Back In New York
I’m back home. I’ve been trying to post some photos here, but it looks like my camera card may have been killed. I’m going to run a recovery program and see what happens.
There are many things I will miss about Costa Rica, but here is a list of what I will definitely not miss:
- Mosquitoes, chiggers, roosters. I was roused at 2 in the morning by one rooster, and someone shouted from a tent near mine, Is that rooster retarded?
- Not being able to flush toilet paper. Most sewer pipes are too weak to handle it. Instead, you place it in the waste bin beside the toilet. Yeah, it is gross.
- Washing my clothes in the sink.
- Did I mention the mosquitoes and chiggers?
- The disturbingly out-of-whack keys on computer keyboards. I just want an apostrophe, for crying out loud. That is all I ask for.
- The sheer complexity of ordinary tasks due to language/cultural barriers. I tried for three days to locate a post office in Puerto Viejo so that I could mail some postcards. When I finally found it, it was not even open. The lady that runs it does not come in until 1 in the afternoon, and even then she dusts off her desk a little and twiddles her thumbs and then calls it a day a couple hours later.
- The local beer. The more I drink, the crappier I realize it is.
- Seeing sad dogs that are in need of medical attention. Tons of them. I also saw three wild horses grazing in garbage.
- Mud puddles.
- Having to figure out how many dollars it is that I am spending in Costa Rican colones. One dollar is roughly 500 colones — and so I feel like a rock star withdrawing 100,000.
- The fried stuff. Costa Ricans apparently love food fried to a golden crisp. Even the hospital cafeteria offered what must be an unhealthy amount of fried pockets of various kinds of meat.
- Of course it will be nice to actually talk to you people again, rather than having to write down all my thoughts and try to find an Internet cafe.
La Fortuna
The five-hour bus ride northwest (about 90 miles) to La Fortuna was long-winded, yes, but completely worth it. I got to see cows grazing on impossibly steep mountainsides, trees dangling precariously off the edges, ordinary people going about their daily business in the striking morning light.
Finally we cruised into town, and as I’m getting off the bus I see it, that startling local landmark: the Arenal Volcano. It’s massive but does look somewhat unassuming. I’m just a mountain, not a killer, it seems to plead. But maybe it seems so harmless because I cannot yet hear the deep rumbling of lava underneath. Yet. Supposedly it really gets going in the evenings. Something to lull me to sleep tonight.
Dang This Dengue Fever
I’m fine. I feel pretty good tonight. I’m not going to die. But …
I haven’t been feeling my usual best ever since that bus ride to hell that I wrote about below. And last night I developed a high fever and chills. My eyes were red, my stomach was unsettled, and then I got a bit of a cough. And I was ridiculously tired and worn down.
Today I felt better. The fever had receded, and things seemed OK, but the first thing I did was book another night in San Jose and then went to a hospital to get things checked out. I spent four hours navigating the clinic, finding an English-speaking doctor, getting examined, having blood work done, finding a pharmacy that has Tylenol (harder than you would think).
My white blood cell count is down so something is definitely going on. Dr. Guerra’s conclusion: it’s probably a virus, most likely mild dengue fever spread by one of my mosquito friends. I won’t know for sure until I get back to the States and get more blood work done (it takes a week for dengue fever to show up positively in blood work).
I’ll recover fully, I swear. It’s kind of like the flu. A tropical flu. And like I said, so far tonight I feel fine, though my body aches a bit. I just have to drink lots of water and take Tylenol if the fever returns. It is not contagious from person to person.
This is one of those little risks you take. It happens sometimes. It happened 26,440 times in Costa Rica alone last year (country-by-country dengue fever statistics here), and all over the world there are millions of cases a year.
I’m still taking in the sights and sounds of San Jose, and if I feel up to it, I’m going to La Fortuna in the morning so I can see that active volcano. I’ve had a fantastic time here, and this little bug ain’t gonna change that.
Highway to Hell
Thursday was one of those days where everything was needlessly, hopelessly complicated. So you see, it’s not all fun and sun and chiggers down here.
I started my day bright and early, at the first crack of a rooster. The plan: view the sunrise over the Caribbean, sitting in awe near some palm trees, which always make me smile. It was nice. And I felt really small in this vast world. I stepped out onto some chunks of coral reef (upheaved and pushed ashore by an earthquake years ago), before realizing that walking on coral probably wasn’t the most ecofriendly decision ever.
