L A • B U S T A M E N T E
Adventures in Costa Rica

The highways are unpaved, wild monkeys fling themselves across the jungle canopy from one mangrove tree to another, and residents still gather with picnic lunches at the international airport to watch the jets take off. Costa Rica is unspoiled, untamed, completely fresh.

In April 1997, at the end of the dry season, I set out on a week-long trek through Costa Rica by truck and foot in the central American republic. Accompanying me were Jeff Steinwachs, my college roommate, and Taylor Fravel, a friend who worked with Jeff in San Francisco.

We started in the capital city, San Jose, and drove through the country's highest mountains to the sparsely populated Osa Peninsula. After three days of hiking and exploring Corcovado National Park, we motored along the Pacific coast for three days, stopping at beaches, plantations and resorts along the way. On the final night of our trip we ventured into downtown San Jose to see how Ticos celebrate the weekend.

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Puerto Jiminez, Costa Rica
Sunday, April 6, 1997
8:00 p.m.

We're camped out in the dusty, remote, wild town of Puerto Jiminez. Jeff, Taylor and I just finished our second meal of the trip -- a dinner of arroz con pollo, chicken with rice -- and a round of Pilsen beer, for a total cost of 4,300 colones, less than $20. We dined at the restaurant attached to Cabinas Iguana Iguana, our lodgings for the night. Sitting next to us at dinner was an American who moved to Carate, about two hours down the road from here. He told us about his experiences in the area and gave us a good idea of how long the remainder of our trip to the ranger station at Sirena will take. He was probably 50, with long gray hair that cascaded down to his shirtless shoulders and skin that looked like it had been treated in a leather tannery. He wore a black technical cast on his right leg, and said he was spending some time here in Jiminez recuperating from surgery in San Jose for blowing out his knee. A former Californian, he said he'd escaped to Costa Rica to retire and surf the swells.

My preconceptions about Costa Rica have so far been wrong. When Jeff and Taylor met me at 8 this morning in my antiseptic, contemporary room at the Hampton Inn hotel just two heartbeats from the airport, I expected we would make the trip from San Jose to Puerto Jiminez by midafternoon, if not hours before. We were delayed because the rental car wasn't ready, and I took several minutes to pack and to check out of the hotel and to sample the delicious pineapple at the hotel's continental breakfast spread. (It's white pineapple, unlike the yellow kind we get at home, and it just melts in your mouth. It's so sugary sweet that I'm salivating at the thought of it.) The result was that we didn't start on the road until 10 a.m., and the road held some surprises.

This stretch of the Pan-American Highway was unpaved. There was hardly enough space for the truck on the left to pass the bus in front of us.

Naming the strip of cleared land that runs from Mexico to the South American border the Pan-American "Highway" is truly a case of false advertising. The excellent guidebooks we consulted before the trip warned that the road is difficult and tedious to traverse, pockmarked with potholes, inexplicable ruts, washed out gorges and mudslides. It's tough to believe that until you see it.

The Toyota 4-Runner we rented is large, but its suspension, which is similar to that of a child's rocking horse, is no match for the foot-deep potholes and abrupt interruptions in the pavement. The loose suspension is not bad thing when you're running over muddy, packed dirt roads that are washboarded at 65 kilometers per hour. In fact, traversing these roads with anything less than a truck seems almost suicidal.

The drive from San Jose, the country's capital and the city that nearly half of this nation's 3 million citizens call home, to Puerto Jiminez, is 350 kilometers (about 190 miles). The difference in mindset and surroundings, though, is many multiples of that distance. As we drove through San Jose and its suburbs, particularly Cartago, we saw closely spaced houses, some of them quite large, places of business, car dealers and other indications that there was some wealth in the area.

This "highway" connects Chacharita to Jiminez. The hungry jungle encroaches on the road from both sides - and from above.

