A Sweet Farewell to the Luscious Pacific Shores of Costa Rica

Anomaly.  That would probably be the most befitting word for San Jose, a city plopped down right in the middle of one of the most gorgeous countries in the world, and yet completely lacking in any real beauty or allure of its own.  Somehow I had managed to dwindle away over a week and a half in that rainy and depressing place.  I’m not really sure if that was originally my intention, but upon arriving in the city, after having traveled for two weeks to deliciously exotic parts of Costa Rica and shared my time with the best of friends, I began to fall into its dismal slump, and before I knew it I was sinking deeper into the mire.  Not to say that its truly such an aweful place, its just that constant rain, overcast skies, and suburban sprawl tend to bring out the worst in me.  Although my welcoming host, Wilson, quickly became one of my favorite new friends in Central America, with his winning charm, knowing intellect, and easy going manner, there weren’t too many other bright stars in my memory of San Jose.  However, I did also manage to make a fun new friend named Diego while I was there, and after spending some days getting to know each other and heading out to enjoy the nightlife, it definitely helped me to feel even more at home during my stay.

 

But after so many days in the San Jose I knew that it was once again time to start moving again.  I consulted Wilson as to the route ahead and we were both able to finally agree that taking the road that went over Death Mountain (Cerro de los Muertos) probably wouldn’t be the most pleasant of rides, so I opted for the flatter, more inviting coastal jungle road.  The following day I was on a bus back towards the Manuel Antonio and the Pacific (would you believe it?) to begin my journey South, as Wilson had mentioned that it was quite illegal to ride on the highways of San Jose and there were apparently no other clear ways to escape the city.  Arriving to a rainy afternoon on the coast, I decided to spend an overnight in Quepos and set off first thing in the morning.  For some reason I had also arrived in Quepos completely exhausted and within a couple of hours of my arrival, I was already in bed and snoozing away.

 

At dawn next day I was up and at ’em, bags packed and ready to go.  After the free breakfast at the hostel at which I had slept I began to ride towards the edge of town and not fifteen minutes beyond the outskirts I was met with quite a shocking surprise.  The pavement ended.  What I was soon to discover was that from here on out almost the rest of my riding that day was to be over a rocky, muddy, rutted dirt road, which, perhaps on an unloaded bike wouldn’t have been such an affliction, but as it were my panniers (with all of my possessions inside of them) didn’t much enjoy the ride, as more than once they took the liberty of jumping off into the mud.  Apart from this unpleasant detail, however, it was a particularly lovely ride that day, first through miles of perfectly rowed coconut groves and then through peaceful meadows and shady jungles.  At one point I even found myself unable to continue onwards due to a bridge that had been completely dismantled during a construction project.  Although I waited near two hours for the bridge to be reinstated, things didn’t look promising and finally I decided to wander along the riverbank for some few hundreds of meters to a shallow point and take things into my own hands.  Then with the aid of a pungent smelling, one-eyed, afro-caribbean gentleman who had been waiting to cross the river on his bicycle as well, I managed to roll up my trousers (well, just an expression, as I was actually wearing shorts) and we forded the river together: he guiding the bike across from the other side while I pushed it through.

 

A few hours after the river crossing I was emerging from the a leafy wood back out onto paved road and arriving in an isolated but touristic surfing town called Dominical.  Although I had been considering camping under the palms that lined the beach on the edge of town, after stopping for lunch and scoping out the scene, it looked a bit to gnarly and summer-break valley girl for me, not to mention rife with beachcombers just looking for an easy target, so I decided to carry on.  According to my handy guide book, there was apparently a sleepy, old-fashioned Pacific coast farming village called Uvita about an hour’s ride South of Dominical, which sounded like exactly the ticket for a relaxed evening of low budget coastal camping.  The rest of the ride to Uvita also proved to be quite scenic, as the road weaved and undulated through the low coastal mountainside, exposing gorgeous vistas of vivid green foliage, shimmering emerald waters, and neon blue sky for miles along the coastal horizon.

