Costa Rica Diary, Part 1, Dec 8 2006

Hola muchachos y muchachas!

Greetings from La Fortuna, Costa Rica, home of the live volcano Arenal. Costa Rica, as you may know, sits on the Pacific Rim and has a number of volcanoes in various states of undress. Arenal was thought to be a sleeper until 1968, when it blew the hell up, wiped out a village, and reinvented itself asa Major Tourist Attraction. It´s actually quite cool to see: it looks exactly like, well, a volcano. A conical mountain with smoke coming out the top. James and I took a hike up the side of it yesterday but were unable to see any lava flow. She´s been quiet for a few weeks. Even so, the hike was fun (we went with a guided group). It was slow getting out the door, so we ended up coming down the mountain in the dark. It´s thick jungle, and as soon as the sun goes down, the jungle creatures awaken and begin their nightly competition of Who´s the Loudest? We were about to hand it to the Arenal National Chorus of Frogs, but then the howler monkeys started in. Guess why they call them howler monkeys? Yikes.

We have been here a few days and are heading out this afternoon. We plan to cross over the mountains to a place called Monteverde, strapped tightly to what´s known here as a "jeebojee". No, not a large hairy beast of burden, but a jeep-boat-jeep. You take the jeep to Lake Arenal, then a boat across the lake, then a jeep again on the other side, which bounces you down the mountain to the town of Monteverde. There are no paved roads there, just Quakers, who founded the town in the 1950s. They were American Quakers, conscientious objectors to the Korean War. How they picked this spot I don´t know, but they´ve made out of it coffee plantations, a town, a fabulous nature preserve in one of the main cloud forest areas. And a cheese factory! For where go Quakers, so goes cheese, as a great man never said. Anyhoo, being Quakers and all conscientious and stuff, they are trying to prevent the tourist trade form becoming too overblown by blocking the paving of roads. Good for them, I say. However, they may have kept out the large resorts and the busloads of Wisconsonians, but instead they suffer daily invasions of more determined jeebojee passengers, who are both hardy and filthy. As we will be this afternoon!

We arrived in Costa Rica on Monday night following a totally uneventful flight (thanks Beth!). We then took a taxi up to our hotel, the Hotel Aranjuez, where the motto is "Bleach It Again, Sam!" I like a little cleanliness, but our room was so intensely bleachy-bleached, almost formaldehyde-y, it smelled as if they were trying to hide something sinister. Other than that, a fine spot that puts on a huge, delicious breakfast in its lovely walled garden out back. Breakfast was the highlight of our stay in San José, which is... hmmm... not a very nice place. It´s a reluctant city with not much to commend it, unless you count competitive purse-snatching. Costa Rica is not a wealthy country and San José has evidently never been visited by an architect or any sort of urban planner, so you find things just sort of piled up in an unattractive heap. Most Costa Ricans (Ticos) are friendly, but the city itself has a pervasive, low-grade criminal vibe that makes you want to leave. So, we spent one day marching about: highlights included the Museo de Oro (the Gold Museum), which is dedicated to a pre-Columbian collection of huge granite spheres, three-legged grinding tables, and beautiful wee gold bats and jaguars, and the Mercado Central (central market), where you can buy a fridge, a tennis racket, or a recently severed cow´s head, each according to his need.

On Wednesday, we took the public bus here to La Fortuna. The Lonely Planet guide book advises this is a good, if slow, way of getting from A to B, provided you take care to keep an eye at all times on your stuff, as there are thieves about. This message was reiterated by the bus station security guard: Cuidado! You must watch your bag for thief! When we boarded the bus we were given a little handout explaining that thieves roam the buses and we should hang on for dear life to our belongings. Somehow, all these admonitions translated in our stupid gringo heads to "Put your daypacks in the overhead bin and fugeddaboutit!" Aye, dios! Needless to say, perhaps two hours into the trip as we rolled up to a restaurant-layby, the fellow in the seat behind us jumped up and began gesturing and shouting in Spanish, which I slowly interpreted as "Hey, that guy just walked off the bus with your bag!" So I ran off the bus, along with a number of Tico passengers and the dirver, and tried to find the guy, but he had disappeared lickety split. With James' daypack. There was nothing to be done, so we got back on the bus and carried on. Luckily there wasn´t anything of serious value or need in the pack, just J´s reading material´, his raincoat, and a few other sueful things. The pack was brand new, so that was annoying to say the least.

But wait! There´s more to this tale: about 45 minutes later, the bus driver got a call on his cellphone from the restaurant, telling him they had found the backpack. Apparently, the thief realized he was close to being caught and ditched the bag somewhere on the restaurant property. As far as we could make out, it was intact. And it was being sent on to La Fortuna! In addition to the bus driver, the guy behind us was helping us sort it out as we had no reservation in La Fortuna and he was a local resident. Then, when we arrived, a hotel tout got ahold of us, heard the story and said ¨Stay at my place and we´ll ship the bag there". This seemed a good idea, and the room was okay, so we agreed. The bag was coming on the next bus, due to arrive yesterday morning. No, it would come on the afternoon bus. But at the end of the day, Mario (the tout) made yet another phone call and discovered that the Bag had been forwarded on to Ciudad Quesado, a town about an hour and a half from La Fortuna. It would come on the next bus. No, the one after that. Before long, all the hotel owners, kids and dogs got involved in the Search for the Bag, and once every few hours we would get an update. The Bag could not be put on that bus, or the Bag was put on the bus, but the bus broke down. The bag was put on a bus that was robbed and had to return to wherever. Then we heard the Bag had been sent back to San José, where it was being held by the bus company. Yesterday, the Nicaraguan maid of the hotel tracked us down to tell us that, thanks to God, the Bag was coming on this morning´s bus fom San José and would arrive today at 1 pm. But later, Mario told us that the bus company was now concerned that so many people had heard about the bag that they were unwilling to deliver it into the hands of anyone showing up when the bus arrived. Therefore, when it would be delivered by the driver himself to the depot, in this case an auto-parts retailer up the street, and we would present our ID and get the bag back.

So, here we sit with bated breath. Will the bag arrive? Will it be hand-delivered by Nobel Laureate President Arias? Will the town put on a parade in its honour? And the fun part is, if a bag does arrive, we don´t know if it´s actually James´ bag, or someone else´s, or if there´s anything in it... In the final analysis, even if we don´t get the bag back, we´ve learned two important lessons: first, hang on to your stuff, seriously, and two, the Ticos, on the whole, are a lovely, extremely helpful and willing bunch.

That's it for now. We spend two days in Monteverde, then we are off to the beach.

xo Allison