The change in the more mountainous areas as we drove toward San Isidro and down toward Palmar Norte and then to Rincon gave us an idea of how dangerous and expensive road travel is for Costa Ricans. Trucks, cars and all other types of vehicles pass along the poorly-paved Pan American highway, and at many points landslides of thick, bright red dirt have fallen off the mountain face onto the road. The asphalt has not been maintained, and gaping potholes spattered all over the road force drivers to swerve across the road to avoid jolts that can ruin suspension systems and pop tires like bullets through a balloon. Along the roads are the sodas and the pulperias, snack bards and larger versions of the classic American lemonade stand. There are no rest stops.

Despite the physical discomfort of driving over roads that were often unfit for oxcarts, the trip itself was enjoyable. At nearly every point in the journey there was something important to learn, remember, or contemplate. In one day, we drove across half the length of the country. We saw vistas from the top of the cloud forest, perched atop mountains that were 11,400 feet high according to Jeff's global positioning system device. Being able to see the tops of the clouds from land was unbelievable, and became truly otherworldly when the clouds began to encroach and then engulf the road. Old-growth trees outside Rincon tower hundreds of feet into the sky, the only outcropping in a vast forest of banana trees and pineapple plants. And the descent from Palmar Norte to Rincon, when we first caught sight of the Pacific Ocean, gave us a hint of what we could expect at Corcovado National Park, our destination for this first half of the trip.

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A view of the front of Cabinas Iguana Iguana in the morning.

Puerto Jiminez, Costa Rica
Monday, April 7, 1997
4:22 a.m.

Rain just started coming down in torrents. It's louder than any driving rainstorm I've ever heard, as loud as a plane taking off on our roof. Jeff and Taylor went outside to see the show from the porch of our room here at the Iguana Iguana. All I could think about is our plan for Tuesday night, when we'll be sleeping in a tent, perhaps watching as the water pours in.

8:30 a.m.

The water knob in the concrete shower stall optimistically says Hot on it. The cool water felt good, though, because it's already 85 degrees. From across the room I can smell the pineapple we purchased a day ago from a smiling vendor outside the Dole processing plant. I don't think it's going to get eaten.

An obligatory picture with the truck: from left to right, Taylor, Jeff and Chris. In the back: the 4-Runner, named Bustamente.

Corcovado National Park
Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
9:00 p.m.

We discussed buying the pineapple at mid-day yesterday when we stopped for lunch at a quiet restaurant behind a gas station. As we left the lunch spot, one of the pineapple vendors waved toward the car, motioning for us to pull over and check out the pineapples. When we pulled up, he handed us thick slices of pineapple on a fork. Jeff negotiated a fair price (less than a dollar) and within minutes we had a plump pineapple and were on the road. We were pretty impressed with the vendor's customer service.

We're off now to breakfast at the Soda Johana on the main street in Jiminez. Then, after we get gas for the truck -- newly christened Bustamente -- we'll drive over the washboard road to Carate, where we start hiking to the Corcovado Tent Camp.

Carate, Costa Rica
1:15 p.m.

Not having a clue how to speak Tican Spanish -- or any Spanish, for that matter -- really puts me at a disadvantage in this country. Fortunately, Jeff speaks enough to get us by. In fact, he speaks more than he lets on. He didn't have any trouble today refueling Bustamente, and dealing with service station attendants (which can be a difficult task even in the U.S.). We arrived at the gas station at 10:30 a.m., which must be rush hour in Jiminez for purchasing diesel. It was quite a spectacle: a sagging, aged green Land Cruiser waited at the pump, while a newer stake truck with a dozen men clinging to it refueled at an odd angle. While we waited, two Ticos pulled up on motorcycles and butted in line to fill their tanks. The fumes and the chaos were overwhelming.

Breakfast was difficult to execute. The owner didn't speak English, and nothing on the short, handwritten menu at the Soda Johana approximated an appropriate dish for the first meal of the day, so we winged it and ordered huevos and rice and beans and were fairly satisfied with that. I only remembered how to say eggs in Spanish after recalling the Western omelet, which I believe is sometimes translated as huevos rancheros. They're probably two completely different dishes, but the point is that it jogged my memory. Huevos. We were so thirsty that we each drank two large glasses of orange juice.