 

It was getting late in the afternoon as I approached Uvita, and from the looks of what greeted me, civilization had begun to encroach on Uvita since the last time my guide was updated.  After pulling over at the new American style strip mall to make sure that this was indeed provincial Uvita, they assured me that it was, but were also able to point me in the direction of the rural part of down a short way further down.  As I turned off the main road to enter the village, the road once again turned to dirt and rock, however this time somewhat more brutal than the ride from that morning, and so I rolled slowly along, through pastures and small Costa Rican cottages.  There was really only one road in town, so it didn’t prove too difficult to find the campground that I was looking for and after being greeted by the landlord of the small property, he showed me to where I could pitch my tent, below a suspended creeping thicket and beside a high wooden fence.

 

The gentleman and his gracious family appeared to be quite trustworthy and ubiquitous within the property, and therefore I felt little anxiety as I left my well protected bicycle and campsite to discover the nearby beach.  I stopped down the road for a loaf of bread, a block of cheese and a bottle of water, then made my way to the coastal park entrance to dine on my simple picnic.  Fortunately, by this point I had figured out the Costa Rican park entrance game, and at the gate I informed the attendant that I was a resident of Costa RIca and working in San Jose, successfully avoiding what would otherwise have surely been some ridiculous entrance fee.  After a short stroll down the coast (as the afternoon shadows were already beginning to grow long), I found a picnic table on top of which I situated myself to escape the stinging ants down below and was finally able to begin preparing dinner.

 

As I sat there, the most marvelously serene scene unfolded before my eyes.  As the sun dipped down behind a hilly peninsula that jutted out into the Pacific Ocean, the coastal mists painted the layers of hills in endlessly fading tones of blue as they disappeared off into the horizon.  Each puffy and streaked cloud in the sky was gently silhouetted in shades of azure and silver, and the glittering tide lapped lazily back and forth along the long, shallow beach.  As I listened to the gentle rhythm of the ocean and heard the distant laughing and shouting of children floating on the cooling breeze, I felt glad that I had finally escaped the abysmal drudgery of San Jose and I felt a contented tranquility within myself.  And as I sat there and smiled softly beneath the delicious twilight, I thought to myself that I hoped I would remember this moment forever, and I only wished that I could share the happiness that it brought me with those who were far away from me, and perhaps feeling the way that I had while in San Jose, but whom were always in my heart.

Pawning Off Lisa on the Beaches of Manuel Antonio

A wave of pleasure melted over Lisa and I as the palm-fringed coastline of Quepos swept into view beyond the window of our bus.  But in all honesty, this was moreso because we had had the not-so-good-sense to mix a excruciatingly potent cocktail less than halfway through the three hour journey from Puntarenas and were now both slightly drunken and extremely in need of a restroom.  However, it was also true that we were perfectly delighted to be arriving, and once we had thrown ourselves out of the bus in Quepos and taken care of our business, we were finally able to slow down and count our lucky stars that we were finally here in paradise, it wasn’t raining, and we had plenty of time to soak up some tropical sunlight and sunset cocktails before having to head back to San Jose the following evening for Lisa’s flight.  Need I mention that by this stage in our journey foolish optimism had developed into a necessary self-preserving strategy, but as always turned out to be the most supreme form of self-deception as Costa Rica dropped the floor out from beneath us once again and sent us tumbling head first through its own plan.

Once again I found myself sitting on that same little shuttle through the coastal jungle from Quepos to Manuel Antonio, the bus painfully groaning up the torturous hill before arriving at the ridge.  I had made a few friends here in these parts during my week-long stay with Kevin and Willie, and so as we were passing the familiar yellow restaurant along the roadside, Lisa and I hopped out.  We went in to see Jim, whom I had called from the Quepos bus terminal, and had good-naturedly agreed to assist us in searching for a place to stay for the evening.  After a warm welcome, introductions, and quick recap of Lisa and I’s romp throughout the country, we loaded into Jim’s car and, as Lisa and I didn’t particularly have the vitality or desire to spend the rest of the afternoon searching for hotels, we found ourselves quickly settling into the first little beachside shack of a hotel that we encountered.