I took a morning bus north to the port town of Limon, with the intention of transferring to another bus heading to a region called Sarapiqui. Sarapiqui is not a major tourist destination, but I was told there would be “local” bus going there that I could catch along a busy avenue by what looked like a row of abandoned warehouses. Don’t worry, I was told, this bus passes by, like, every hour or something. Give or take six hours.
I waited on the wrong side of the avenue on purpose. That’s because on my side I had protection, city employees who were busy installing a road sign. On the other side were some unsavory types. You should know that Limon is the country’s most high-crime city. Tourists avoid it, stopping in only long enough to transfer out of there. And so I was already on high alert. I would just run across the street and flag down the bus when I saw it.
Many buses passed by, of all shapes and colors (bright colors!) and of all makes and models. (One was an old yellow school bus on which someone had simply spray-painted an “X” over the word “SCHOOL.”) None of those was my bus. I waited an hour and a half, slow baking in the unforgiving sun. I watched a shirtless man splashing around in a ditch, looking for food. A couple of crack hos lingered on the lot across the street. It was right about when my worker buddies were wrapping up the sign installation and getting ready to leave that I noticed one of the guys across the street had set fire to some clothing on the sidewalk — and that’s when I decided a change of plans was in order.
Back to San Jose. Go to San Jose and you get a big plush bus with a designated seat number and set departure times, from an actual honest-to-God station filled with seminormal people. But even this plan was fraught with problems. The seat space was, shall we say, cozy, and so my knees were up near my chin. I was tired and just wanted the trip over. Unfortunately it was a five-hour ordeal.
In his reflective 1970s style reflective sunglasses, the dude behind the wheel looked a bit like the coup-installed leader of a banana republic. And I’m sure he’s a competent enough driver, but he was making some very questionable passing maneuvers. Around mountainside bends. In the rain. While flipping through radio stations and eating ice cream.
Finally, as the salsa music reached a rump-shaking crescendo, I spotted the city of San Jose. Land of opportunity as well as air pollution.
Un Dia
It is the pitter-patter of rain that wakes me on this morning, not the strained crowing of a rooster. I pull open the curtain and watch the rain drip down on banana leaves. The window is open, and the smell of moisture in the air is wonderful.
By the time I take a shower and grab a cup of coffee, the rain has stopped, and the sun is out. I walk over and pet a big gray and white cat that belongs to the hotel owner. I don’t think this cat has moved from its spot on the sofa since I got here yesterday. I don’t blame him. (Is there a hammock designed for fat cats?)
The dirt road leading into “town” is pocked with mud puddles. It is a wonder I have not stepped into one or been splashed by a passing car. A Carib girl walking beside me asks a question that I dont understand because of her thick accent. She tries again: “You live in New York?” “Actually I do,” I say. She celebrates the lucky guess by swinging her arm into the air. Maybe she thinks all Americans live in New York. Now she asks, pointing to the journal I am carrying in my hands, “Are you a writer?” I nod yes. “Today I am.”
I pass a concrete block building that, in big red letters on the side, proclaims: “Medical Center — We Are Worm Bite Specialists,” and I am grateful that my biggest health concern at the moment is chigger bites, not a worm infestation.
There is more of Costa Rica that I want to see, and so today will be my last day in the litle beachside village of Puerto Viejo. Where the dirt road meets the sea, I sit down on a stump to take it all in:
A woman breastfeeds her baby under a shade tree. On a rusty barge washed ashore years ago, some boys are teaching a pair of tourists how to fish the local way, towing in the line slowly by hand. A man with a scraggly white beard walks the shore, machete in hand, humming to himself. He must be looking for coconuts to sell. Down the road a sound system blares taped reggae music, and a man raps into a microphone. This could very well be Rasta karaoke.
I swat away some mosquitoes from my legs. But they come back; they always come back. Maybe it is time for a drink, and I spot the perfect location, a darkened bar nearby, where men are cheering loudly at a soccer game on TV. The sign outside reads, “Sunset Sports Bar: A Sunny Place for Shady People.”
I run through my mind what is on the agenda for today, and there is only one item: all-you-can-eat sushi. I hear it is good.
