Month: August 2018

(To read El Gringo Feo’s Costa Rica Diary from the beginning, start here.)

Wednesday, August 22

I finally went off the reservation yesterday. I’ve fully settled in here at PurUvita and decided to get a sense of how far a walk it is to the beach, stores, restaurants, etc. I’m not normally averse to a brisk hike, but the humidity here clings to you like skunk smell on a wet dog. So I fashioned a few do rags out of paper towels, loaded up my backpack and descended the daunting driveway that leads to the coast highway.

Playa Colonia, toward the southern end of Ballena National Marine Park, is just a a short walk north on Highway 34, then a left onto a dirt road that leads to the beach (la playa). Walking along the highway is a bit daunting. Drivers don’t slow down when they see pedestrians and there is no sidewalk. Just a narrow strip off the road. But it wasn’t long before the passing trucks I’d dreaded were welcomed for the cooling breeze they dragged along in their wake. While walking, I saw an interesting little subdivision, an auto parts store, a veterinary clinic, a not-so supermercado and a sign for the Costa Rican version of Garden & Gun offering gardening and security services, all under one roof. I also saw chickens, dogs and a massive iguana that was as thick around as my arm.

It was an easy walk to the beach (2,500 steps, or about a mile, based on my iPhone pedometer), and while Jeff told me how to bypass the toll booth ($6 US for tourists; $2 or locals), I decided to go through the official entrance, partially because the dirt road leading to the free entrance was something of a mud pit, and partially because I want to contribute to the care and feeding of this amazing resource. I do wish they had some sort of monthly pass. But I’ll create my own by using the free route more often than not.

The beach is beautiful. Not in the sugar-white way Northwest Florida beaches are, but more in a remote, cool-place-to-camp aspect. It reminded me of the surfer beach in Sayulita, Mexico, we visited several years ago. There’s a small guard shack where I coughed up my $6 bucks and received change in Colones (exchange rate about 550 to a dollar). You can go straight to the sand, or, as I did, turn onto a double track that runs through the palms and brush behind the dune line.

After walking for a bit, I found a spot to sit on a log and watch the waves, taking note of the surrounding palm trees to ensure I wasn’t sitting in under a bunch of coconuts that could drop and knock me senseless. An ATV with a few police officers rode by, waving as they went. But at 9:30 a.m. I had the place pretty much to myself.

I continued on toward the Whale’s Tail. I wasn’t intending to go out there today (I hadn’t even checked the tide charts to see if it was possible), but I did want to get a sense of how far a walk it would be. Long, but not daunting. When I got to the spot where whale watching boats put in, on the south end of the Whale’s Tail, I cut back up inland and found the softball field where Jeff and I watched a gaggle of expatriates play softball on Saturday. From there I angled through the neighborhood to Flutterby House, which Jeff also introduced me to. They have wifi, iced coffee and decent fish tacos. I made a quick call to Lara to test WhatsApp and it worked flawlessly, but Lara was in the middle of walking Sunny in a rainstorm so we didn’t talk long. But damn, it was good to hear her voice.

From there, I made my way back toward Playa Colonia, wading through at least one muddy track, returning to the beach and then retracing my steps up through the neighborhood. I did hit a small market over by the softball/soccer field to pick up a supplies. It dawned on me I haven’t eaten red meat or chicken since leaving the States. Don’t miss it. Once I arrived in Costa Rica and had easy access to fresh seafood, that was all I needed.

Prices here are pretty much the same as in the States, if not more expensive. The exception is fresh fruits and anything local. But stuff that’s imported is pricey. My market run cost me almost $20 and I didn’t have a lot to show for it. Cheese, juice, water, black beans, tortillas and a few other sundries.

The return left me sweaty, taxing my makeshift do rag to its limits, and the finale, a climb up the driveway, had me huffing. Don’t underestimate the effect of the tropical sun. The streets aren’t tree-lined, so when I was walking them the sun was vicious. The path behind the dunes at the beach is a different story. More shade, pleasant ocean breeze. In all, I logged about 16k steps today, or about 8 miles. That’s pretty much what I do daily at home thanks to Sunny’s insatiable desire for walks.

After returning, I showered and spent the rest of the afternoon plowing through Poilu, where hapless Louis Barthas emerges from the slaughter of Verdun largely unscathed but having witnessed carnage on a scale I can’t comprehend. The book does a marvelous job of relating the grunt’s life. Boredom. Marching with no idea where you’re heading. And then the sheer terror of trying to survive in the trenches while the world is exploding around. He was a Socialist, which greatly impacts his view of the war. Sometimes it’s clear he identifies more with the German regulars more than his own commanders, who stay behind the lines in bunkers while the common folk are left to slaughter each other a few hundred yards away.

