Costa Rica and the Honky Tonk Blue

January 10 - 22, 2001 -- Sad to leave Guatemala behind but excited to see my dad, I jump a plane for Costa Rica, for a week of living it up in San Jose, Dominical, and Quepos...and as an added bonus, finding out just what a "honky tonk blue" is.

San Jose

I had arranged through Rainbow Travel Agency for a minibus to pick me up for 10 dollars at 4 AM in front of Posada Ruiz 2 to get me to the Guatemala City airport in time for my 7 AM flight. I considered this a bargain, simply because I didn't really want to be bothered with finding a hotel in Guatemala City and getting a cab early in the morning. The minibus arrived a few minutes late but got me there perfectly. I tried to plan it so I had just enough quetzales and dollars to pay my 30 dollar exit tax from Guatemala. Then I intended to start fresh at the cash machine when I arrived in Costa Rica. Oops, after waiting at the United Airlines counter for half an hour, I found out that I had to pay in quetzales or dollars, but not a mixture of both. Luckily, there was a bank downstairs, but they wouldn't open till 6 AM and it was only quarter past 5. Never fear though, once I got down there, an enterprising souvenir stand guy let me trade my quetzales for dollars at the same exchange rate the bank was offering. Thank goodness for the entrepreneurial spirit! The flight was a piece of cake, lovely view of volcanos and coastline, and I spent the hour listening to most of the new U2 album All That You Can't Leave Behind. So what if it was a paid advertisement on the Inflight Listening Network; the album is the best I've heard from U2 in years, and it brought a few tears to my eyes. I tell you, leaving all of my music at home surely makes me appreciate it when I hear something I like. Good job boys! The Edge has always been one of my favorite guitarists...melodic, memorable, deceptively simple sounding riffs, always playing just what the song calls for. But I digress...

Customs at Costa Rica is a happy, smily sort of place. They just kind of grin, stamp your passport, and wave you through. Nothing like the nasty guys glaring at you when you get into Mexico. Outside, a kid helped me find the right bus, and went way out of his way to make sure I knew what the deal was once I got into town. San Jose's airport is actually 10 miles north of town in the suburb of Alajuela (not to be confused with alleluia!). San Jose sits in a snug little valley at 3500 feet elevation. It has year-round spring-like weather in the 70's, and everything around is quite green. Gone were all the colonial buildings of Mexico and Guatemala, replaced with nice little middle-class neighborhoods more reminiscent of Portland than anything I had seen up to this point. Once I got into town, I checked into the Pension Otoya for 8 bucks a night. I was pretty tired from getting up so early, and even though the bed consisted of a long expired mattress, a 3/4 inch piece of plywood, and a 1 inch cloth pad on top, I jumped at taking the room. My first meal in town further confirmed that I wasn't in Guatemala or Mexico anymore. I got my standard piece of rotisserie chicken, but instead of homemade or at least fresh tortillas, I got two shrink-wrapped little corn disks in clear cellophane. As I was to continue finding out, absolutely no fresh salsas here either, only Grade F catsup and flavorless bottled hot sauces. Oh my, this is different isn't it? The first order of business was to take a nap and stroll around the town. Gorgeous girls everywhere, what I had heard about that was definitely true, and they smiled back at me, which was promising. The reputation of Costa Ricans going out of their way to help you out is very true also. I needed to change some traveller's checks, and I walked up to what I thought were run of the mill guards in front of a bank to ask directions to another bank, because apparently the bank we were standing in front of didn't change traveller's checks. Three of them came over to help me out, and then one rolled down the window of his armored truck to give me clearer instructions. A few seconds later when they opened the truck to walk by me with a sack of money, I realized they could get into big trouble for helping me out this much while they were busy...me being an unshaven foreigner with a backpack. That was nice of them.

I got onto the internet that afternoon, and as I was typing, I got a message from my Polish friend Christoph, saying he was in San Jose and was wondering when I would get there. The first thing I did was stand up and look around the internet cafe I was in, thinking he might be a computer or two over and how weird that would be. Once I figured out he wasn't there, I sent him a quick reply and told him that if he got it, he should meet me at the Beatles Bar in an hour. I then jumped on an internet phone for the first time. This technology is great for the traveller. At present, I believe it only works if you are calling a US number, but it works from anywhere in the world. All you need is a computer, a set of walkman headphones, and a cheap plastic microphone and you can dial anywhere in the US for the same price you are paying to use the internet. Two dollars an hour sure beats the dollar a minute I was paying to use the payphone in Antigua. There is a delay and the voices get garbled at times, but I was able to talk to my sister Carrie and my dad for a half hour. If any of you get a chance to use it in the states, let me know if the delay is as noticeable there. If I understand it correctly, you should never have to pay for long distance again as long as you've got an internet connection at home.

