At 6:20 a mini bus pulled up in the street in front of my Aparthotel. The driver non chalantly took my boxes. Rather than load them on top they were passed through the windows. The bus has 21 seats split configuration, two on the left, one on the right for each row. I brought the total of passengers to four.
Rudy gave me more unwanted and unneeded advice on how to survive in this world and in particular my immediate destinations, both places in which I have lived and he has but heard about.
The air conditioning in the bus is more than effective, it is downright cold in here.
Craggy peaks and steep mountains in the hazy blue mist vast expanses of green some forested, some pasture, steep slopes rising as fast as they ran plunged down into valleys on either side of the crest on which the rode was situated. The road ever twisting but not in the manner of switchbacks wound its way through villages and rural areas, living fences of limbs sprouting in a row renewing themselves not as appendages but as saplings and trees in their own right. Vines and enormous leaved ferns the occassional banana tree, palms of every sort, ornamental bushes, yellow, orange, red, and purple with blossoms of every hue. Fat, health, lazy brama cattle.
7:30 stopped at a soda. “Pora desayuno o solomente bano?” “Bano.” Two women, apparently sisters, with smooth wrinkle free complexions, large hawkish noses and grey hair disembarked. One clad from foot to head in sandals, long pangs a white cotton improvised skirt and a brown top with fabric hanging down in folds from the arms looked like a garment rack for the disheveled. The other, with orange plastic spectacles and circular lenses was the embodiment of Poindexter. The third woman had was short and stout, with a brush cut. Her calves were the size of my thighs.
Orange spectacles walked into the restaurant and then departed down a trail and was presently around a bend, out of sight. I exited the bus sat at the counter an ordered a coffee. “Un cafe negor, grandel por favor.” The coffee was quickly served, hot and rich. “Desayno?” “Solomente carne guisada.” “Arroz, frijoles?” What part of ‘solomente’ was not clear? “No, gracias.” The woman reappeared and entered the bus. “Necessito, carne pora llevar, insufficiente tiempo pora aqui.” The woman graciously transferred my stew to a styrofoam bowl. “Salsa Caliente?” I was handed a plastic squeeze bottle and gave a blast. I looked at the woman and with a smile and a kidding, “Malo, malo, este salsa tamatilla, yo quiero picante, mucho picante, este pora nino.” She laughed and I rant off to the bus, my grub in hand and a barely touched coffee on the counter. “Quento?” “Un mill.” I guess Costa Rica’s not bad if you get out of the tourist traps. But I think I’ve had my last trip to Fortuna unless I’m showing someone around. Too much world.
Blogging on my netbook is wonderful. A full sized laptop could not be opened in the confines of my seating and touch typing on an ipad is cumbersome and requires transcription. The cost to you is a long blog entry.
Simple gestures. Asking the bus driver if he wants a coffee, offering gum to fellow passengers. It toesn’t take much to get people out of their shells.
Everything is labelled “Puerto Viejo and we are hours from our tiny destination.
A muffler shop on the edge of a city . Long stretch of unkempt green scrub just psss the unpaved shoulder of the road with everything from grasses to plants with eight and ten foot leaves on one side of the road, close cropped pasture on the other.Narrow rocky rivers in wide gulches, testimony to the ravages of tropical rainfall.
A huge heather a massive meadow. Papaya trees. Palm trees bursting with orange coconuts.
8:21 San Jose kilometers.
9:45 stopped at a roadside soda, more carne guisada, some undercooked lentils Picked up three more passengers and transferred to a very stiff suspension van with much less leg room. I left my hat in the bus, but the driver brought it over to me. Thank god they transferred my chairs. I need adult supervision.
11:15 Stopped at sloth sanctuary, dropped off one person who was voluntering. Almost there. Bathroom break for the women. Natalie from Las Angeles, two women, sisters one lives in Mexico City the other left when 17 and travelled all over the world, went to college in Israel.
12:00 Bought a ticket to Sixoula for 1,440 Colones, leaves at 12:30 first bus leaves at 6:30 then 8:30 and every hour thereafter until 5:30. Across the street from the bus ticket station is a “Cocal Cola” a red building with a big red awning emblazoned “Coca Cola”. Next door is the bus stop to Sixaola. I had to place my boxes containing chairs underneath myself and well could have removed luggage that was stowed there to be scurried away by an accomplice. Travel time is an hour and a half. I have no idea how I am going to get these boxes over the bridge.
1:52 Sixoula
A Indian boy greeted me and offered to assist me with my boxes. We walked over to immigration, I ran into a woman who works at Tropical Markets and we agreed to share a collectivo. We walked the 250 yards across the bridge, each with our boxes atop our respective heads. I bought a ticket from Sixoula to San Jose, required by immigration to prove that one is planning on departing, that I might never use (a $12 ripoff, they charge the same to go to Puerto viejo when the actual fare is less than $3) and obtained my entrance stamp. We walked down the steps and I passed the boxes to the collectivo operator atop the van. A man from customs came down and said I had to clear the boxes through customs. I had no reciept so they were held for me to claim until such time as I could come up with a reciept. I asked for a receipt stating that they were holding these chairs and the supervisor labored over it nearly interminably. I finally returned to the van which by now had been vacated. I grabbed my backpack and was told my friends were in another van one in which I now sit and swelter. Apparently we are going to wait here until they sell the last seat and no progress has been made in half an hour. This is bananas country.
Just as I finished this sufficient people boarded to fill the van to capacity. I have no idea what we are waiting on at this point. Ahh securing luggage to the top. It is 3:05 and we are finally moving again.
The driver turns on the music. “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress.” Things are looking up. “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”,
That song they play at hockey games, “Rock and Roll Girls”, “Hi di ho” “Beds are Burning”,
“Money Money”, “The One I Love”, “Pretty Woman”
3:57 at almirante bus station.
He tried to take us to Taxi 25, “Fuck those people.: I walked back to BMT and got right on a boat, past the rest of the passengers in the van milling about at the newly relocated Janpan (not to be confused with Janpan tours operating out of Bocas Town, they are pretty straight up people). Back to Bocas Town, old friends and a really cute girl doing glow in the dark hula tricks.
Jonathan Allen LaFleur