I had seen the place upon passing on my previous visit to Manuel Antonio, but hadn’t thought much of it – and for good reason.  Although the management was wonderfully friendly, and the location one minute from the beach was impeccable, the room was little more than a damp closet with a musty bunkbed and a spiggot in the bathroom for showering.  Nevertheless, not desiring to waste one moment, we settled into the room, agreed that we would meet Jim that evening for dinner followed by a night on the town, and then bid him adieu.  There wasn’t much reason to linger about our “inviting” accomodations and Lisa and I were ready to go out and grab life by the horns while things seemed to be going our way, so we quickly changed into our bathing suits (Lisa’s suit even more sumptuous this time than the last – clearly a souvenir from the beaches of Brazil) and headed for the beach.

It was mid-afternoon and the tide was just pulling up to its highest point as Lisa and I emerged from the path through the coastal underbrush.  The waves were poetically languid, rolling curves that crashed almost at the tree line, and being hypnotically allured towards them, we almost instantly had our sandles slipped off and were frolicking in the breakers.  Ah sweet serenity, here we were together on the beaches of paradise.  We splashed sea-foam at one another and flung ourselves mercilessly at the waves for the next two hours and commiserated as to the lack of sunshine (as it was a somewhat hazy yellow afternoon), but thought joyfully as well of tomorrow and the long hours of enviable tan-time that Manuel Antonio would show Lisa before sending her on a plane back to the States.  Around the same time that we were beginning to weary of the taste of salt-water in our mouths and the abrasion of sand against our backsides, we began to hear the first earth-shattering cracks of tropical thunder.  It appeared to be a sign, and upon recovering our sandles, Lisa and I made our way back along the short path to the hotel to get rinsed off and weather the storm.

We had intended to just spend some down-time reading and chatting until the rains petered off, but as the gentle sound of the pattering rain enveloped us, we found ourselves drifting off into a sweet slumber, snuggled up together amidst the lullaby of million crickets.  When I lethargically came too it was already dark outside and I had the nagging feeling that there was something that I was forgetting.  When the blue light of cell phone shone to life, illuminating the time – 9:15pm – I instantly realized that we were supposed to have met Jim for dinner almost two hours earlier!  I shook Lisa awake mercilessly and prodded her until she had had regained lucidity.  But after breaking the news to her, she rationalized that by this point it would do us no good to try to race to the restaurant, as almost every place in town closed its kitchens by ten in the evening, and instead I called Jim to let him know what had happened to to inform him that we would meet him a little later to head out and hit the bars.

Fortunately, once we had gotten ourselves mobilized, Lisa and I did manage to satiate our burning hungers after searching high and low for a restaurant that was still serving, and then headed out to meet Jim and his friends to kick up our heels one last time before Lisa’s return to Atlanta.  It turned out to be a first-rate night of diversion and Lisa and I found ourselves shakin’ it well into the wee hours of the night.  While we were there we even made a few friends, a few of whom, I could never have known at the time, would soon become repeat characters in the drama that is my life.  However, even in our “slightly” tipsy state, we nevertheless kept our eyes focused on the prize, which was to drag our bleary eyed selves out to the white sandy beaches of Manuel Antonio at the crack of dawn and enjoy every last moment of togetherness that we could – oh, and while getting a tan.

Unbelievably, as if to put the frosting on the cake that was our week in Costa Rica together, the most unprecedented and outlandish of all the weeks surprises came right there in our last moments together.  Lathered up in sunscreen, riding on cloud nine, and making our way out to the hike through the monkey infested jungles of the Manuel Antonio National Park to the pristine beaches that awaited us on the other side, Lisa and I suddenly remembered something.  We had heard that occasionally the buses from Quepos to San Jose would tend to fill up on Sundays as the day progressed, and thinking ourselves quite prudent, we decided to see if we could buy our bus tickets for that evening before the crowds.  Although the terminal was way over in Quepos, we figured that we could get the telephone number and see about booking our ticket.  However, bad news awaited us.