As sunset approached (5:47 p.m.), I migrated up to the shack, where I heard a group of howlers down in the valley. Maybe they’re heading back my way. And the sunset was sublime. Definitely photo-worthy this time around. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite daily rituals. As the light faded, the bats came out, winging precariously through the open first floor of the shack and within feet of my head. I slouched, hoping their radar was true. And it was.

After a dinner of scrambled eggs, tortillas, cheese and an organic carrot, I found myself on the second floor of the building housing the kitchen/bar area, watching the stars above the Pacific while I sipped a rum and orange juice, my nightly offering to the sugar cane gods. The moon is in its waxing crescent phase, with the full moon coming Sunday. I’m really hoping for a clear night or two during the new moon so I can see the stars. No city lights here. Just the Pacific Ocean.

(To read El Gringo Feo’s Costa Rica Diary from the beginning, start here.)

Tuesday, August 21

For the second morning in a row, there was no howler monkey party outside my window as day broke. Yesterday, I was sleep-deprived and thankful for the relative silence. But today I miss the little buggers. I’m not even hearing them in the distance. They must have moved on in search of food. I suspect they cycle through a wide territory …

I thought I caught a quick glimpse of a white-faced capuchin monkey, but upon further review I’m pretty sure it was actually a coatimundi. Later, as I was reading Poilu on the deck of the Treehouse, a band of them showed up, leading me to believe my earlier capuchin sighting was more wishful thinking that actual fact. The coatimundi does have a vaguely monkey tail, and one of them ventured close enough to me for a photo opportunity (see above). He was casually foraging for tasty fruits, much of which gets tossed down from birds who take a single bite and move on. Sydney, our umbrella cockatoo, behaves in this manner. It’s a very efficient way for nature to scatter seeds …

As I write, a rain of fruit is falling around me, some of it clanging off the metal roof, as the jungle birds eat breakfast with little regard for the mess they’re making.

Remember that smack I was talking about the dearth of mosquitos here?

Not so fast. One of Jeff’s friends warned me there are biting bugs on the beach, and they’re very stealth. You don’t realize you’ve been assaulted until it’s too late.

There are some here at PurUvita, too, though it’s still not as bad as my front porch in Ohio. Regardless, I’ve reconciled with Deet, at least in some circumstances.

I spent yesterday morning watching boats full of tourists head out toward the Whale’s Tail at high tide, presumably on their way to watch the whales. From my perch atop PurUvita, they looked like tiny waterbugs, discernible primarily through their wakes. Is that a rogue wave? No. It’s attached to that little dot, er boat, pushing out into the Pacific. Another item for my to-do list.

Strange, delicate little wasp-type insects were ducking in and out of a tubular hive in one of the logs that forms a supporting timber for the shack. They chose a knot in the wood to insert their nest. I assume they’ve burrowed into the wood. They don’t appear to be aggressive and were unperturbed when I came close to shoot a short video. I haven’t had time to ID them yet. There’s so much here that I don’t know. It’s humbling and invigorating.

I received a text yesterday from Lara telling me her father is going into hospice. I think she has mixed emotions. It’s obviously distressing to know your father is about to die. But there’s also a sense of relief. He was a difficult guy before dementia twisted his brain. It got worse from there, muddling him and prompting him to see schemes and conspiracies everywhere. But Lara said Daddy has taken a turn toward sweetness with the news. Perhaps he’s ready. Or perhaps it’s like that Flannery O’Connor Story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, one of my favorite O’Connor stories. After an escaped convict, the Misfit, encounters and then kills a sinful Christian grandmother, he says, “she would have been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” I always took that to be O’Connor saying some people need that immediate threat of extermination every day to truly see the light and find grace. Or as Ray Wylie Hubbard sang in Conversation with the Devil:

Some get spiritual, ’cause they see the light

And some, ’cause they feel the heat

Though my favorite stanza from that song is:

Now I said, “I’ve made some mistakes, but I’m not as bad as those guys

How can God do this to me or can’t He sympathize

He said, “You’re wrong about God being cruel and mean

Oh, God is the most loving thing that’s never been seen”

I said, “Hotshot tell me this which religion is the truest”

He said, “There all about the same

Buddha was not a Christian, but Jesus woulda made a good Buddhist”

The day closed, again, atop the hill, watching a delicious grenadine sunset sprawl across the sea, capped by banks of clouds. The humidity was palpable, and then a light rain fell as the light faded. No photo. Impossible to capture … so I’ll leave you with Ray Wylie.

https://youtu.be/pNOl6mMcwvM

(To read El Gringo Feo’s Costa Rica Diary from the beginning, start here.)

