait for the Sun to set.
Sunday night
I’m still way behind on the journal. It is about 9:00 p.m. and we are back from the days outing, but I have to finish the other days notes before I continue on.
I had set my camera up on the beach to get a sunset shot. I was going to bracket and I hope to get some good shots. Susan is sitting near the hotel on a beach lounge chair reading Grisham. It is a while before the Sun sets and I am taking some photos of the beach and people. I then returned the camera to the tripod to wait some more for the sun to set. As I am waiting, three Costa Rican men walk up and watch me. They are obviously interested in my camera and what I’m doing. I try to engage them in conversation but none of them speaks any English. I expect them to move on down the beach. One looks through my viewfinder. I point to some young women down the beach and aim the camera’s telephoto lens at them.
These guys love that and all of them take a turn looking through the camera. The Sun starts to set so I aim the camera at the sunset and shoot a couple of frames.
These guys are still hanging around! The sun is still pretty high, so since these guys won’t leave, I pull out my cards and start doing flourishes. They are blown away! They yell towards a guy with a young child and video camera. “George! George!” they yell. George wanders over and speaks some English.
I do some or tricks for them between shooting the Sun going down. I am figuring that this is great, the Sun is down then I’ll thank these guys and go collect Susan for dinner, when George invites me to join them for their barbecue. I figure “what the hell!” I tell George that my sister is with me and asked if she can come also. He says “yes” and I run up the beach to collect her. She is somewhat surprised when I tell her we’re going with these four guys for a barbecue. They have a building next to the hotel. It is set back from the beach and surrounded by a fence. We passed through an opening in the fence and crossed the yard to a building with an enclosed patio and some men barbecuing. There are a couple of trucks parked in front of the building and a couple of dogs wandering around.
There are some chairs on the patio and Susan sits down. I set my camera down next to her. They ask us what we want to drink and I go into the kitchen area where they have liter bottles of Coke and bottles of rum and vodka. I fixed myself a rum and Coke, and then fixed Susan a plain Coke.
They put some kind of meat on the table and are eating with their hands or wrapping the meat in small tortilla shells about five inches wide. I have one but Susan declines, explaining her recent hospitalization. Of course, the guys that were on the beach want me to show the other guys my card magic. So I go into the kitchen to watch my hands at a steel sink. There are no towels, so the front of my shirt fills in. I come out and start while wowing them to (mostly ambitious card stuff and poker demonstrations like cutting the aces.) Werner, Leonardo, Jose, and George from the beach keep bringing food. They are barbecuing beef, chicken and other un-identifiable meat and are also serving black beans on tortilla shells.
There are about 10 men and we have seen at least one woman in the crowd. The men come and go, and as a new guy shows up a everyone tells him about my magic and brings him over to watch what I can do. One gentleman who speaks fair English loves what I’m doing. I think he is in the owner of the company that everyone else here works for. He has a home in San Jose not far from the Intel plant. He asks if I will stay until he can bring his children to see my magic. He leaves and I continue to show stuff to the others. By now I have switched to drinking straight Coke and eating whatever they offer.
It is very hot and humid which makes manipulating cards very difficult. I am sweating up a storm and drops of sweat are running down my face. I asked Werner for a towel to wipe my face and he brings back a bandanna, which works great.
The guy who left to get his kids returns with his kids and his wife. His kids are adorable. Juan is 12 and I think Maria is 8. In Costa Rica, by law, children are taught English from kindergarten. Juan’s dad insists that Juan speak English. Juan speaks English quite well, although you can see him pause to search for words. As we talked I am more and more impressed by how smart and quick this kid is. We talk about his use of the computer and I give him my Internet address and snail mail address so he can write me.
Performing for Maria and Juan at Jaco
I ask him if he would like to learn a trick. I teach him how to vanish coin by using a coin fold. As I said — this kid is quick. He catches on the second time I show him the trick and understands everything I tell him about how to present the trick. How to misdirect the audience, the importance of using timing, all of it. I then tell him to send me his address and I will send him a book about how to do magic. A little later Juan tells me he knows how to tie a knot in a handkerchief without letting go of the ends. I hand him the bandana to show me. He does it by first crossing his arms. So I demonstrate how to do with magic. He tries to follow my moves and fails each time (of course he can’t see the secret move I’m doing). Finally I take him outside to teach him this trick.