A young American girl sat at a tourist stand amidst the breachfront restaurants, and, among other things, showed a sign for transport to San Jose.  We approached her to ask if she might know how we could contact the terminal in Quepos and she obligingly began to look up the number, although informing us that they probably wouldn’t take a reservation over the phone.  However, a few minutes later as she hung up the phone we were left there standing in shock.  Every bus, not only today, but for almost all of Monday was completely booked as well.  Ok, well, no need for alarm, there must certainly be other transport options.  However, it didn’t take long for us to discover that almost all of the other options jumped from the seven dollar fare of the regular bus up to almost seventy dollars for the “luxury” Interbus rates.  Whoa!  That was way out of our budget.  However, after fifteen minutes of fretting and uncertainty, we wondered if that might be the only option.

So we asked her about what times these Interbusses departed for San Jose and she made another call.  Well, time for more surprises, not only were these shuttles outlandishly expensive, but they were also all completely booked that day!  Ok, well at this point we were basically what my friends in Mexico would call chingada.  It looked like it was time for plan B… sadly though, Lisa and I didn’t usually get that far in our planning.  We thanked the sweet girl from the tourist desk for all of her help and then walked aimlessly down the boardwalk debating over what we should do.  Lisa’s flight would be leaving that evening, it was the last one of the day to Atlanta, and to change it would cost her a hundred dollars – almost the entire price of the ticket in the first place.  But there had to be another way!

Then it struck me, a stroke of brilliance!  There must be some random strangers here who were on their way back to the capital, after all, during this time of the year (the gringo low season) almost all of the tourists that were there that weekend were probably from San Jose anyway.  So I set to brainstorming on the best approach strategy and just which strangers had the most benevolent look about them.  And that’s when I spotted them, a group of young gentlemen whom we had seen the night before.  Sadly, we hadn’t been engaged in conversation with them or anything convenient like that, but after a few minutes of deliberation we agreed that without a shadow of a doubt (at least that’s what we told ourselves), they looked at least vaguely familiar.  Feeling their buenas ondas (good vibes), I decided to chance it and Lisa and I made our way over to their table at the edge of a restaurant patio.

You can probably imagine the ensuing conversation as Lisa and I, dressed in our skimpy bathing suits (Lisa), approached them and began asking them for a three hour lift back to the city.  At first they weren’t quite receptive to the idea – shocked might be a better word for it – but for the first time in the entire week we had a marvelous stroke of good luck.  One of the guys had lived in Brazil for a time and spoke Portuguese – and so had Lisa!  That was all it took, just the one connection and we had our foot in the door (hey, I’m from Brazil too, but my Portuguese is a little rusty these days), and within a few more minutes they had agreed to transport us back to the big city.  There was only one more small catch, they were riding in a little four door compact and I suddenly remembered that I had my bike stowed with friends here in Manuel Antonio and had to get it back to San Jose with me.

As it were, due to this one confounding variable, a short while later I found myself not sitting alongside Lisa and our three new friends on the way to San Jose, but instead giving her a big hug and wishing her a bon voyage as I gift wrapped her and sent her packing with three complete Costa Rican strangers.  It crept up on me rather unexpectedly, but there I was, left standing on the roadside, alone once again, and suddenly a pang of sadness crept over me.  I wasn’t too worried about Lisa, the young gentlemen had seemed completely harmless, but I was sad to see her go, and it wasn’t quite the departure that either of us had envisioned.  Not feeling much enthusiasm to head out to the beach alone and not sure of what to do, I decided that instead I would head over to Kurt and Linda’s bungalow (my Manuel Antonio ex-pat buddies who were sheltering my bike for me) and see if perhaps they were around and could lift me out of my somber state of mind.  As I made my way in their direction, it began to completely settle in that now everyone was gone and I was indeed by myself again, but as I began to come to terms with my renewed state of solitude, I also began to feel the pulse of energy and excitement for the journey before me and found myself ready to jump headfirst into it – only this time with a painfully drawn out detour in San Jose.

Who is Manuel Antonio, Anyway?