Monday, August 20

Last night was my first sleepless night here, but it was more due to sudden inspiration than anxious tossing and turning. I was up until almost 3 a.m. uploading all of my entries thus far to the site. And I still awoke at about 5 a.m. so there will be a bonk at some point today.

While I’m getting a solid 3G connection here, it bogs down massively during prime time when everyone has a straw in the bandwidth and is sucking voraciously. In the middle of the night, my 3G becomes relatively fast and smooth, prompting me to take advantage of my computer’s tethered connection to my iPhone.

A drenching rain fell for much of yesterday, which helped break the heat that had been mounting toward noon. It was incredibly soothing, and as much as I hate to use this cliché, it was Zen. I found it difficult to not just sit there drifting off into the raindrops.

I spent most of the day reading and writing. I’m deep into Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918, and have no idea how the human mind can survive the things Barthas describes in his amazing account of the Great War. Many don’t survive it, crumbling mentally as the shells explode and gore flows out of the trenches. But many find a way to persevere. As a counterweight, I started reading Jack Ewing’s Where Tapirs and Jaguars Once Roamed: Ever Evolving Costa Rica, which was recommended by Jeff, who noted that his wife, Laurie, loved it. She’s a fantastic writer and journalist, so that was good enough for me. Jeff and I drove over to Domincal so I could pick up both of Ewing’s books about Costa Rica (the other is Monkeys are Made of Chocolate: Exotic and Unseen Costa Rica). Ewing first came here in 1970 when he was just out of school with a degree in animal husbandry and intention of working in the cattle business. He gets hired to assist in bringing cattle to Costa Rica for sale. Ultimately, he ends up settling in Domincal and founding Hacienda Baru , a national wildlife refuge and lodge. Jeff and I poked around a bit there after buying the books, and I definitely intend to return before leaving.

To say the two books are polar opposites would be an understatement. Or perhaps not. When Ewing arrived in Costa Rica, it was being pillaged for its natural resources and the jungle was under siege. Thanks in part to his visionary efforts, that was thwarted. Or at least slowed. So there is a sense of impending apocalypse in both books. But the Barthas book is just mind-numbing. He managed to survive the major slaughters of the war, which he refers to accurately as charnel houses. I’m about to enter the section where he details the horrors of Verdun. Wish me luck.

My writing thus far has largely been self-obsessed blogging about this trip, but I’m starting to think about form and structure for a novel I’ve been plotting for decades. It’s Pittsburgh based and focused on the rise and fall of steel. The Homestead Strike is in there. And Tall Tale hero Joe Magarac. And maybe a few ghosts. But the world keeps shifting. The plot line was focused around an unemployed Geek who was spit out in the first great Internet meltdown in 2000, or Dot.Bomb, as it came to be known. The Geek returns home from the Bay Area to Pittsburgh, where he retreats to an hold house in Homestead that his grandparents left him in their will. As he’s tearing out the lathe board to install Cat 5 cable for Internet (this was before wireless changed everything), he finds a trove of letters that date bak to the 1892 Homestead Steel Strike, which triggers the rest of the action. But as time has passed and the nation has been Trumped by populist hysteria, it seems major reworking is in order. I really hope I can get myself to do that during the next few months. On the plus side, there’s not a whole lot else to do most days. My usual vices and distractions are far away, and I’m feeling something that I can only describe as clarity emerging. But there’s still a lot of static and frequent cranial power outages, so we’ll see how that goes.

On the plus side, I’d vowed to write at least 1,000 words a day, which I’ve had no problem hitting. A letter to Mom and Dad alone clocked in at 1,600. If I can keep this pace, I should produce about about 80,000 or 100,000 words. while here. That’s a hell of a lot more than I was doing before I jumped on that Delta jet and headed south.

I spent this morning talking to a helpful American Airlines agent to undo a business-related trip back to the States that I have to take in October. They moved the agenda back a day, negating the itinerary I’d purchased before leaving the States. I don’t want to charge the company I work with for my travel back to the States, but they kindly agreed to pay the change fees on both that trip and the next leg that will take me to my destination.

Last night, I sat here atop the hill, watching a cloud-strangled sunset recede into blackness over the Pacific. Suddenly, I noticed a firefly. Then others. So there are fireflies here, which I enjoyed immensely as I pecked away at my keyboard. White puffs of cloud clung to the trees as the day’s rain instantly evaporated, ready to start the cycle again.

I still haven’t gone off the property. I’m thinking I’ll do that tomorrow, when I’m better rested and will be needing a few minor supplies. I’m also hoping to find a spot where I can poach a wifi connection to do more bandwidth-intensive tasks. But there’s no hurry. I have food. And I’m in paradise.