On my way to the Beatles Bar, I got a bit turned around, because as it turns out, the bar moved in the last six months and the map in Lonely Planet is wrong. A hooker asked in English if I wanted company for the night. I just laughed, said no, but do you know where the Beatles Bar is. She asked this guy standing next to her, told me, and then insisted that I pay her for the directions. I laughed again, she got petulant and stormed towards me shouting MONEY FOR INFORMATION!!! but then broke off her mock charge and smiled. San Jose has qualities reminiscent of the bombed out areas of Portland or Spokane...seedy, rusty, textured. It felt a bit like walking around old town Portland at night or on the three or four blocks closest to the east side of the river. Kind of made me miss home. As soon as I sat down in the bar, this early fifty-ish American guy with a gray ponytail started talking to me. He looked like a skinny Harley guy without the body art. After about three sentences, he said, Actually, I'm working right now. (Note to self: hum, I wonder what my next line is supposed to be?). Oh yeah, what is your job? And with that, he launched into a half hour shpeel about how he was the manager of San Jose's newest whorehouse.

Now before tonight, I had never been hit on by a prostitute before, let alone talked to a manager of a whorehouse. This was cinema, and if I could have been munching popcorn and sipping a coke as he was going off, I certainly would have. I was creeped out by him, wanted to take a shower to scrape his words off my skin, but I couldn't help just sitting there politely nodding my head and egging him on with a question or two whenever he came up for air. But before I say anything else, I'll just quote the guy and let you form your own opinion. Here is part of his monologue....Yeah, they are all 18, 19, or 20. Most fair-skinned, drop dead gorgeous, I mean, we've got a fat one too. Some guys like that shit, you know? If they were all what I liked, then all the customers would be just like me, ha ha. I even got a couple of black chicks in there. Personally, I wouldn't touch em, but some guys that turns em on. You come into the club, it's unmarked, word of mouth business. We don't want any locals in there because they want to bargain with me and won't tip the girls, so I lie to them when they call and I say the prices are three times as high as they really are. All we want is North American and European gentlemen in here. They are polite and treat the girls right. We open at 1 and close at midnight. If you want to come in and spend the whole day, that's great. It's 100 bucks for the day, and that gets you the use of the pool, hot tub, pool tables, all that shit...all you have to pay for is what you drink, and our prices are fair. If you want to buy a girl a drink, it's the same price you pay in this bar. We're not out to gouge you there. All we ask is that if you are talking to a girl or hot tubbing with her, you give her a tip for spending some time with you. If they are spending time with you, that's time they could be spending it with someone else earning money, so we ask that you tip them. And sometime during your stay, you can pick one of the girls you like, take her up to the massage room, and you've got an hour with her to do whatever you want. That's all included in the hundred bucks you pay when you get in. We want you to feel comfortable, stay all day if you want relaxing, shooting pool or whatever. Blah blah blah....

I guess what I found most disturbing about the guy was the blatant lies he told at times or the way he would switch up his story depending on what he thought I wanted to hear. Like I said, I was egging him on at times, just to see what he'd say. One time I asked him how he interviews the girls. He tried to read me and said, I don't need to sleep with them at all to know how good they'd be. It's all attitude, I can tell in two minutes of talking to them how good they'll be and I can hire them on the spot from that. Then, 15 minutes later, after he had forgotten what he'd said earlier, he says to me, I don't want to be a father figure for these girls. I don't want them thinking of me as daddy. I try to get them all into bed as often as I can. Later, he said something about their mothers.....I know most of the mothers of these girls, and they know me and we talk and stuff, and they are all for their daughters and what they are doing. It's totally accepted down here that if a girl needs to pay her way through college, earn the money she needs to get by, this is a great way to do it. I mean, the girls don't go out and advertise that they work here, maybe they don't go out and tell all their friends or whatever, but they're proud to be paying their own way in life.

I said goodbye to this bozo and spent the rest of the night talking to a surfer from Maryland. My Polish friend Christoph never made it down to the bar, but I found a note from him on my hotel room door when I got back telling me he was staying in the Gran Hotel Imperial, and to come find him there. By this time, it was too late, so I called it a night and decided I'd go find him in the morning. Strange first day in San Jose.