Jeff gave the four-by-four its first test this morning as we forded several streams that sliced through the road. Taylor jumped out of the car to take a picture as we splashed through the creek, but he didn't have good footing when he crossed the water, and got his boots wet. I hope the stream looks like a deep, wide river in his photo. The road from Jiminez to Carate is pretty deserted, with the occasional farm along the way. Shifting into four wheel drive to get across some of the streams was more a precautionary measure than a requirement. If it were rainy season, we probably would have needed the extra traction to make it up the opposite embankment, but not in the dry season. We climbed some steep hills on the road to Carate, but any heavy vehicle could make it over them in the dry season.

Carate was a surprise. There's not much here -- just a gravel airstrip and one home that has a small pulperia attached. The pulperia was closed and there wasn't anyone at the house. I think there are laws in the U.S. that make it illegal to call someplace a "town" unless there are a certain number of buildings and residents. We waited for the tent camp guide to show up with the proverbial mule cart that will transport our gear. Just before he arrived, we ate the pineapple and had some cookies for lunch, then lounged in the shade near the black sand beach as the Pacific surf roared.

Carate's black sand beach, looking north toward the Corcovado National Park entrance at the La Leona Ranger Station.

Corcovado National Park
Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
9:00 p.m.

After walking along the black sand beach for about half an hour, admiring the incredible Pacific Ocean and having two colorful, red-winged macaws welcome us to the park with their loud cries, we arrived at the Corcovado Tent Camp around 2 p.m. Lana, the manager, had a cold pitcher of tamarind juice, a mushy brown sedimentary drink, ready for us, which we drank heartily even though we had no idea what it was. The lodge is composed of several dozen tents on wooden platforms that sit atop a 15 foot bluff above the rolling ocean. Soft bermuda grass blankets the ground, and hammocks are strategically placed wherever strolling guests might have a hankering for a nap or a relaxing swing.

Jeff observed earlier in the day that everything in Costa Rica moves. There's so much wildlife, particularly iguanae and other assorted small lizards. Right now, lying on the bed in my tent, I can hear the chirping of bugs that sounds like cicadas, the rolling surf of the ocean, the bellowing of frogs in the pond that separates the hammock house from the kitchen and dining room at the top of the hill, and the movements of a larger lizard through the undergrowth next to my tent. (Further investigation with a flashlight reveals the noise to be a six-inch-tall frog, three dark land crabs with bright orange claws and something that sounds like it is eating the leaves of a nearby plant.) The scenery is beautiful, but after the sun goes down the wildlife takes center stage.

Intemperate remark: It's 9:45 p.m. and I still have an awful caffeine headache. Remind me never to start drinking coffee again -- or if I do, never to stop drinking it again.

This sink was already occupied.

At dinner, the other guests and the tent camp staff were amazemed we had driven all the way here. Almost everything here -- the people, the food, the supplies -- gets flown in by airplane to the Carate airstrip. Miguel, the bartender at the hammock house, said most guests arrive by plane, which explains why it costs so much to purchase an integrated package trip with Costa Rica Expeditions, the company that owns the tent camp. Miguel gave us some helpful tips about which direction we should take on our return trip, along with some ideas about where to stop and what to see.

We're hiking about six hours tomorrow -- 16 kilometers, or 10 miles in all -- to the Sirena Ranger Station. It's going to be a tough trek, even more so than we imagine right now, especially since we don't have a guide and there are no maps that show explicitly where the trail runs . I'm a little bit worried about it, considering the amount of sun we'll get, but we've added a second day at the tent camp on the return trip. That way we have some rest and relaxation time (and showers) before heading back in the truck.

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Sirena Ranger Station
Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica
Tuesday, April 8, 1997
5:00 p.m.

Today we hiked. Starting from the tent camp, we walked to the La Leona ranger station near Rio Madrigal to get permits, then hoofed it about 10 miles along the beach and through the rainforest, eventually arriving here at the Sirena Ranger Station.

