Buenos Dias, Muchachos

My alarm jarred me awake at 3:15 in the morning. I felt queasy. The shuttle showed up at 4:15 and whisked me quickly away to SFO. I was grateful for the quick part because the minute I arrived at the airport I felt sick again. The nausea remained during my conversation with a nice man from Peru. I had to interrupt him to make another restroom trip. It was not fun.

The trip was long (door to door, about 16 hours) but without travail. My four-hour flight to Atlanta was there in plenty of time for me to get to the international terminal and find my plane to San José, Costa Rica, which took three-and-a-half hours. Getting through immigration and customs was easy. Finding my way out of the airport through an aggressive crowd of men hawking taxi rides was a little more challenging. I arrived at my horrible Holiday Inn Express half an hour later. It could have been anywhere, but in fact its location was ideally situated just across from another American icon, Denny’s, which is where my shuttle was to pick me up at 8:00 the following morning. The desk clerk assured me I could drink the water from the tap. I hope she was right, because I was thirsty.

I went to bed about 9:00, forgoing the opportunity to go to Denny’s for a beer. Next morning (today) I was up at 5:15 with the roar of planes possibly three feet overhead. The shuttle arrived on time and I was the last pickup, so we were right on our way after that. My fellow passengers were all friendly: two from Chicago, two from Rio and an “academic” from Paree. We drove along narrow, winding highways riddled with speed bumps in a van that had shot shock absorbers. Cut into the banks along the road were little indentations where venders sat under stilted wooden and canvas structures selling their wares: exotic-to-me fruits, nuts and other stuff. Our nice driver, with whom I could barely communicate, yelled in a friendly tone to some policemen as he passed by: Buenas dias, muchachos.

We got to my hotel, the Rancho Cerro Azul (the first stop) by noon. A man named Alonzo brought me out a juice drink in welcome: a sort of grainy light green concoction with a star-shaped fruit (some might even call it a “star fruit”) perched on the rim of the glass. It was yummy. The fruit is called cas, which is like a sour guava.

I am now going to tell you what a butthole I am. I was excited about my room here, the “deluxe” room (a cabin, really, with back porch where I’m writing this) that is set back from the traffic noise and feels really private. I picked it out online and was looking forward to it. But when I got here, they were hemming and hawing about its not being ready.”Would you be interested in our standard room instead?” Alonzo asked me. (Luckily, this exchange was in English.) Turns out there’s a newlywed couple who wanted my room for their honeymoon, but they had failed to book in time. I pondered it, and looked at the other room, and decided that honeymooners be damned: I’d paid for this room and I wanted it. Now do you think less of me? I should have switched with them. If their marriage ends in divorce, it will be my fault. The proprietors of the hotel got distinctly less friendly after my little, uncharacteristic spurt of assertiveness. It’s not really THAT much better a room, and it was a lot more expensive, but I dug my heels in. A bad trait.

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Once settled and semi-nested, I walked half an hour into the little town of La Fortuna. I had call for a sudden worry that maybe I shouldn’t have drunk that water after all.

Why are there bugs landing on me when I’ve just applied industrial strength bug repellent? I really don’t want zika or any of the other awful skeeter-borne illnesses that abound here.

Despite its being rainy season (what they quaintly call “green season”) the volcano emerged to view, to my great satisfaction. Also to my satisfaction were the little thunderstorms that passed through in the early afternoon. I stopped by the office of Desafio, the tour company with whom I signed up to do canyoneering tomorrow morning. My stomach is doing flip-flops as I write this. I learned that we will be rappelling down a 220-foot waterfall. I thought it was more like 60 feet. I am absolutely terrified. If this is my last post, it’s been real, y’all.

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One comment

  1. Glad you conquered the connections and travel details to arrive at your destination! So glad to have your honest (mostly?) daily (I hope!) reportage to look forward to. Sure hope your canyoneering is a blast, and that you survive, to tell the tale! (Hope the newlyweds discover the benefit of planning ahead, and that your ‘tude doesn’t completely sour your hosts’ ‘tude to you!)

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