Still Alive!

OK, here's the deal: I've been here for a month, and I haven't posted a single thing. But that doesn't mean I haven't been writing. In fact, I've been "blogging" for the past four weeks, I just haven't had the internet access necessary to publish anything.

Until now.

And here's how it's gonna go: I'm going to publish everything I've written so far, all at once. I've inserted the dates when I was writing to make it easier to keep track of everything. But I can't hide the fact that it's going to be a long post. Really long. So read it in chunks, print it out and take it to the bathroom, or, if you've got some spare time on your hands, read it all at once. But whatever you do, read it. And leave comments.

I'm still trying to decide how to run this thing, and I can't promise that there will be a pattern to my postings. Some days I may post more than once and other times I may go four or five days before I add anything new. I guess we'll just have to see how it goes, because that's the way things work when you're Living on Tico Time.

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Sept. 10
Welcome to Costa Rica, where, in case you didn’t know, it tends to rain a little bit. It was raining when we got in, it rained earlier today, and it’s rained every day in between. Actually, as bad as that sounds, the rain is manageable. It usually comes down between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., so you just have to plan your day accordingly. And if you have to go out during those hours, make sure you bring your paraguas (umbrella).

That’s one of the many things I’ve learned in my four full days here. Here’s another one: Don’t buy drinks with ice. Ice, as I’m sure some of you are aware, comes from water. And tourists aren’t really supposed to drink the water. Does quite a number on the stomach. Also, things here tend to run on “Tico Time." Ticos (Costa Ricans) get things done, but they do it at their own pace. For example, Heather and I took the bus from our neighborhood today down to the local mall. Along the way, trash was piled up in most driveways we passed because tomorrow, I assume, is trash day. Our bus driver stopped to look at the junk in every freaking driveway from our place to the mall. Or at least it seemed that way. So he got us there, but he did it at his own pace. It’s kinda like “Matt Heitner Time,” for those of you who are familiar with that concept.

Down to the nitty-gritty: We flew in Wednesday and were met at the airport by our friend, Marilynn. She was kind enough to help transport the two of us and our luggage (approximate weight: 12,000 pounds) to our house in the suburb of Sabanilla. Another little quirk of Costa Rica is that there are no addresses. Or rather, instead of numbers, like say, 555 Crazy Street, they use landmarks. Our address: 50 metros norte del Colegio de Cedros, doble a la derecha cuando ve la canasta roja, a traves de Ciclo Tuclo.

After asking a few random people on the street and a few false starts, we found our house and one of our hosts, Doña Flora, waiting outside for us. She welcomed us in and served us jocotes, a local fruit, and, along with her son-in-law, Alberto, we had an hour-long discussion, in Spanish.

Neither Flora nor Alberto live here, meaning that Heather and I basically have the house to ourselves. Not that that’s anything to brag about. It’s two stories, but our room is small and dingy, our bed is small and dingy, the couch (actually a futon) is small and dingy, and the kitchen is small and dingy. Get the picture? If not, I’ll post some soon for everyone to see. One saving grace: the amazing view of San Jose from the balcony. Again, pictures to come.

Why no pictures now, you ask? That would be because we still don’t have internet access at the house. It was promised to us before we arrived, but then that whole Tico Time thing took over, and we’re still waiting. We do, however, have cable tv, including Cinemax, HBO, and—and this is important—feeds from the four networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox). Even better, the network feeds come from, of all places, Boulder, Colorado, meaning that each Sunday, I get to watch the Denver Broncos without leaving the (dis)comfort of my own house. Those of you who know me well (and that would be pretty much anyone reading this) knows that I’m, how should I put this, more than just a casual Broncos fan, so getting to watch the game today (even though they got shellacked) was a luxury I certainly wasn’t expecting.

Neither was I expecting to be treated so well by Marilynn and her husband, Alberto. Marilynn escorted us around town on Thursday, bought us cell phones (they won’t sell to foreigners), and took us to the Costa Rican equivalent of Wal-Mart so we could purchase all the necessities (eggs, turkey, energy drinks, etc.). Later that day, we were both able to get our own checking accounts at a local bank thanks to her son, Steven.

Normally, opening a bank account is a difficult endeavor, but Alberto’s family has just a little bit of pull around here. How much? Well, Alberto was the Secretary of the Treasury for the entire country of Costa Rica, and their family, the Dents, has an entire neighborhood named after them: Barrio Dent. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know…

Anyway, to finish off their day of magnanimity, that night, the Dents took us out to dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant, a place where the current president of Costa Rica goes to eat and a place that has been frequented by, among others, Orlando Hernandez (a.k.a., El Duque). Not bad. Not bad at all.

Friday and Saturday were basically dedicated to exploring and getting rained on, until Marilynn and Alberto invited us out to dinner again, this time at an excellent Chinese restaurant (in Barrio Dent). Afterwards, Steven and his girlfriend took Heather and I out clubbing in Escazú (don’t forget the accent over the “u”), a hip suburb of San Jose. We drank it up, partied it up and danced it up with the locals to hip-hop and the Tico favorite, reggaeton.