Alright, so here it is, the new site! So you might be wondering, why the change? Well, the main purpose is to now make the site open to the public. On the old .mac server, the site was only available to those who were referred to the site, but it is now completely searchable and also a part of the wordpress community. Also, the old platform seemed to be very buggy and slow to load, but this one seems to be a lot more streamlined and accessible. I’ve also decided to begin uploading my photos to Flickr now, as it allows viewing of the full size images, faster loading, and also gives me a little more exposure, as I’ve begun to invest more time and interest into my photography and would like to be able to somehow use it to help me continue financing the trip down the road. While I was setting up this new site, I also added several new journal entries and I also decided to do an overhaul of most of the other sections as well, so feel free to have a look around and enjoy the new setup. I’ve postponed heading to Ecuador until early December while I finally buckle down and catch up on the many entries that I missed, so you should be able to expect frequent updates over the next couple of weeks – and on that note, here’s another for ya:

Who is Manuel Antonio, Anyway?  (note: this is a somewhat less detailed entry, so as to not violate personal privacy)
As I lay on the warm white sands, the turquoise Pacific waves ebbing and rolling only several yards away, and the gentle rustling of the palm fronds as they swished lazily in the ocean breeze behind me, I thought to myself, “so this is paradise, hunh?” Somehow, I suppose that for a moment as I had sat there in the rainy Guatemalan highlands, dreaming of tropical Costa Rican beaches and being reunited with old friends, that everything would soon be perfect. The funny thing is that just because you’re sitting in the post-card, doesn’t mean that reality just fades away and leaves you with the irresistible urge to smile and laugh all day – just when you think you’re safe and in paradise, drama rears its ugly head.
That first night, arriving at the cabana under the Pacific jungle twilight and receiving not hugs of goodbye, as I had shared with many of the new friends that I had made during my journey, but instead being welcomed into the arms of those which I had once shared my life, I felt certain that this was the beginning of one of the most wonderful and fulfilling weeks of my journey. It had been one of the most difficult decisions that I had ever had to make to have only recently in my life had the opportunity to share my life with friends that made me feel truly alive, and then to say goodbye to them. I knew that my journey was one that I had to take, but as I mounted my bicycle and headed for the border, I could only cling to the hope that these friendships would still burn true one day when I could come back to them. But now, a few short months after having received the news that Kevin and Willie would be intercepting me in Costa Rica, here we were again, and I couldn’t help but smolder with joy and optimism.
It didn’t take long for the fairy-tale to begin crumbling apart however, and although we all tried to make the best of it, and most certainly did have some fantastic and unforgettable times, there was just one detail that stood in the way of the blissful harmony that I had been dreaming of. Kevin and Willie had a history. I’d like to say that it had been a brief but torrid affair (mostly just because I like the expression), but in fact it had been several years of uncertainty as they teetered on the thin line between friendship and something more. Although in the planning stages before the big vacation the horizon had been lined with golden sunsets, sometimes a change of scenery and 24/7 exposure can change the chemistry between people a little more than expected. Plus, the bare truth of the matter is that we were all there in the Costa Rican rainy season, and it wasn’t long before we got used to the afternoon showers.
Those next few days together generally started out with the raucous chirping, rustling, and crashing sounds of monkeys as they seemed to have decided that above our cabana was their official breakfast spot, and didn’t appear to have anything better to do than hurl mangos at each other or on the roof every day at six in the morning. Then, once we had finally mobilized ourselves as well, sometimes we’d head to the pool nestled in the jungle scenery for a morning dip, fix a quick breakfast (at least when the millions of jungle ants hadn’t managed to get into the food supplies), and then get ready to head out to the beach. The bus along the Quepos-Manuel Antonio road ran every half an hour, and thanks to our convenient positioning near to its origin in Quepos, we almost never had to wait long before a pick-up. Then, after about a five minute ride up the almost insurmountable hill (at ten miles per hour), along the crest, and then back down through a shady , the lush canopy opened up to reveal the long stretch of glittering gold and emerald coastline, flanked by stands of gently billowing rainbow hued sarongs and slender, lazily leaning palm trees.