It is late. We’re hot and tired and sweaty. Juan’s dad wants to invite us for dinner at their home in San Jose, but we explain our itinerary and that we won’t have any time. Maybe next time we’re down in Costa Rica. As we leave it becomes apparent that is too dark to find our way across the yard to the gate. One of the young guys finds a small flashlight and escorts us across the yard. We find the open space and the fence and say good night. As we walk toward the hotel we suddenly step into mire (possibly of sewage — yuck). I lose a sandal and Susan soaked her tennis shoe. I grope for my sandal and find it. We somehow get back to the hotel and wash off in the beach shower. Sunday morning we rest by the pool. I am trying to catch up in my journal. I take a few dips in the pool. We plan to go to the Carara Reserve about noon.
About 11 the hotel’s activity director (a young woman great body) comes out and turns on some music. She then organizes a water aerobics session, leading it from poolside. She is very good! My heart rate increased just sitting there watching her. She is wearing a bright yellow two-piece suit that contrasts nicely with her chocolate brown skin.
Susan is hungry, so we decide to grab a quick bite before driving to the reserve. The reserve is a national Park where Macaw’s nest. It is about 30 minutes back toward San Jose. We arrive there about 1:00 and talk to the Park Ranger. There are hardly any cars in the parking area. Yesterday they had about 250 people according to the ranger. Today we have the Park to ourselves.
The ranger gives us directions for the trail. The trails are a good. They are actually narrow concrete walkways through the jungle. It is a dry season now and I noticed that all the broad leaf plants are covered with dust. We can hear birds and animals but can’t see many. The trail is 1.4 km but it is fairly level. I set a very slow pace, both for Susan and to be quiet so we have a better chance at seeing animals. It seems that we see more animals in pairs. We see two beetles, quite large. Two geckos, one in a small creek. He runs rock to rock across the water on his hind legs. On a rock he is almost impossible is see. We also see a pair of female Quetzal’s. There seems to be quite a few Quetzal’s down here in Costa Rica. On the way out of the reserve we see a small rodent-like mammal about the size of small dog. There’s one on each side of the trail. I think I see a pair of macaws fly above the trees. But we see no other birds, other than a small woodpecker and a hummingbird.
We have hiked the entire 2 km of trail and are back at the Ranger’s station. We are sweat- soaked. The ranger is talking to a man and two young girls up by the cabin. The younger girl is looking in a small cat carrier. I go up to look and the carrier is holding three young parrots that were confiscated from poachers. The man is talking to the Ranger about the issue of poaching. The Ranger shows us a small box of three baby macaws that he took from poachers. He explains why it is so difficult to catch poachers. There are too many ways to get into the Park and too few Rangers.
The Ranger tells us if we want to see the birds we should drive down the road to the bridge. At dusk the birds fly from the mangrove trees back to their nests. We follow the man and girls to the bridge and park behind them.
While waiting for the birds, we introduce ourselves. He is from Connecticut and has his two girls on a spring break trip. The youngest is in the eighth grade and the older is in 11th grade.
He is (and looks like) an ex-hippie from the ’60s. He admits that in the ’60s he was in San Francisco at Haight-Ashbury. His kids are really nice but they’re getting bored waiting. So of course, I bring out my cards and entertain them. They seem like great kids, and are very lucky to be on this type of adventure.
Finally the macaws start to fly over and we see about 50 go by. I borrow some batteries from the gentleman’s flashlight and try to get some photos with my flash. But I expect they will turn out to be black birds against a gray sky. Oh well.
I actually got a good shot. This was a flash shot as the Macaws flew by about 60 feet away. I took several motor driven frames, but since the flash didn’t cycle fast enough only this one showed the birds colors. The other frames showed the birds dark.
We finally head back to Jaco to go to dinner. We plan on catching “Killer Munchies” for pizza. This sounds like something an expatriate Californian would start. Definitely not a native Costa Rican.
We order a Polynesian pizza; tomatoes, pineapple coconut. This is quite good. The owner comes in with his family. It is his day off. He watches my magic. The youngest daughter is too young understand what I’m doing, but his eight year old girl, whose name is Jade, shyly watches. Mike, the owner, is Austrian. He is married to a French woman. His kids speak Spanish, French, and English. We finished dinner and head back to the hotel.
