The Costa Rica series--finally!
You know you've been waiting for it.
The day before we left was kind of strange. I was still trying to get things together-waterproofing my shoes, packing up my tent, frantically counting how many pieces of carry-on luggage I had. We had to be out in front of the Union at 12:30 to leave in time to make our flight at O'Hare, or so they said. So I wandered around with a kind of buzzing, nervous energy, trying to find things to do, then finally went to bed for a few hours before getting up for the bus. Grant gave Patty and Kara and I a ride.
I cannot sleep on buses. This is a fact. The only way I can sleep on buses is if I take Dramamine, in which case I'll sleep like a log. That night I did not need Dramamine, so I didn't sleep. I sat next to Eric, who also did not sleep but instead played Tetris. We chatted a little bit, which was really good. Eric is one of those people I can pick up with after a year or two of not talking, and it's exactly the same. I told him about the farm, and we talked about family, and it was good. After a while we were both quiet as I stared out at the Wisconsin fields and alternately thought of poetry and Exalted. There was a full moon, and the whole countryside was shining. We got to O'Hare at some ungodly hour like 3:00. Our plane didn't leave until 6:30. Brilliant move by Jim. So we sat in the cavernous, empty airport, quiet, waiting for our check-in desk to open. For a while we watched one employee set up the tape barriers that denote where the lines are--it was fascinating, his methodical, dexterous movements. Then check-in, then security, then flight. Dramamine for me. Naturally I was insensible for most of the flight to Miami, then later for the flight into San Jose. I wanted to be awake for that one but no, no chance. Out like a light. Only woke up to fill out the customs forms, which are confusing.
At the San Jose airport we went through customs, which I expected to be quite the ordeal but in fact they barely even looked at our luggage, much less the form. We went through the airport feeling lost, as we realized that we didn't know where Jim was going to meet us. Eventually we just went outside. Ah, outside it was!
After being in gray airports all day, outside was a welcome shock. The sun was pouring down, summer-bright, over a stiff wind and blowing palm trees, just visible over the parking garage. Jim, wearing his ridiculous African-safari hat, and our little bus pulled up. Our driver, who I did not yet know as Arturo, started taking our things and, alarmingly, lashing them to the top of the bus in a giant pile. Another guy, who I did not yet realize was Jim's son Bobby but instead thought was a native, started helping. They sweated and heaved and threw our things around. Everything was dust and sunshine. After an hour or so of this they threw a tarp over our things, making a neat bundle(why the tarp? it was so sunny), and we piled in and drove off.
We weren't staying in San Jose, but instead had a two-hour drive to Turrialba in the central valley. San Jose's outskirts are a blur to me now, images flashing past, but I remember low buildings, many of them corrugated metal, and low houses. Costa Rican houses tended to be bright colors, which I loved--pink and blue and orange. In urban areas they would all share walls in one long low row, with front areas (not yards--most were tiled or paved and very small) enclosed by iron fences with gates, and often topped by razor wire. San Jose itself was dense and dirty. People walking, thick, everywhere, even in the street; buildings right on top of the street, with sidewalks barely wide enough to hold two walking abreast. There were no lanes on the streets. There was trash and dogs everywhere. Every business was totally open--rather than doors, the entire front of the building was open to the air. The driving was fraught with peril, the town was dirty and dangerous and humming with life. I thought it was beautiful.
The drive through the countryside was wonderful--the light slowly fading into clouds, and the candy-bright houses hugging the highway the entire way. Always there were houses along the road, right next to it. The country opened up to the air and sky, the hills first rolling like waves in the waning light, everything an impossible green. Finally the highway found the mountains and we began snaking up and down crazy hills through fields of sugarcane, swishy and impenetrable, and coffee, the small shiny bushes dotted with taller trees for shade. The highways were impossible, the hills we climbed even more so. More than once the grade was so steep we felt the tires pressing against the body of the bus, and the bumper scraping the pavement. We also passed several cars around blind corners, going all the time at insane speeds; there were never guardrails, though sometimes barbed wire, and it was straight down hundred and hundreds of feet. We climbed through the clouds and mists, and at one point we went above them so they filled the valley below us. They were so dense that, when in the middle of them, we often couldn't see off the edge of the road into the valley; the world ended at the pavement. It was magical. We thought we were going to die.
Eventually we began going back down as the evening closed in. The highway still clung to the side of the mountains, weaving back and forth as a town resolved itself underneath--the nearly solid layer of corrugated tin roofs, nestled together in the arms of the mountain as the drizzling rains came down. We were within Turrialba with almost startling suddenness, with the same buildings that seemed like they were trying to crowd out the road, people staring. We stopped at Pali, the equivalent of Woodman's, for water and leg-stretching, then off to CATIE for sleep. We stayed in what I think were visitor's dorms, a white building with a blue tile roof and a courtyard whose pavingstones were swathed in moss. Around us the ever-present mists closed. It probably started to rain.
Man, I'm hungry for gallo pinto now. But that story's for another day.