And so the days rolled by, one day climbing over the rocky outcropping at the end of the main beach to relax at the tiny secluded la Playita beach, another time heading for a morning of quintessential Costa Rican canopy touring, another day hiking through the tropical vegetation to reach the lovely sheltered bay in Manuel Antonio National Park, and on one occasion even finding ourselves running up and down the deserted main beach and romping in the breakers naked during a massive rainstorm, then hiking half an hour back up to the main road through the jungle on a roaring, flooded trail. But often the evenings told another tale. Perhaps it was the wearying effects of long hours under the Pacific sun, or perhaps just the closeness of quarters and foreign environment, but the tension mounted as the sun began to set. Often by dinner time an awkward silence had fallen over the table as things between Kevin and Willie reached the melting point, such that conversation was sporadic and somewhat uncertain. And generally, on these nights, that same mood spilled on into the later evening, whether that consisted of lounging around the cabana or heading out for a nearby nightcap.
And so, as I sat on that same bus returning to San Jose from Manuel Antonio with Kevin and Willie, I couldn’t help but think of the complete contrast between how I felt then versus how I had originally felt on the way out to meet them a week earlier. The tension had rendered almost all genuine communication to a very surface level towards the end of our stay on the coast, as each of us had avoided touching on sensitive subjects, and as I, especially, had tried to avoid placing myself in the middle of whatever other issues were afoot. I wondered where things had gone between us, and whether our friendship was really everything that I had once felt it was. A shadow of loneliness and disappointment cast across my thoughts as I wondered to myself whether there would be anything left for me back where my old life had been if even this had begun to crumble.
When we arrived in San Jose, it seemed like things were destined to end just the way that I was beginning to imagine that they were, as I would be heading off to a hostel on one side of town to meet my friend Lisa who had flown in from Atlanta earlier that day, and Kevin and Willie headed to their own hotel to settle in before their flight back to New York in the morning. Finally reaching the hostel after the two hour ride from Manuel Antonio and then the ten minute cab ride from the bus station, I was both overjoyed at the thought of seeing Lisa, but now I also felt a twinge of anxiety as to whether my excitement would indeed meet my expectations. I wondered if perhaps we would be reunited and I would feel as though I had remained at the same point at which we had left off our friendship before my journey but if it was possible that she had moved on. Or maybe it would turn out that we had both changed too much to even relate to one another any more – I couldn’t help but feel unsure.
But seeing Lisa there in the doorway as I walked in, smiling and laughing and the two of us picking back up right where we had left off, pulled my out of my anxious state of mind and back into reality. After catching up and heading out for a walk around San Jose in the cold afternoon rain, we got to talking. Although I knew it wasn’t my place to disclose all the details of what had happened in the past week to Lisa, I did still feel that void and sadness over how things had gone in Manuel Antonio, and I couldn’t help but voicing them. And what I began to realize was that, now that I was out of that other environment, and had someone to give me an outside perspective, it became clear to me that I had begun to let myself feel like the target of whatever tension I had been feeling in Manuel Antonio because I had set my expectations so high, but the truth was that it was never about me. I realized that this was just something that Kevin and Willie were going through and rather than let myself be hurt through the process, the best thing that I could do was to be supportive and unbiased to them as a friend and not let this ruin our friendships. After finally talking it all through and having the clarity of mind to pull myself out of the slump into which I had fallen, even the dismal gray rainy San Jose afternoon couldn’t keep me from feeling like myself again, and I as we trudged back to the the hostel in the fading evening twilight, I couldn’t help but smile.
That evening Lisa and I had plans to head out and meet Willie and Kevin at Bochinche, the same lively downtown bar that I had found myself at one week earlier, but this time in a completely different state of mind. Rather than walking in with my expectations built so high as to only let myself down, I walked in knowing that these really were my friends. They had all come here because they care about me, and it was time for me to stop letting myself become confused in false feelings, and instead hold onto every moment that we had together, being there for them whether in peace-time or in conflict. And so it went, that there I was, thousands of miles away from where we had all shared our lives together, this time with the best of both New York and Atlanta, and all I could think was just how lucky I was to have these people in my life, that they were all there with me in that moment, and that I had no doubt that no matter how far I went, they would still be there with me.