Monday morning
Well our Costa Rican experience is now complete. We were robbed. Either at the restaurant last night or at the hotel. I foolishly left my jacket, tripod, hat, and the legs to my shorts in the car. They are all gone. No sign of forced entry. Maybe we left a door unlocked. I am going to miss the hat most of all. Everything can be replaced. I’m glad Susan insisted on taking the camera bag into dinner last night. For all future travelers to Costa Rica, never leave anything in the car and always carry everything you can’t afford to have stolen with you. In 20 years traveling the world this is the first time I’ve been robbed.
Oh well, today we drive to Quepos, and to Manuel Antonio Park. It is a long drive, not because of the distance, but because of the roads. The roads here come in three classifications. Bad. Really bad. And oh my God! Bad roads are paved. I am sure nobody bothers to grade the roadbed before laying the asphalt. Bad roads are very bumpy and at anytime you can come upon a pothole you could bury a dead cow in.
Really bad roads are ones that seem to have been paved at one time, but all the potholes have pretty much merged together and there aren’t enough dead cows in the country to fill them. The worst roads are the gravel ones. They are extremely wash-boarded by rain and at any speed over them the vehicle shakes like a washing machine with an unbalanced load. Then to make things interesting the road you are on will change suddenly, about every 100 to 300 yards, from one classification to another. And as you get closer to Quepos you will find a one-lane bridge made out of railroad irons every five or ten kilometers.
We make the drive, about 100-km, from Jaco to Quepos in about two hours. Quepos is more of a town than Jaco. It has about 5 square blocks and even has a barbershop. It is too hot for hair here and I want to get haircut. But first things first. We have to find the hotel. My trusted navigator can’t find the sign she saw for Manual Antonio. So we start driving around town looking for the sign. Finally we back track out-of-town and start over.
This time we see the sign and follow it. We follow a steep winding road (type 1:bad). I have to down shift into first. Then we go downhill about 11 km until we reached the end of the road at the park which is close on Mondays. There is no sign of the hotel. So we back track again and finally see a small sign, pointing in the wrong direction which is why we missed it coming downhill. Next we have to find the registration desk. It is on the other side of the street. We walk over and there’s no one there. I am about to go hunting when a young woman shows up we finally get registered.
After settling in we drive back to Quepos to get some lunch and the haircut. It is hot, hot, hot and humid. We drive to the barbershop.
This is a classic old-time barbershop. Two old-fashioned leather barber seats. One of the barbers motions for me to sit in the back chair. He speaks no English so Susan looks up the word “short” in the dictionary. He then goes to work on the right side of my head. After several minutes he waves Susan over to check. After her okay, it all comes off. I would look right at home in Camp Pendleton. I haven’t had a haircut like this one in a longtime. When I think he is finished and begin to get up, he gently pulls me back into the chair. Then he pulls out a straight razor goes to work cleaning up around the edges. It has been least 15 years since I’ve had a razor cut.
After the barbershop we go down the street to grab a light lunch. I had a pork chop with mashed potatoes. Then we went looking for a needle and thread so I could repair a open seam on my pack. Susan mimed sewing at one store and the woman indicated that they didn’t have needles and thread, but she drew us a map to another store. We went to that store, but it was closed.
So we crossed the street to a Mexican restaurant to get a coke for Susan and a beer for myself. A lady from San Francisco runs this place. There are a couple sitting at a table speaking French. When the guy leaves, the woman begins to stare at my glasses, so I remove them and show them to her. Susan moves from the bar stool to an empty table, and I sit with her and begin to do card magic. The lady who noticed my glasses joins us to watch my magic. Her name is Evelyn and she is another French Canadian. She is an artist that paints with acrylics. The guy she was with eventually comes back and joins us. He is a French Canadian architect who comes down in the winter to escape the Canadian cold. They have to be going, and we are finishing our drinks anyway, so we head over to the store to get a needle and thread.
The store is now open. We find and buy the needle and thread and then head back to our room for a siesta. We are beginning to lose track of time here. I have stopped wearing my watch.
We are getting ready to return to Quepos to sample the nightlife, when all of the power goes off. Without power here, it is pitch black and you can’t see a thing. Fortunately I had also purchased batteries in Quepos and loaded them into my flashlight and we could see. I went outside to see what was going on and heard our neighbors struggling in their room, so I lent them the flashlight for a little while. Then we all used the flashlight to get up to where our cars were parked. Susan and I decided to go ahead and drive to Quepos to see if the outage was in the whole area.
When we got to Quepos it was also dark, so we decided not to wander around. I turned the car around and back to the hotel we headed. When we got to the hotel, some power was back, so we decided to go ahead and eat dinner at the hotel.