Today's main event occurred at 2 p.m., when we forded a river that was shoulder high and reportedly infested with sharks - tiburon pelligroso. It was very hot walking along the black sand beach, and the salt spray only cooled us a bit. It was hotter walking through the forest, where we had the added burden of sifting out the snakes and lizards and crabs from the leaves on the jungle floor. We walked slowly.

A Jesus Christ lizard suns itself on a rock.

Which brings us to the river. We stopped for lunch at about 1 p.m. and rested most of an hour. By the time we reached the Rio Claro it was already nearing high tide. The river was flooding with seawater, so we followed a path that led about 200 meters back into the forest, along the riverbank, as Lana's hand-drawn map instructed us. She had warned us earlier in the morning that we shouldn't cross the riverhead in high tide because there was a high risk of getting eaten by the sharks that swim where it is brackish to eat fish from the river. When we reached the location where we were to cross, it looked too deep. Then we heard a loud noise, a howling roar that sounded a lot like an crocodile to me. Two or three howls later we headed back down the trail toward the beach at the fastest pace we had moved all day.

With the ford protected by an angry, howling crocodile and the mouth of the river guarded by hungry sharks, we figured out only option was to build a raft. I gathered soft wood and Jeff found an old corroded barrel that he suggested might be filled with hazardous waste. As we began to fasten the raft together with rope, four more hikers heading to the Sirena station appeared. One was a Tico, one an Israeli who spoke Spanish and English, one was a girl from Oregon. The last guy never told us where he was from. Anyway, they were convinced that the shark infested route was too dangerous, and when we told them about our crocodile they said the noise was probably a howler monkey. That explained why I couldn't find the crocodile with Jeff's binoculars. The Tico went first, holding his pack above his head and feeling with his feet the best way across. Jeff forged ahead, Taylor and I followed. The water felt good, no fish bit us, and none of the packs got wet. Perhaps most importantly, the crocodile wasn't there to greet us on the other side.

The Tico's ability to understand and explain what was going on, and to tell us what to do, illustrated the importance to me of bringing a local guide along when you're backcountry hiking through countries where you don't speak the language, that have not been adequately mapped, and where the guidebook's annotations are frustratingly vague.

While on the trail today we saw lots more macaws, which continue to shriek loudly at each other all the time; some butterflies that were the size of sparrows and had orange coloring on the bottom of their winds and blue coloring on the top; monkeys, though we didn't get to see what kind because we didn't get the binoculars out in time; lots more salamanders, crabs and hermit crabs; some cats, which we didn't see with the binoculars but which were silent and swift; a large black turkey-like bird with a yellowing beak; pelicans and those small white birds that hang out with cattle; a small beige frog, which I thought Jeff had stepped on and squashed the amphibian jumped out of the trail after Taylor got in close for a picture; bananas on banana trees; large spiders which Jeff walked into with alarming frequency (despite the spiders' neon yellow coloring). Fortunately we didn't run into any peccaries, even though according to the rangers' log mostly Americans get to see them. Oh, we also saw ants that cut leaves and carry them across the forest floor to their anthills to make food.

After today's hike we're all feeling completely exhausted. Jeff half-joked that we should find out how much it would cost to fly out of Sirena. A plane landed on the airstrip just moments after we arrived.

The ranger station is more than I had expected. From the guide book description, the place sounded like a large lean-to in a small opening in the forest. This is a two-story lodge, with room for the workers who are building several new outbuildings. They're playing soccer on the airstrip in front of me now, and listening to local music which is much more in line with what I had expected than the American top 40 rock we heard on the drive down from San Jose. Dinner tonight at the station should be fun - then we hike again tomorrow at 5:30 a.m.

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Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica
Thursday, April 10, 1997
7:00 a.m.

Just to recap our sights and thoughts from the past 36 hours:

Dinner at the Sirena ranger station was delicious and somewhat surprising: pasta, rice and beans, and fresh salad with tomatoes and hearts of palm. The salad was a big hit with us. After dinner the bugs came out in force. Spray and long-sleeved shirts didn't protect us, so by 7 p.m. we were in our tents, madly killing the bugs that flew in with us. Jeff had put the rain fly on our tent to protect us from any sudden rainshower at night, but it was so sweltering in the tent that we had to take it off.