Sweet Dreams in the Tropical Moonlight

Soon after departing from San Jose I sat looking out the window across the mountainous Costa Rican jungle on the way to Manuel Antonio beach to meet Kevin and Willie.  It felt like an eternity since I had seen my friends from back home and just thinking about them brought on a wave of old memories from New York.  Days spent rolling in the grass and paddling around the lake in Central Park with Kevin, the uproarious Halloween that we had spent together that past year, sitting on the Christopher Street Pier and watching the boats go by, my farewell barbecue in Hell’s Kitchen, and decorating gooey, ridiculous cookies for Valentines day.  After what felt like an eternity, we were going to be back together again, and I just knew that we were in for a week of beautiful and unforgettable memories in the tropical moonlight.

The night before, I had found myself in a taxi speeding silently through the darkened streets of San Jose with two strange Irish blokes that had been on the bus with me from Guatemala.  It had been a rather monotonous journey, a two leg ride from Guatemala City to San Jose, with one overnight stop in San Salvador, el Salvador.  We had arrived in San Salvador in the early evening, just having enough light to somewhat get my bearings as we arrived at the cheap hotel above the bus station.  I had considered just trying to sleep that night, but after having snoozed away almost the entirety of the trip earlier that day, and with the knowledge that our bus would be leaving at four in the morning, I decided that prudence was the wiser path under the circumstances, and got dressed to head out and hit the bars.  

Now, it was never my intention to get sloshed, I mean honestly, I hardly ever enjoy doing that anyway, but somehow as I had wandered around the seedy city center earlier that evening searching for a satisfying dinner, I had found myself in a small supermarket marveling at the miraculous liquor prices.  No wonder this place was in such a sorry state of affairs, if our cities sold almost all their bottles of liquor for around five dollars, we’d all be in a permanent state of hangover as well.  Well, I had considered getting a few bottles of Coca Cola, but to be honest with ya, the rum was just far more economical, and being the thrifty young man that I am, I knew that I had to think about my finances first.  Needless to say, an hour later I was back in my rustic hotel room, drinking rum and some kind of wretched fruit soda which I had made the mistake of trying (but hey, it was better than the Mexican Russians that I had found myself drinking several months prior).

It’s a funny thing, but I realized that I hardly ever sat around by myself pouring drinks out of a half liter bottle of rum, and somehow, regardless of how many cocktails I fixed myself, I saw still sitting in a hotel room alone and still bored.  Hunh? Go figure…  Anyway, so in my some impaired logic, as I noticed the bottle was getting low, I rationalized that surely it wouldn’t be logical to carry an entire half liter bottle with me all the way to Costa Rica the following day – so naturally, I decided to finish it.  Of course, at this point it was most certainly out of the question to go straight to bed, I mean its just a recipe for a nasty hangover.  So I decided to do the smart thing and head out and explore the nightlife that Friday night in that notoriously safe little city of San Salvador – sloshed.

Ok, s to be honest with you, the rest of the night is a bit of a blur, and I wish that I could tell you about some wild or dramatic events, but the truth of the matter is that from what I recall, it was just a big flop.  I ended up heading out to some random bar which I believe that I had seen in my guidebook, the place had been completely dead, and I stood at the bar for about an hour and a half before I realized that my state of health was already taking a downward spiral and the force of gravity had almost doubled.  Bored, disappointed, and only capable of thinking of returning to my oh so cozy hotel room and doing a nose dive into the luxuriantly soft, welcoming bed (although I think that I really did have that sentiment at the time), I stumbled out to the sidewalk and hailed a cab.  After what seemed like an endless cab ride, we finally, I headed up to the room and that was all she wrote.

How exactly I could possibly have forgotten that my bus left at four AM the next morning is still a mystery to me… But thanks to a belligerent and excessively loud bus driver pounding on my door and informing me that it was time to go, I rolled out of my coma and onto the floor, reality hazily kicked back in, and I scrambled to focus my vision long enough to lug my bags and my bike down the stairs to the first floor and out to the bus.  It wasn’t long before we were underway, and I’d like to say that I just dozed off to sleep and when I woke up it was all over, but it didn’t quite go that way.  The rest of our three hour tour turned into a nine hour nightmare, as I lay there in my agonizing state, flopping from one side to the other every fifteen minutes in my seat, wiping the sticky perspiration from my brow, and dragging my haggard self out of the bus into the oppressive tropical humidity for hour long border-checks along the way.  Yes, it was a lovely ride, and somehow it really made me miss those nice long days in the saddle, peddling along in the open air – sober.