Wednesday
Today we’re going down to Manuel Antonio National Park. We get up and eat at the hotel restaurant across the street. Susan has scrambled eggs, a plate of mixed fruits (watermelon, cantaloupe, and pineapple) and toast. I have the fruit and toast. We get to Park about 8:30. The Park is just down the road from the hotel. The road ends in a circle drive. As we approach, guys stand in front of the car and try to encourage us to park in their lot. At this point I am only encourage to see how much damage this 4 wheel drive would sustain strikingly a body. We politely avoid each attempt to get us to park and enter the lot closest to the Park.
For four hours we will pay 400 colones, which is a good deal.
To get into the park you have to cross a tide plain. Then a short scramble over Rocky Trail to the Park admissions. Admission is six dollars per person but if you pay in Costa Rican currency you get a free, but worthless, map of the park. We pay, and get a map, and enter the park.
The first part of the trail in the park is a sand pathway, which makes walking very difficult. But we passed gorgeous beaches. After a while you get to rest area that has a refreshment stand. Susan’s ankles are swollen but she is doing okay. Just before the rest area we hear rustling in the leaves on the ground next to the trail. We pause to see what appears to be a skunk nosing in the ground. It has 2 white stripes on its back in the rest of the body is black. But the tail is short and narrow. I shoot a couple of photographs. Then a Park Ranger wanders over, stops suddenly and gestures, pointing to the skunk with one hand in holding his nose with the other. That pretty much gave us a positive identification.
Then about 10 meters further, a group of people were pointing up in the tree. Apparently there was a monkey sleeping in it. But I couldn’t see him. We pushed on.
Basically the Park is like Carara Reserve, except is by the ocean. It is also in the transitional zone, farther south. While Carara has macaws, this park has monkeys. But the trails are some similar. The pathways are concrete walkways with concrete lattice blocks making steps on steep sections.
We hiked up a roadway to a fork in the trail. Consulting the map we choose to continue on. We reach a second fork with a short path down to a beach. It is very hot and I’m drenched. I have a bandanna tied over my head to keep from getting sunburn. Susan decides to wait here at the beach and I continue along the path, picking her up when I returned. It is a good decision. The next section of trail climbs in elevation, finally reaching a point where suddenly drops in a series of steep switchbacks.
Two guys ahead of me decided the trail is to steep. Getting down is easy, but returning looks hard. They passed me, heading back down the trail. I decide, “what the hell”. I am already soaked with sweat and although I’m out of shape, my heart is strong so I go for it. I reach the bottom of the trail at a small rocky cove about 15 meters wide by 8 meters deep. There’s a nice view of the bay but really no place to rest. The waves are breaking on the rocks in front of me and it’s clear that when the tide is in where I am standing is underwater. I shoot a few frames and start backup the trail.
Up till now I have seen no evidence of any wildlife. Earlier I joked to Susan that they stamp your hand when you enter the park with a stamp that says (in Spanish) “do not feed the animals”. But they never really say that any animals are actually in the park! I reach the top of the steep stretch and start down the trail and eventually run into Susan coming up the trail.
We start back down together. Suddenly several white-faced monkeys come running in the underbrush on our right. A mother with an infant crosses the trail and passes on my left. The others follow and disappear downhill. A little further down the trail we see another monkey. This one is on a branch. He seems lost and is looking around, probably trying to see or hear the others. Then we see a second monkey also looking around. We continue down the trail and run into our neighbors from the hotel. They tell us there is a very tame monkey just up ahead. We come to a bend in the trail and this white-faced monkey is sprawled down on a tree limb about eye-level. He lets me get a couple of feet away. I take his picture.
A guided group comes up the trail and the monkey poses for them. The guide talks to the monkey in Spanish and the monkey scampers up the tree. I don’t know what the guide said, but the monkey apparently didn’t like it. We continue down the trail to where it forks. Here are more monkeys. One poses with Susan for a photo. Susan is feeling the heat and exertion, so we decide she should return to the rest area and get something to drink. I want to try the other trail and go to the viewpoint at Escondido. This trail climbs up to a viewpoint overlooking a beautiful bay. On the way I see raccoon-like mammal. It is running through the brush so I don’t know if I get a photo of it.
I finally reach the viewpoint. It is a wooden platform with railing. Someone forgot to design benches. I rest for a few moments and take some photos. Then I head back down the trail.
