Last night I realized just how much nourishment I’ve provided to the creatures of the Costa Rican jungle. The least they could have done in return was refrain from injecting itchy poison. I’m stylishly spotted. I also removed two ticks before bed.
I was ecstatic to discover this morning that, after a night in front of the fan, one of my cameras has flickered back to life. It’s not its old self, but it’s working. Jill took this picture of me in front of my backpackers’ inn, the Oro Verde.
Puerto Jiménez is an interesting little town, charming in its lack of charm. It seems to my untrained eye to be about half gringo, half native, with a significant social divide between the two. I think the population contains more stray dogs than humans. In each pack of hounds, invariably there’s one male who keeps his nose pressed to a selected female’s butt, “as though it’s cello-taped there,” Lewis observed. I had a chance this morning to walk around with Jill and take some pictures.
Now it’s time to talk about my companions. Before last week I’d never gone further than the Peet’s Coffee with Jill, and I’d met Lewis only once. I can’t explain why I wasn’t filled with trepidation about joining the two of them in this remote place for a challenging trip. I wasn’t even a teeny bit anxious, which as you know is not like me.
As it turned out, I would have had nothing to be anxious about anyway. All week long Lewis and Jill were cheerful, generous, funny, considerate, knowledgeable and inspiring. On the trail they kept a pace I could manage and in the kitchen they kept good stuff going into my belly. We have similar activity levels — energetic but not frenetic — and similar enthusiasm for exploring. As nature guides they were amazing. I am very lucky.
Openly fishing for reassurance, I asked them last night if I’d been difficult. And because I’m so delighted by their response, I’m going to write it here: “You were a trooper”¦ great sense of humor”¦ I enjoyed your enthusiasm”¦ fun to travel with”¦ you have an infectious curiosity”¦ you shared your peanut M&M’s well”¦”
Near the airport we bought matching bracelets made of woven palm by a local craftsperson. We chose a sort of snake pattern.
The plane was late so we had some extra hang-out time in the lobby of Nature Air (“The World’s First Certified Carbon Neutral Airline”) where we listened to snippets of nearby conversations:
Gringo #1: “Are you sweating?” Gringo #2: “Buena sweat-o”
“I say we find a cantina and have lunchina and some beer-o.”
Did you know that Lewis’ first job was selling women’s underwear when he was fourteen? He proved that he can still guess a bra size just by looking.
Finally, with sad heart, I climbed the ladder of the Twin Otter and watched out the window as the plane took off. Jill and Lewis were doing that same full-arm wave that Dad always did when I left. A dog galloped along the road next to the runway, chasing the plane. As I head back to Guatemala, Lewis and Jill are hoping to volunteer at a nature preserve across the gulf from Puerto Jiménez. I’m hoping they’ll return to the States for a while this summer.
In San José, as I waited for the shuttle to the international airport, an American woman approached me and asked, “By any chance, do you have relatives named ‘Lithgow’?” “No. Why?” I asked, knowing the answer. “Because you just remind me of John Lithgow. I don’t know why.” This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this, but it doesn’t get less painful with experience. “I know why,” I told her. “We both have prominent chins and beady, close-together eyes.” “Oh,” she said.
Just as the van finally appeared there was a sudden cloudburst, which is highly unusual at this time of year. “Tiempo loco,” declared our driver as we splashed through flooding roads. “Bombas de agua” added an American passenger in the back.
My driver asked, “Dondé es su esposo?” Why do people ask that kind of question? I said I didn’t have one. “Why not?” I considered several imaginative options before piecing together my Spanish answer. Whatever I said made this serious man dissolve into laughter.
The San José airport is not designed for the long layover I had. My butt hurt.
Antonio was waiting for me in Guatemala City, accompanied by his wife Sara, whom he’d brought to keep me company on the hour-long ride home. We sat in the back seat and gabbed and laughed. She’s a delight. I am so frustrated with myself, though, because my Spanish is still abysmal. I missed out on too much of what she said.
While I was in Costa Rica, someone brought my things over to the house next to Maria’s, so we drove right to my new abode. It feels homey because, for one thing, I spent a lot of time here last time I was in Guatemala. And it’s great to have a house all to myself. And it’s free!
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Well, here I am late at night reading this, your blog, and typing with dirty fingers from printing old images all week and then fucking off all day as a kind of weekend off since I never have a weekend because my weeks are giant run on sentences just like this sentence. But hey, it was good to sit down and read about your trip again. I am envious. Thank you for sharing it with me. Right now I sit here tapping away and listening to the NEW RAT who has moved into the space above my bed, where many other rats have lived before. I have set two new traps baited with an organic fig and a single cashew nut carefully drilled and then stabbed in place. Any bets on which bait wins out? Really, for all of you who love furry little animals, so do I. They just need to be working on the same shift as I do, otherwise they gotta go. I hope the rest of the trip is as enjoyable or more so as it has seemed to have been. I particularly love the parts about visiting ruins. Is that because much of my own life has seemed a ruin and I love revisiting it in my dreams? No matter. Thanks again and be well. MB