Right, so I’d learned my lesson, and now here we were in San Jose.  Tricky thing was that regardless of how troubled my sleep had been, I’d still managed to sleep on the way from San Salvador – and that left me in the safe predicament as the previous night.  Now, this time I wasn’t going to make the same mistake the with liquor, but I think all of those long nights of camping, traveling through indigenous villages, and riding a bicycle had caused some kind of social stir-craziness to build up in my system.  And so, as it were, I found myself strolling past the midnight trannies of San Jose, flagging down a cab, and heading out to Bochinche, a little bar that I had caught wind of along the way.  Fortunately this time the place was packed, and as I waited in line to get in I managed to make a few friends that then kept me laughing for the next few hours.

Since I knew that I had to make my way to Manuel Antonio the following morning I made it an early night, and the next day found myself cycling down to the Coca Cola bus terminal on the West side of the city center.  I got lucky and happened to arrive only a short while before the next express bus to Manuel Antonio was about to depart (I didn’t realize just how lucky until one of my following wretched experiences while returning to Manuel Antonio) and within moments my bike was securely stowed down below and we were on our way.  And, indeed, it was a deliciously picturesque journey (aside from all the luxury home and building site billboards – nothing better than a piece of pristine jungle or coastline to haze for a big ol’ subdivision), our path meandering gracefully through the cool jungled mountains, over rushing rivers in shaded valleys, out along the endless azure sea, and finally through fertile green fields and coconut groves.  And as the delicately soothing breeze flowed in through the open windows and caressed my sunlit face, I couldn’t help but to smile and feel my heart flutter with the excitement of being reunited with my dear friends.

The journey passed quickly and as we arrived in Quepos I decided I would hop off and cycle along the road that led to Manuel Antonio, as the bungalow where Kevin and Willie were staying was situated somewhere in between.  Although Kevin had sent me an e-mail with descriptive directions, when I had read the word “hill” I don’t think that I had quite envisioned just exactly what greeted me as I passed the outskirts of Quepos and entered the jungle.  It was brutally steep and reminded me of a street in the town of Comitan, in Chiapas Mexico, where my bicycle had begun tipping backwards and almost flipped as I tried to take the climb head-on.  Fortunately, on the main roads where the majority of my trip prior to that point had taken place, inclines didn’t generally come in this almost forty-five degree angle variety, for if they had I would surely have been taken out by oncoming traffic as I weaved painfully slowly from one side of the street to the other, tacking against the uphill current.  And it was after ten minutes of this torture when something wildly coincidental occurred, some might even call it destiny.

Drenched in humid jungle sweat, legs searing from exertion, and questioning my determination, I lifted my head to judge the path before me and whether it was time for a little siesta.  And of all the people along the Quepos-Manuel Antonio road who could have been standing there in the middle of the fiery Pacific dusk, half bathed in canopy shadow, there was Kevin (and thank goodness, because I couldn’t make out any of the signs and would surely have passed the inconspicuous earthen side-road otherwise).  However, it made for an absolutely charming reunion, as I slowly rolled towards his side of the street while his back was still turned, and, in an out of breath sort of way, said “Hey Kev,” as if I had just happened to run into him walking down the sidewalk in the East Village.  He turned to look at me and for a second tried to make out who it was, then exclaimed “Oh, hi … Paul!”  I tried to apologize for being a bit “moist” as I dismounted my cycle and turned to embrace him, but as he threw his arms around me, we both knew that it didn’t really matter, and all I could feel was a rush of felicity pulse through my veins.  We smiled and laughed and fell right back in where we had left off almost a half a year ago, and as we strolled up the road in the fading glow of the tropical twilight I felt a peaceful contentedness that I hadn’t felt in months, and I felt sure that this next week together would be an unforgettable one.