On the way down I see the rodent like mammal we saw at Carara. I’ve been hiking the park for three or three and a half-hours now. I reach the rest area where Susan is waiting and drink a coke and some water.
We decide it is time to get some lunch, it is almost 12:30. We go back to the car, resting frequently on the way. We get to back to the car and decide to have a light lunch at one of the small restaurants here. We drive up to the road and try to park on the side of the road. Two Costa Rican’s “guide me” telling me to move closer to the edge and closer to the car on my right. Obviously they want money for us to park here. Is probably a con and but I am tired of these games. We say “thanks but no thanks” and leave. They were asking 500 colones but drop it to 300 as we backed out. I ignored them and drove up to the road to a side street and parked for free.
We walked about one block to a small restaurant and have grilled ham sandwiches, and fruit drinks that were blended fruit, ice, water or milk. Fruit drinks are very popular here and are quite refreshing. We finish lunch and return to the hotel to spend the early afternoon on the beach. We grab some beach chairs in some shade. Susan is reading and I leave my glasses with her and hit to the ocean. The water is wonderful here, very warm. I swim for awhile, diving under breakers. I then returned to the chair to write in the journal. I convince Susan she should hit the water as well. It has been thirty-five years since she swam in the ocean. That is what the afternoon was like. Sitting, reading or writing, and swimming. A really rough life. Later we returned to the room for a siesta. We have made dinner reservations at a restaurant in a hotel up the road.
We leave for dinner a little early, planning to take a drink in the bar before eating. The hotel name is a quote, “Si Como No” which means “yes, why not”. It is a very first-class establishment with a great restaurant that is air-conditioned. We go in and Margarita, the hostess, seats us in the bar. She is very beautiful with Latin features and dark eyes.
The bartender fixes me a real Margarita, which is cold and delicious. Our hotel recommended this restaurant and said it was air-conditioned so I figured performing conditions for magic might be good and I got set before coming. The place is empty of customers so when I start playing with the cards I get Margarita, Ana, Paula May (from Vancouver BC) and the waiters watching.
With Margarita I perform the Acrobatic match box trick and the floating match. Her English is very good and she laughs at the double entendres. She is a very impressed with my magic and takes my business card to give to the hotel manager. She tries to reach him by phone so he can watch what I do, but he is not in.
We finally sit down for dinner. Sue orders the mahi-mahi and I ordered a beef tenderloin stuffed with mushrooms and covered with mustard sauce. The food is wonderful. Paula May is our waitress. She has been living in Costa Rica for either five or seven years, I can’t remember.
She is married to a Rico so she has residency. Just before the food arrives a group of 10 or 12 American men (fishermen) mostly from the South come in. They have been coming to Costa Rica for the fishing for three years now. They know Margarita and joke and kid her. After seating them, Margarita asks me if I’d like to perform for them. She doesn’t know how to ask them so I tell her to tell them that there’s a guy here it does amazing things with deck of cards and if any of them are poker players she could ask me come over and I demonstrate.
Then she goes back to their table to ask them.
The dinners arrive and we enjoy them tremendously. I’ve just finished mine when Margarita returns and tells me “yes, they would like to see me perform”. Susan doesn’t mind, she is used to this. So I go over and introduce myself. One of the guys at another table, named Ralph, comes down to watch. We have a good time and before I’m done several of them have asked for my business card.
I finish and returned to my table. Sue has ordered dessert, the chocolate macadamia nut cake in a raspberry sauce. I order coffee and before I get it to it the Margarita brings the second class of wine.
Later she sits at our table and I perform a few more things for her and I teach her the 21 card trick. She has a great smile, beautiful dark eyes, and wonderful hands. I quickly fall in love with her. I ask her how old she is and I am surprised when she says 34. Now I am more in love. All I have to do is to figure out how to make a living here doing magic. Oh well.
Margareta goes back to work and Paula stops to talk. I am interested in her experiences getting work in this country. That is when she tells me she is married to a Costa Rican (natives are called “Ricos”). She suggests trying to get a job with Intel as a first step to getting down here. We finally call it a night. Susan and I returned the hotel.
Thursday
We are up about 7:00 a.m. to get ready for the drive back to San Jose. It is only about 171 km, but due to road conditions it seems much longer. We grab a quick breakfast at the hotel restaurant. The food we have had here isn’t bad. The restaurant is outside on the deck above the hotel lobby, and has ceiling fans to cope with the heat.