I admit, I imbibed a few Imperials, the “beer of Costa Rica.” I did not, however, venture into the mixed drinks.

They have ice.

Sept. 17
It’s been four days since my last entry, and they all seem to have blended together. My days this week have included some variation on sleeping in, lying around the house, watching English movies with Spanish subtitles, and hanging out at the local internet café. (250 colones—50 cents—for one hour is quite the deal if you ask me.) Still, not everything has been as easy as it sounds. In fact, we’ve learned a few hard lessons in the past few days.

Lesson 1: Bus drivers lie. Repeatedly. Twice this week we asked drivers (chofers) if their bus was going to Hiper Mas (the Tico equivalent of Wal-Mart). Both times they said yes. Both times we ended up nowhere near Hiper Mas. After realizing this, we asked them again:

“Pase por Hiper Mas?”

“No, no por Hiper Mas.”

Thanks guys. Appreciate it. We made it anyway.

Lesson 2: Doing laundry here is a pain in the &#%. Or, at least it is with the ghetto washer/dryer combo that we have here. Washing is fairly simple, if different. It’s the drying that’s the problem. The dryer portion of the combo doesn’t dry with heat; instead it “dries” by just spinning the clothes, and it works about as good as you think it would—which is to say, not at all. And did I mention that it only lets you dry for five minutes at a time, so you have to keep resetting, resetting, resetting?

After all that, when your clothes are still damp, you have no choice but to hang them up—inside of course, because it’s pouring outside. And that’s when the real problem starts. Hanging inside, with the humidity and lack of air flow, the clothes—the “clean clothes”—start to smell. Smell like feet just removed from work boots after 10 hours of construction work.

We’re still dealing with that one, but for next time, we have a solution: It’s called a lavandaria. And a dryer that uses heat.

…

But enough complaining. Here’s some good news: We’re finally all unpacked, we’re starting to figure out the bus system and our neighborhood, and we’re planning our first trip this weekend, to a butterfly farm/waterfall reserve on Saturday and a volcano on Sunday. I’ll take pictures, I promise.

Even more exciting (for me, at least) is that eight days later, my Spanish is finally improving. Today I made hotel reservations over the phone, and Heather and I had a conversation with the manager of an apartment complex that we’re thinking about moving into. (It’s cheap, has high-speed DSL, and cable TV.) Tonight, Heather and I started reading Cenicientas (Cinderella), writing down and looking up words that we don’t know. The book is for three-year-olds. We’ve looked up about 60 words so far, and we’re not even half done.

My Spanish has a long way to go.

Sept. 25
Wow, has it really been more than a week since I made my last contribution to the blogosphere? I do apologize. But I have been busy. And not busy.

First, the busy: We’ve made two trips in the last nine days, the first to Alajuela (30 minutes northwest from here) and the second to Heredia (30 minutes north).

There are a few things that I’ll never forget about Alajuela, the exhaust-filled streets, the people-packed sidewalks, and the man fondling his wife’s breasts in a church courtyard among them. And then there was the 80-year-old woman relieving herself on the side of the road as Heather and I walked by. That is an image that I may never be able to erase from my memory. Suffice it to say, I did not like Alajuela.

Thankfully, we didn’t do much in the city of Alajuela itself, other than find transportation to two beautiful spots in the mountains just outside its borders. On Saturday, we got up early and caught a taxi ($32) to Cataratas La Paz (the Peace Waterfalls), which is actually a privately run reserve that, in addition to mountain trails and waterfalls, includes an indoor butterfly “farm,” an outdoor hummingbird observatory, and a replica of a typical Costa Rican farm, circa 1840. We thoroughly enjoyed it all, in spite, or maybe because of, the torrential downpour. The hummingbirds and butterflies were beautiful, the waterfalls and nature, awe-inspiring. And the sweatshirts we had to buy because we forgot to bring our own? Expensive.

The next morning, we caught a bus to Poas Volcan, which has he second largest volcanic crater in the world (or so we’ve been told). The sulfur from the crater stunk to high heaven, but when the clouds cleared, it was quite the sight (pictures of this and everything else to come). After another nature hike, this one not so noteworthy, we caught the bus back to Alajuela, another one from Alajuela to San Jose, and then a taxi back to our place, getting back just in time to watch the Broncos beat the Chiefs in overtime, 9-6. What a day!

After all that craziness (I didn’t even mention how often Heather and I got lost in Alajuela looking for restaurants, buses, etc.), we decided to take it easy for a few days. Or a week.

You know how it is...

I’ve started reading the main daily down here, La Nación, every morning, looking up words and writing down their translations in my cuaderno. In the afternoon, I study my old Spanish textbook and then I review everything a nochecer. Fluency: You can run, but you can’t hide.