The next day I ran into Christoph and his American friend Eric. Eric had gotten his passport stolen on a bus in Puntarenas. The bus had been crowded, and he got worked over by two people. One of them pulled on his backpack to distract him while the other reached into his pants pocket and grabbed his passport. Luckily, the US Embassy got him a passport in 24 hours. He just strolled right through the gates whereas any non-US citizen had to wait for hours in line. I have heard that if you are an American citizen and get in trouble overseas, the US Embassy really will do anything you need, and it appears to be the case. I was impressed. Your tax dollars hard at work. That day we just wandered around, hung out and chatted. I ate a big bowl of what turned out to be beef guts soup. The broth tasted great, but the texture was a bit weird. For dinner, we went to McDonald's because Christoph loves it, and they have the 50 cent cheeseburger special down here as well. Some days Christoph will eat nothing but 7 or 8 McDonald's quesoburguesas (cheeseburgers) and will call it good. Holy smokes. FYI, they taste exactly the same as they do at home, even have the little rice shaped rehydrated onions. I like the name of the Egg McMuffin down here...Egg McQueso. I think that will be the last time I eat McDonald's for a good long while though. Costa Ricans love American fast food...I counted 8 McDonald's, 3 KFCs, 1 Taco Hell, and 1 Burger King in my little area of San Jose alone. Obesity seems to be a bit of a problem too. That night, Thursday, I checked into the Gran Hotel Imperial where Christoph and Eric were staying for 3 dollars a night, and we drank lots of beers and had a jam session on the porch till all hours of the night. It was fun.

Friday was the day my dad was arriving. I upgraded us to the Hotel Plaza for 37 bucks a night so we would be living in style...very Holiday Inn feeling. I rolled out to the airport that night on a bus for 30 cents to pick up my dad. There was a quick bus change that I had to pull off, and then when I got to the airport, there was no Delta desk. One of the people there told me that Delta's flight came in at the auxiliary terminal, and if I just caught a cab for the couple mile ride I'd get there just fine. Well, my strategy when I hear unexpected directions like that is to get a few opinions and then go by gut instinct, piecing together the story from a combination of what the people are telling me. I always try to keep in mind that it is the custom in Central America to give you an answer, any kind of answer, even if the person talking doesn't know what the hell they are talking about. In other words, I try to make sure I am asking very simple yes or no questions most of the time to avoid confusion. Some questions are much better than others. For example, you don't go up to someone at a bus stop and say, Are there buses to Toledo around here? Instead, you go up to them, point at a specific bus and say, To Toledo? It's very subtle, but trust me, there are a million ways to get a misleading answer from the first question, and only a yes or no is possible for the second question. I digress.

Anyways, after some asking around to the taxi drivers (who actually know where the auxiliary terminal is), I found out that it was only a couple of hundred yards walking distance. I got talking to this cool guy named Volker from Germany who had bought a little shack in a town called Dominical, and the town sounded promising enough that I wanted to go visit it with my dad. Dad's plane was on time, and we caught a cab back to the hotel and then went out for a couple of beers. He was looking relaxed and good, and I was really glad to see him. He hadn't had a vacation in a long time, and he was really excited to get some fishing in. Saturday, we spent going around town hitting museums and stuff. We saw the Teatro Nacional which is very pretty, and the Catedral Metropolitana which is pretty boring compared to other cathedrals I've seen. Then we saw the Spirogyra Jardin de Mariposas, a small but amazing butterfly sanctuary. My favorites were the butterflies with the electric blue wings. Probably the most mind-blowing thing I saw was the Museo de Oro Precolombino, a collection of thousands of gold artifacts from before the arrival of Columbus. Lots of little animals, earrings, nose and lip hoops and spikes, plates of gold to be worn around the neck, you name it. I was blown away by how many artifacts there were. Those ancient goldsmiths were busy fellers.