We head for Quepos around 8:00. We plan on stopping at the bank to get colones for gas and the souvenirs Susan wants to buy. Arriving at the bank at 8: 15 we discover that won’t be opened until 8:30. So we explore a road out-of-town we have not been on. Driving here requires constant attention. Always on the lookout for potholes etc., oncoming traffic that happens to be in your lane dodging potholes, and pedestrians walking on the roads, especially school children, an occasional cow or horse in the road, and you can see what I mean. I’m surprised that we have only seen one accident.
We’ve returned to the bank. After being robbed we are unwilling to leave the car unattended with anything in it. So I stay with the car and Susan goes to the bank. Margarita happens to be standing behind Susan in line at the bank. When Sue tells me this I ask her if Margarita is just as beautiful in the daytime. Susan is cruel and tells me that Margarita is just as beautiful. Then on the road, late starting. We stop at a Mobil gas station and fill up the car. One tire is quite low on air and we fill it as well. Then back on the road.
We are backtracking now. Going back through the coconut orchards and crossing “puntas agusutos” (narrow bridges). These are frequent along this road and are one-lane wide bridges. They are made of what looks like sections of railroad irons laid side-by-side horizontally across the road. There is a small town about halfway between Quepost and Jaco.
Bridge before the town midway between Quepos and Jaco
I stop there at a Texaco station to check the tire that was low. It looks fine so we continue on to Jaco. Then we stopped by “Killer Munchies” and a souvenir shop so Sue could buy some gifts. She wants to buy a parrot for her office (stuffed toy). We also stop at a convenience store and Susan goes in and buys potato chips, cookies, and drinks to hold us during the trip back to San Jose. Then back on the “road” again. The road here is washboard, potholes, and gravel. Some road construction delays us. It looks like they pour oil on the road after grading the surface and cover it with dirt. I also see bags of concrete dropped and broken open on the road as if they are going to mix it right on road bed.
It is a long tedious drive back to San Jose. At least it is a weekday and we don’t have as much traffic as we did during the drive down on Saturday. We had hoped to have time to go to the butterfly farm or the bird sanctuary but I don’t think we will. We take one wrong turn and go about 3 km or more before the road turns to gravel. Since we are now close to San Jose we know we shouldn’t be on gravel road. So we backtrack to an intersection and I look at the map. A young man is passing by and sees me looking at the map and approaches. He smiles and says “San Jose?” I reply “Si”. He points back up the road and says “Dos km. Turn right.”
We say “Gracis” and continue to backtrack. We make the correct turn but are now too late to stop. We’ll try to get to the rental place or back to the hotel and then see how much time we have. We finally hit Highway 1 and go by the airport.
Susan is trying to navigate but we take an exit and she can’t find any street signs. We wander around and eventually end up way over on the northeast side of the city in a suburb. We see the name of the suburb on the map, which gives us our bearing. After several attempts we get on a main street leading to San Jose.
At least my driving in France has taught me how to handle this traffic. We finally come to a city park I recognized and we are only about five blocks from the hotel. We find the hotel and get checked in. It is now two in the afternoon and we have to have the car back by four so there isn’t any point in trying to drive anywhere. I get directions from the front desk on how to get to the rental place and we are back in the traffic. It looks like we will do okay until the directions have me take a turn onto a stretch of road that at this time of the day appears to be one-way with me going in the wrong direction. At least that is what I am assuming with about five or six lanes of cars coming at me. I do a quick U-turn, go back to the corner and turn right figuring on just making a larger loop. I follow some cars and get on a road in a lane that appears as if it is for buses only. But since three motorcycle cops are ignoring me I continue on.
Eventually we get to the agency. They give us a ride back to the hotel (stopping along the way for gas). Susan and I have an afternoon to kill so we window-shop our way back to the Grand Hotel de Costa Rica. It is overcast, cool, and there is a fairly strong breeze blowing. It is too windy to sit outside comfortably, so we take a table inside near the casino. I go over to the gaming tables to see if Norbert is there. He is not in the casino, but today they have a table playing Caribbean poker. I watch the game for little while. This doesn’t seem to be much of a casino. The cards are worn, and the dealer shuffles them by spreading cards around on the table. I go back to Susan and we have light snack. Then we shop some more. We go into a department store and Susan buys some gifts for friends. We’re quickly running out of steam so we walked back to the hotel for dinner and crash by 9:00.
The next morning we’re picked for the trip home, which was uneventful.