On Thursday, we went out to dinner with Alberto, whose family owns the house in which we’re staying. He took us out to a local pizza joint, greasy and good. Thanks, Alberto. He also gave us a brief summary of the political situation and put it in an historical context, all in Spanish. Apparently, the recently elected president, Oscar Arias, was president back in the 80s and was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace for bringing an end to the wars in Guatemala, Ecuador and Salvador (?). The constitution was recently amended to allow for previous presidents to get reelected (before, it was four years and you’re done), and Arias took advantage. But not before an election closer than Bush-Gore, in which every vote had to be recounted by hand. If only we had a democracy like that in the United States. You know, where voting actually matters. But I digress. Now, Arias is working on implementing CAFTA, the free-trade agreement for Central America that is supposed to open up the Costa Rican markets, bring free-market competition, and generally improve the lot of all Ticos. In other words, hooray capitalism! In other words, Costa Rica is screwed.

But I digress.

Somehow, Thursday night turned into Saturday morning, and Heather and I were on our way to Heredia, to tour a coffee plantation run by Café Britt, the main coffee company down here. The tour was corny as hell but mildly interesting, and we got free coffee and a good lunch (not free) out of it. Afterward, we did a little exploring in downtown Heredia, which basically consists of a park and an old church.

With all that to see, and because I was and am feeling a bit under the weather, we decided to come back and rest before going out to eat with some friends of ours. Well, wouldn’t you know it, Alberto and his wife and niece had other plans. Right when we got back, they insisted on taking us on a tour of San Jose. They showed us some sights we hadn’t seen, and then we stopped at McDonalds (not my choice) before doing a little shopping.

We got back just in time to shower, change, and catch a bus and then a taxi to meet our friends (Steve and Hazel) for dinner. They picked us up and we went to a restaurant up in the hills for comida típica (typical Tico fare). The food (pork, beans, something akin to a quesadilla) was good and the views of the city lights were impressive.

We were all tuckered out after our big day, so Steve dropped us off back at our place and we called it a night. Unfortunately, something I ate didn’t quite agree with my stomach and I was up half the night. Ahhh, the splendors of living in a foreign country.

Sunday was dedicated to football (as it should be) and the Broncos’ 17-7 thumping of the Patriots on national TV. It was a beautiful thing, or as beautiful as football can be when Jake Plummer is your quarterback (read: ugly).

So the Broncos are 2-1, Heather’s close to getting two jobs, and I’ve got fluency on the run. If only we could get internet access at the house. But I guess that’s being greedy.



Oct. 2

Scene: Heather and Matt get off the bus, somewhat weary and a bit agitated after their four-hour ride to Cahuita, a small town on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. As they get their bearings, they realize that things are not what they had expected. There are no taxis to take them to their hotel, no signs to direct them, and they notice that the roads are all unpaved. As they start walking in what they hope is the right direction…

Matt: Do you think this is the right way?

Heather: I really have no idea. Do you think we should ask someone?

(Enter large, shirtless black man, standing across the street)

LSBM: (shouting) What’s up? Hey, what’s up?

(Matt and Heather keep walking, unsure of what to do.)

LSBM: Hey! Hey you!

(Matt, starting to worry, turns his head to look at LSBM.)

LSBM: Hey, you want some blow? You want some blow?

(Matt and Heather, scared as all hell, ignore his questions and pick up their pace. They eventually find the way to their hotel, without any more LSBM offering them blow.)

Yes, that was our introduction to Cahuita, and though somewhat typical of our time there, it certainly does not do the town justice.

For example, Saturday morning, we woke up, had a little breakfast, and booked a snorkeling tour. Within 10 minutes we were on a boat out into the Caribbean, and in another 15 minutes, we were swimming in the warm, tropical waters—just us, the tour guide, and another guy, a huge, fat former Marine who, thanks to multiple operations on both knees, could hardly move. But he could swim. And he could butcher Spanish. Oh, he could butcher Spanish like it was going out of style. I would give you some examples, but it would probably just make you dumber (not unlike reading this blog…).

Anyway, afterward, our tour guide took us to the beach at Point Cahuita and we shared some pineapple and watermelon. Deeeeeeeeee-lish. In the afternoon, we walked all through the Cahuita National Park, spying monkeys, crazy huge crabs, and all kinds of foliage.

Sunday was dedicated to bumming it around the beaches, getting propositioned on multiple occasions to buy “something special” by other LSBM, and enjoying the local ice cream.

And that would’ve been that, had it not been for a very interesting bus ride back to San Jose. Apparently, the bus was oversold, which forced me to stand for the first 20 minutes. Then, abruptly, the bus came to a halt and was boarded by the Costa Rican 5-0. We were told to get off, and one by one, our bags were searched by cops holding some serious weaponry.

Thankfully, everything was in order and we were soon on our way. Meaning that I was again standing, but not before trying to snag some guy’s seat after reboarding. Now, technically, there were no assigned seats, so I could’ve stayed. But I could see he was ready to make a stink about it, and you never know down here—maybe this guy was in FARC for 20 years or was a member of the Panamanian CIA or something. I wasn’t about to find out. So I stood for another 25 minutes, until our next stop, where we decided there was only one option: I would sit, and Heather would sit on my lap. And that’s what we did. For another two and a half hours. It took awhile, but I eventually regained the feeling in my right leg, and we eventually made it back to our house.

Just another day in Costa Rica.