Two naturalists we met at dinner who were studying the tapir and peccary colonies near the ranger station said we'd get lucky if we saw the peccaries - they're being hunted and they're not likely to attack humans.

We were asleep Tuesday night by 8:30 p.m.

Wednesday morning we were awakened by macaws flying in pairs down the airstrip, doing a morning fly-by. The howler monkeys were also out in force. Their growling screams were more than enough to rouse us from our sleep. Breakfast was at 6:30 a.m. and consisted of the usual pineapple, watermelon and papaya, plus some excellent scrambled eggs with sliced ham. Morning at the station is a cacophony of noise, with all the local animals and birds shouting to each other to wake up.

We started hiking back at a much faster pace than the day before, and reached the Rio Claro by 8 a.m. What had been a gaping, wide river at its mouth was now a trickling stream between a lagoon and the ocean. We forded it in our Tevas and changed into boots and socks soon thereafter.

Along the trail we continued to see the wonders of the rainforest. One tree held a mother monkey and her child. The child gripped the mother on the back as she swung through the canopy. Another tree held a dozen macaws, talking to each other while chewing on the fruits they like so much high in the mangrove trees. When they drop the half-eaten fruit from the trees, the land crabs gather around and finish the meal. We saw another turkey-like bird, big and black, that moved through the forest as silently as a cat. And we saw several trees filled with monkeys - the alpha male of the pack screamed and hollered at us, spreading his limbs out as wide as possible and shaking the tree with so much force it was a wonder he didn't fall down. After watching his act for several minutes, Taylor noticed the monkey's mate and child swinging slowly to a safer position amongst a group of five or six other monkeys in the tree. I believe they were brown monkeys - Costa Rica's forests have four types - but I'm not certain.

We continued along the trail, seeing a lot of the same plant life as before: banana trees with their huge, single flower the size of a man's fist, bananas growing in rows along the flower's stem; red and yellow hibiscus flowers on huge overgrown bushes; beautiful butterflies with the most unusual markings. Lepidopterists, those who collect and organize butterflies, would have a field day here.

We arrived back at the Corcovado Tent Camp at 1 p.m., having accomplished the return hike in just under six hours. Lana was surprised to see us so early, and we were just as surprised to have made the trek so quickly. For the remainder of the afternoon, we showered, drank sodas and read books in the hammock house. Later in the afternoon I napped in one of the brightly-colored rope hammocks strung between coconut trees on the bluff next to the ocean. When I awoke, it was dark and time for dinner. Lana's staff had prepared an incredible meal: boiled cauliflower in a red pepper sauce, rice, broiled boneless chicken breasts with a light glaze, a carrot stew, and tomato soup, with watermelon for dessert.

After dinner Jeff, Taylor and I sat at the bar in the hammock house and planned the remainder of our vacation. As we examined the map over Pilsen beers, Lana and the other guides and tourists helped us out, suggesting good places to stop on the way back toward San Jose. We settled on a lazy route up the Pacific coast, over roads that have recently been upgraded. I'm not sure what that means, but it should be nicer than it was when our guidebook's author got his Range Rover stuck so deep in the mud that it took not a tow truck but an earthmoving machine to get him out.

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Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
Friday, April 11, 1997
9:00 p.m.
We're into the beach and costal portion of the trip now, having spent the past two days driving from Corcovado back to Puerto Jimenez and then back to the Pan American highway at Chacharita, where we turned left at the gas station and headed north on the ill-paved Pan American Highway toward Palmar Norte. When we crossed the bridge over the Rio Grande de Terraba, we started taking the new road that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built two years ago. The Moon Guide mentioned this strip of road as being one of the worst in Costa Rica. Of course, that was a different road, and it was during the rainy season.

Jeff stands in a rest stop along the unpaved highway from Palmar Norte to Dominical.