Dominical

That evening, we wandered down to the Coca Cola bus terminal to purchase our tickets to the Pacific Coast for Sunday morning. We had decided to go to the town Volker recommended, Dominical. Sunday morning, we got on the bus for the first leg of the journey to San Isidro de El General. It's a Medium Bladder ride up over windy, beautiful mountains. There are lots of oak trees and great vistas from the top, then you wind down for several thousand feet to a humid valley where San Isidro sits. We had timed it wrong, and there was no bus to Dominical for several hours. We negotiated with the cab driver though, and for 17 bucks, we were on our way for the 45 minute drive to Dominical. Oops, flat tire, oops, the spare only has half of its air. Never fear, we were still ripping around the curves after only a 20 minute delay. The road drops another thousand feet to the coast, crosses the lovely Rio Baru, and dumps you off in the one road hamlet of Dominical, population 400 more or less, depending on how good the waves have been. We checked into the Hotel DiuWak, and for 35 dollars a night we were doing the cushy air-conditioned living thing again. Dad is not one for wasting time, and after a few beers and lunch, we had arranged through David, the guy at our hotel, to go on a half-day fishing trip out of the nearby town of Uvita for 200 bucks. Uvita has the feel of Mexico, much more raw than anything I had seen in Costa Rica so far. Our captain launched us from the beach and we were trolling in short order. He had only limited gear with rusty hooks, but we ended up catching a couple of things anyways trolling 5 inch Rapalas and various spoons and feather jigs (actually, I didn't catch anything, but I'm getting to that). My dad caught a several pound needlefish which we released, a smallish mackerel which we kept, David from our hotel caught 2 baby roosterfish, which we released, and my dad caught a 10 pound spanish mackerel which we kept. David filleted the fish for us, and the cook at the local restaurant sauteed it up in butter and garlic, total heaven.

The next day, we waded across the Rio Baru and walked a mile down the deserted beach to hang out and swim. We saw giant roosterfish literally riding the waves as they hunted for fish and leaped from the water in their attacks. Big iguanas lounged around us and gentle breezes kept us cool along with the shade of the jungle trees that came right down to the beach behind us. As I was sitting there, I had a flash of inspiration and got the key parts of my novel outlined. I had been stewing it over for the last two months, and suddenly the plot was there and done and I was happy. 15 minutes later I couldn't remember it, but I checked what I had written later that evening, and it was there and good. I have been spending a lot of time creating and writing down the mythology and pre-history for the story, but the plot didn't come together till that moment. I plan to have the first draft out by my 30th birthday, June 5th. Hint? Think Vonnegut and O'Toole and Tolkien and Cervantes and Andy Warhol and David Lynch. If nothing else, it will be funny. We ran into Volker later that day, chatted with him and his brother over beers. Funny how I keep running into people on my trip again, although it makes sense in Dominical since it is so small.

Quepos

The next morning, we got up and caught an Empty Bladder ride up to Quepos, a fishing town north of us. We checked into the Best Western there, and once again, my dad wasted little time and got us onto a fishing boat for a full-day for the next morning. The price was $525, and he was splitting it with a guy from North Carolina named Lee. We went out for beers with Lee that night and hit it off pretty good. We all got a little buzzed while we talked fishing and war stories. The next morning, we were on the boat at 7 for the 30 mile boat ride south to the fishing grounds. This boat was the real deal, shiny white, gigantic diesel engine, an elevated upper deck where the captain rode. I get seasick something terrible, and I was already starting to feel queasy, but I just took the mentality that I'd try to trick my brain this time rather than to just give in to it, so I kind of squinted and I imagined we were driving a truck across a snowy field in the Great Plains of Montana somewhere. I cracked a beer, stayed with that thought awhile, and I didn't feel seasick anymore for the rest of the day. Whatever works. That day, we boated and kept 3 Dorado (or Mahi Mahi) in the 20-30 lb class. I have never seen color changes like that in a fish before. They change from gold to black with flourescent blue spots to black when they finally give up the ghost. Also, it was kind of creepy looking in their eyes, as their expressions changed from fear to calm to dead. One looked like it was crying, but I think it was from the bucket of water the deckhand splashed around to get the blood off the deck. Then came the sailfish...a total of six hooked and 4 landed and released. We were trolling all day at maybe 10 or 15 miles an hour. We had these dead fish that were about 9 inches to a foot long skipping along the surface behind the boat like a school of panicked bait fish. The big sails come up a few feet behind the bait before they swallow it. It's a crazy sight, then the fight is on. There was no fighting chair to sit in, so we each stood on the slippery deck and did the best we could. Lee boated one that went about 150 lbs, my dad lost one, I boated one, my dad lost one and the captain started getting pissed at him, Lee boated another, then my dad finally landed one to wrap up the day. In the meantime, we saw tons of tortoises and dolphins and just marvelled at the enormity of the sea and the richness of the life within it.