The day before we left was kind of strange. I was still trying to get things together-waterproofing my shoes, packing up my tent, frantically counting how many pieces of carry-on luggage I had. We had to be out in front of the Union at 12:30 to leave in time to make our flight at O'Hare, or so they said. So I wandered around with a kind of buzzing, nervous energy, trying to find things to do, then finally went to bed for a few hours before getting up for the bus. Grant gave Patty and Kara and I a ride.
I cannot sleep on buses. This is a fact. The only way I can sleep on buses is if I take Dramamine, in which case I'll sleep like a log. That night I did not need Dramamine, so I didn't sleep. I sat next to Eric, who also did not sleep but instead played Tetris. We chatted a little bit, which was really good. Eric is one of those people I can pick up with after a year or two of not talking, and it's exactly the same. I told him about the farm, and we talked about family, and it was good. After a while we were both quiet as I stared out at the Wisconsin fields and alternately thought of poetry and Exalted. There was a full moon, and the whole countryside was shining. We got to O'Hare at some ungodly hour like 3:00. Our plane didn't leave until 6:30. Brilliant move by Jim. So we sat in the cavernous, empty airport, quiet, waiting for our check-in desk to open. For a while we watched one employee set up the tape barriers that denote where the lines are--it was fascinating, his methodical, dexterous movements. Then check-in, then security, then flight. Dramamine for me. Naturally I was insensible for most of the flight to Miami, then later for the flight into San Jose. I wanted to be awake for that one but no, no chance. Out like a light. Only woke up to fill out the customs forms, which are confusing.
At the San Jose airport we went through customs, which I expected to be quite the ordeal but in fact they barely even looked at our luggage, much less the form. We went through the airport feeling lost, as we realized that we didn't know where Jim was going to meet us. Eventually we just went outside. Ah, outside it was!
After being in gray airports all day, outside was a welcome shock. The sun was pouring down, summer-bright, over a stiff wind and blowing palm trees, just visible over the parking garage. Jim, wearing his ridiculous African-safari hat, and our little bus pulled up. Our driver, who I did not yet know as Arturo, started taking our things and, alarmingly, lashing them to the top of the bus in a giant pile. Another guy, who I did not yet realize was Jim's son Bobby but instead thought was a native, started helping. They sweated and heaved and threw our things around. Everything was dust and sunshine. After an hour or so of this they threw a tarp over our things, making a neat bundle(why the tarp? it was so sunny), and we piled in and drove off.
We weren't staying in San Jose, but instead had a two-hour drive to Turrialba in the central valley. San Jose's outskirts are a blur to me now, images flashing past, but I remember low buildings, many of them corrugated metal, and low houses. Costa Rican houses tended to be bright colors, which I loved--pink and blue and orange. In urban areas they would all share walls in one long low row, with front areas (not yards--most were tiled or paved and very small) enclosed by iron fences with gates, and often topped by razor wire. San Jose itself was dense and dirty. People walking, thick, everywhere, even in the street; buildings right on top of the street, with sidewalks barely wide enough to hold two walking abreast. There were no lanes on the streets. There was trash and dogs everywhere. Every business was totally open--rather than doors, the entire front of the building was open to the air. The driving was fraught with peril, the town was dirty and dangerous and humming with life. I thought it was beautiful.
The drive through the countryside was wonderful--the light slowly fading into clouds, and the candy-bright houses hugging the highway the entire way. Always there were houses along the road, right next to it. The country opened up to the air and sky, the hills first rolling like waves in the waning light, everything an impossible green. Finally the highway found the mountains and we began snaking up and down crazy hills through fields of sugarcane, swishy and impenetrable, and coffee, the small shiny bushes dotted with taller trees for shade. The highways were impossible, the hills we climbed even more so. More than once the grade was so steep we felt the tires pressing against the body of the bus, and the bumper scraping the pavement. We also passed several cars around blind corners, going all the time at insane speeds; there were never guardrails, though sometimes barbed wire, and it was straight down hundred and hundreds of feet. We climbed through the clouds and mists, and at one point we went above them so they filled the valley below us. They were so dense that, when in the middle of them, we often couldn't see off the edge of the road into the valley; the world ended at the pavement. It was magical. We thought we were going to die.
Eventually we began going back down as the evening closed in. The highway still clung to the side of the mountains, weaving back and forth as a town resolved itself underneath--the nearly solid layer of corrugated tin roofs, nestled together in the arms of the mountain as the drizzling rains came down. We were within Turrialba with almost startling suddenness, with the same buildings that seemed like they were trying to crowd out the road, people staring. We stopped at Pali, the equivalent of Woodman's, for water and leg-stretching, then off to CATIE for sleep. We stayed in what I think were visitor's dorms, a white building with a blue tile roof and a courtyard whose pavingstones were swathed in moss. Around us the ever-present mists closed. It probably started to rain.
Man, I'm hungry for gallo pinto now. But that story's for another day.