We're driving at one of the driest times of the year, on the cusp of the rainy season. The dirt and stone road is so choppy that Bustamente can't even handle more than 40 kilometers per hour, about 25 miles per hour, without bucking out of control. The extra-wide tires kick up a thick plume of dust. When we left the tailgate open we had a thick layer of dust and dirt in the car in minutes.

The new road is clearly designed and built by Americans. It's three or four times wider than the Costa Rican roads we've encountered, with plenty of shoulder space and turn-offs for panoramic views - should pavement ever be laid that would make those portions of the road usable. The road's width and its relative lack of traffic invite cars and trucks to steer toward the portion that has the fewest potholes and obstacles, without consideration for the fact that they are on a collision course with oncoming traffic. Jeff, who's been driving almost the entire trip, took a short while to figure this out and now uses these techniques to our advantage. He's a master of using the entire road to make the best of a bone-rattling trip, while at the same time maintaining an exit strategy should a semi truck come roaring our way.

I don't know what the old road was like, but the new one exacted a high price from the countryside. The road in many places was blasted out of rocks. The result is startling: great scars along the road, red with dirt and misplaced stones and gravel, with the edge of the rainforest lurking a hundred feet back from the roadbed. It seems too timid to approach for fear of getting beaten back again.

We heeded the advice of the Moon and Rough Guides in picking places to see and stay along the way, but turnoffs (and indeed entire towns) are so poorly marked that it was impossible to find what we were looking for. One good example: Uvita, a small town just off the main road that was recommended by Lana and by the naturalists at the Sirena ranger station.

We drove past Uvita the first time because the turnoff was unmarked. It was amusing to me that we could miss it, considering we were driving 25 miles per hour, and we had nothing else to do but look for the road. In fact, we went an additional 10 kilometers past Uvita just to be sure we hadn't missed it. Then we turned around -- and still had trouble finding the correct place to turn! When we drove down the only street in town, we arrived at a river that looked too deep to ford in the truck. So we turned around and explored the remainder of the town, which was on the opposite side of the highway. Same story - there wasn't much there. We headed for the next town up, Dominical, wondering why the guidebooks would be so juiced up about such a sleepy town. When we arrived in Dominical and discovered that we should have crossed the river to find Uvita, we were still so frustrated from the experience that we had no desire to turn back.

We also made a stop along the way to Dominical at Playa Tortuga, which the guide books say is one of the best beaches in the country. What we found was very different: a beach blanketed in driftwood and dead palm trees, and the end of a one-lane dirt road, surrounded by several half-completed resort-style hotels. It was a good lesson in how much trust to place in the guidebook, and was a good reminder that local conditions can change significantly between book editions.

The road improved considerably between Uvita and Dominical, with the exception of one incredibly large rock that must not have been worth the effort to move. Dominical is a surfer town that was quiet during our visit but clearly has the capacity for large and raucous crowds during the peak season. The beach is trimmed with palm trees, is nicely maintained, and features two pretty bars with patio-style seating. The main road into Dominical is lined with restaurants, all of which have liquor licenses. The town is geared toward the 20-something expatriate set, with none of the naturalist or save-the-rainforests intentions of the Corcovado region.

Cabinas Nayarit: Good Waves for Surfing

We selected a room at the Cabinas Nayarit, advertised along the road as having "Good Waves for Surfing." Two beds and air-conditioning cost us $20. After enjoying two healthy rounds of margaritas and watching the sun set over the ocean in one of those spectacular equatorial settings, we wandered into town for dinner. We ate at the San Clemente Bar and Grill, which serves American food and has televisions tuned to ESPN2. We had a long dinner and then went back to the cabinas. We made several telephone calls from a booth at the side of the road, where there was a line of three or four other people waiting to make calls. Telephones are oddities here. If you find one, it's difficult to get through to an AT&T operator, the telephone operator requests money despite the lack of a coin slot, and there's a consistent three-second delay that makes it difficult to carry on a conversation.

After showering this morning and repacking Bustamente, we had breakfast in the town bakery, where Taylor discovered unbelievable fruit shakes. Fresh fruit, water and ice are the only ingredients, and they taste fantastic. We left Dominical for Quepos, the next stop, at about 10 a.m.