We ended up spending a lot of time hanging out with Lee drinking and BS-ing. He set up another trip for us where we were going into the mangroves for a half day for 200 bucks to fish for whatever was biting on the incoming tide. The mangroves are filled with lots of birds and crocodiles and strange animals like these very rare kitten-sized anteaters that sleep up in the trees at night (we were lucky enough to see two of them). Just in case you were wondering, I was definitely keeping my eye out for a 3-toed sloth, but I didn't see one :) We trolled for approximately 10 minutes before the captain tired of that and set us to fishing with live shrimp for corbina. Now, none of us knew much about sailfishing, but this sure as hell resembled sitting at a bluegill hole on some pond and filling up the bucket with fish, something we all had done since we were kids. The captain couldn't believe it as we brought in close to 40 corbina in the pound or two pound class, plus a dozen or so various assorted catfish, bigeyes, and other things I couldn't remember the names of. He had never had a day guiding like this, in fact, some days, his clients catch nothing. That was probably because he had been guiding people who weren't experts at detecting the subtle nibbles of a finicky fish though. We were in our element and we clobbered them. As he cleaned out 6 of the fish for us to eat later, word spread quick and all the neighbors came by to marvel at our catch. We all felt pretty proud :)

After several days in Quepos and some world-class fishing, we had to get back to San Jose so my dad could catch his plane. I don't think he wanted to go, who could blame him? He thought about calling in too good to come to work, but then he thought better of it. We caught a bus Saturday morning for the Medium Bladder ride up the hill to San Jose. During the trip, a woman got up and was fiddling around in the luggage racks above my dad's head, and she dropped something on his head and didn't apologize, just said "It fell" in spanish. I didn't think much of it, but when we got into our hotel, I noticed that my hand held 50 dollar Sony recorder was gone. I can replace the recorder when I get home, but it's annoying because the tape inside of it was full of stuff...street musicians I had recorded, little snippets of guys selling things on the bus, plus lots and lots of songs ideas, some of which I can't remember and are therefore lost for good. Further, I don't have a way of capturing any of this stuff for the rest of my trip. From what I remember of her out of the corner of my eye, she was well-dressed, 40ish, and fairly normal looking mother type. I won't tell you what I think of her, but it is not a good-will love your fellow man type emotion. If she hadn't dropped that thing on my dad's head, she would have had time to grab my camera too, so I guess some good came of it.

That evening, we had checked back into the Hotel Plaza and my dad decided to stay in the hotel and relax. I went out to a bar called El Cuartel de la Boca del Monte to check out the young local scene and some live music. This bar could have been anywhere in Portland, it just wasn't quite smoky or dark enough. There was a real sound system, and the band was five guys from 35 to 50 years old who played covers like Sultans of Swing, Come on Baby Light my Fire, This One Goes Out to the One I Love, and Honky Tonk Women note for note. They were awesome! At first, the kids in the bar kept nervously glancing back at me to see if the gringo approved or thought it was cool, but finally they all just started rocking out because it was good irregardless of what I thought. The amps were loud and growly, the singing great. One of the better cover bands I had seen anywhere. The lyrical faux pas they made were especially charming. Little mistakes that a native speaker would never make that made it even more enjoyable. One of my favorite examples: She's the ho....nky tonk women. Gimme, gimme, gimme the honky tonk blue.

On the way back from the bar, a guy starts talking to me in the distinctive California slang of my youth. He was shady as hell though...what do you want bro, I can get you weed, rail (coke), whores, you name it. Let's go dude, what are you looking for? Uh...nothin man, it's all good, what are you doin down here? Well, I got into a little trouble with the law, felonly drunk driving and somebody died, I did my time, had some trouble getting out of the country, but now I'm here. The rail is cheap man, it's like free almost, I'll stay up 2 days, sleep a bit, then do it again. Life is good. Hey, could you give me a few colones (Costa Rican money), even 300 colones would be a big help man. Uh....no, I've got to go to sleep and shit...see ya man. Sunday morning, I got up early and saw my dad off to the airport. Through some traveller's ESP or something, I saw Lee on the streets and we got together later that evening for food and a movie. We saw Arnold Schwarzenegger's Sixth Day, which is total crap, but the subtitles gave me a chance to practice Spanish, so I enjoyed that. It was actually the second time I had seen it in a week, as my dad and I saw it the second night he was in town. By this point, I was kind of feeling like I had seen all I wanted to see of San Jose. Too many crappy fast food joints, kind of seedy and a bit sketchy, and not really all that much happening for the traveller, so I decided to head out Monday morning for the Caribbean Coast and then on to Panama.

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