Older palm trees tower above a plantation.

The drive to Quepos from Dominical is different from what we've seen so far. The road is narrower and modular steel bridges are more frequent. Vast palm plantations on either side of the road give a different feel to the landscape. Rows of African palm trees, with huge fronds and lovely ferns growing along their trunks, rise from what once was the forest floor. They're arranged in perfect rows, irrigated and cared for by residents of small company villages that are interspersed every 10 kilometers along the road. It's eerie because it feels like it might be 1900, when the towns were built and the trees first planted. We passed a processing plant where the trees' nuts are processed and pressed into oil, where hundreds of small trailers were lined up awaiting measuring and unloading. Because much of what we've seen so far of Costa Rica has been unspoiled and uncolonized, it was strange to see such commercialism.

Before the palm groves, much of the countryside was divided into small farms, many displaying signs proclaiming Se Vende, For Sale. So many Americans pass by with money that the signs are as often in English as in Spanish. The open land, with the occasional mangrove tree, looked much as I would imagine the African savannah does.

We arrived in Quepos and drove through the resort town to the smaller village of Manuel Antonio, which lies on the edge of a national park. We ate lunch in a restaurant on the beach, where the staff provided dismal service. Our experience was not enhanced by the Transportation Ministry's sudden decision to regrade the road while we ate. Afterward, we checked into the prettiest hotel on the beach, the Ver de Mar, scoring a room with two huge beds, a kitchenette and a bathroom, all of which were cheerily sponge-painted with a border of lizards running around the room. The front desk clerk, Carl, was browsing the Web from his desktop computer, and just for kicks I asked if we could browse Post.com for a minute. He logged us on, explaining that he was trying to convince the hotel's owner to let him build a Web site. I got a real kick out of reading The Post in this beachside corner of Costa Rica.

After unpacking, I beelined for the swimming pool, and we spent the afternoon being lazy near the pool, reading by the ocean, and walking along the beach. We scheduled a dolphin-watching boat trip, then had drinks by the ocean as the sun set and the tide rose over the sandy beach. Later, we drove into Quepos for dinner at Restaurant Isabel with the intention of having a typical Tico meal. Isabel's was one of the only establishments in town that was open, because the power was out and they had emergency lighting. After dinner we made our own walking tour of Quepos, which is a huge tourist destination both for Ticos and foreigners.

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There are nerds everywhere, even in the jungle.

Aboard American Airlines Flight 2151
Sunday, April 13, 1997
4:00 p.m.

After dinner Friday night, we drove over the two lush hills between Quepos and Manuel Antonio with the intention of going to a club on the beach and drinking for awhile. We did a quick drive-by at about 9 p.m, and the place was quiet and somewhat deserted. Costa Ricans eat late and start partying even later. We returned to the hotel and rested to kill time, but one by one each of us fell asleep for the night. The fan in the room whirred and kept us cool enough that I slept until the alarm clock rang to remind us that it was time to go on our boating expedition.

A gnarled Tico picked us up in an old blue Ford Econoline van, the kind of American car that was engineered to move large numbers of people from one place to another without regard to their comfort or safety. We drove toward Quepos, and stopped in the middle of the road at one point while the driver pointed out a tree sloth that was lazily wandering across the power lines high above us. We caused a small traffic jam while Taylor photographed the beast, then proceeded to Quepos. There are some stunning resorts atop the hills that separate the two towns. Most are not visible from the roads, so reservations are a must. In Quepos we stopped and paid for the boat trip -- $120 in cash -- and the driver took us to a Costa Rican Coast Guard pier, where he honked wildly for the boat and the captain to meet us.

The pier was built by the same American company that farmed and exported most of Costa Rica's palm oil. High enough above the water to accommodate large freighters, the pier was made of planks of wood laid across steel beams -- not very sturdy, by my eye. It also had no guardrails along the side. If we had dropped a roll of film or a pair of sunglasses, they would have fallen right into the Pacific. It reminded me of the old railroad bridges you see in Westerns that cross deep gorges.

The boat captain, Bill, was an American who has spent the last five or six years here pursuing the surf. He's the senior guide with the expedition group that runs boat charters. The craft was a 20 foot Zodiac that looked to me suspiciously like a dinghy with an enormous innertube wrapped around it. The boat was large enough for the four of us, but Bill said they regularly pack 10 people on board.

This bridge, like many others along the road from Dominical to Manuel Antonio, is made of old railroad tracks lined up next to each other.

First we pulled out of the harbor to wander over some swells that were roaring toward the shore. Bill said he surfs these swells and that dolphins sometimes come play with the surfers, but mostly in the afternoon. We didn't see any fish of any sort there, so Bill took us along the coastline and gave us a little geological background of the area. This area, from Quepos to Manuel Antonio, is one of the few areas on Costa Rica's western coastline that is craggy and filled with inlets. Most of the country's beaches, as we found when we were hiking, were fairly straight and had few rocky outcroppings. Manuel Antonio National Park has four beaches, numbered sequentially, and at the end of the park the muddy Naranjo river empties into the Pacific, leaving a mile-long blossoming trail of muddy-yellow water far off the coast. Near the southeastern boundary of the park sits a small island covered in dense brush, which Bill said the natives buried their dead long ago. The area is protected now and no one can visit it. It's miraculous that anyone could find their way onto the island, as its rocky face offered no place to moor a boat and no handholds for climbing to the top. The climb must have been especially difficult carrying a corpse.

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Above: a farmer transports harvested palm nuts to a factory. Below: the nuts are roasted and pressed for oil at this factory.

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The Manuel Antonio coastline is also interesting because of certain striations in the rock. I'm no geologist, but the way different layers of rock jutted out of the water was intriguing because of the violent forces that must have moved them there. Water does fascinating things to rock, such as creating holes where the surf spouts 50 feet heavenward when a wave comes in; carving arches big enough for people to walk through; and hollowing out small caves that natives ingeniously used to trap sea turtles. On our return trip, Bill showed us how native hunters had piled stones in a semi-circle around these caves. At high tide, the sea turtles can swim into the cave, but when the tide goes out the turtle is stuck in a walled trap. We saw a turtle while we were out at sea in our fruitless search for dolphins, but I forgot to ask Bill why the turtles don't get stuck in the traps anymore. Maybe they got smarter.

We didn't see much wildlife while we were offshore, other than booby birds that have such clean, smooth markings that an artists' hand must have been involved in creating them, and something called a frigate bird. The frigate bird has a forked tail and looks somewhat like a pterodactyl. A software programmer who we met at the tent camp told us he had seen a bird right out of Jurassic Park -- and proceeded to give us a clear description. I think it was probably the frigate bird.

Bill also told us a little bit of history about the area. United Fruit Company came into the country around the turn of the century and razed the rainforest to create great farms of palm, pineapple and banana trees. In the area around Quepos, the company planted mostly African palms, which are prized for their oil that is used to cook food, make cosmetics and lubricate machinery. The factories we saw along the road were palm oil processing plants, as we had suspected. Bill said United Brands pulled out of the country in the 1950s, and that the road on which we had been driving was a railroad bed for trains that carried the plantations' products to ports like Quepos or Puerto Jiminez or Golfito, across the bay from Jiminez.

There are two different sizes of palm trees, some short enough for a man to reach the palm nuts. The shorter trees are hybrids, designed to reduce the amount of labor needed to harvest palm nuts; to harvest the older trees, a worker had to climb the tree and cut the fruit free of the trunk. Costa Rica's palm oil industry is suffering right now, Bill said, because palm oil is one of the least healthy cooking oils on the market. Movie theaters that once used it to pop popcorn have ended that practice, and now it's hard to find anywhere in the U.S. Bill also said that Costa Ricans don't use it for cooking any more either.

On the way back to the pier, we stopped and had pineapple, cookies and juice at a small beach with perhaps half-a-dozen people on it. This beach wasn't part of the park, so we didn't have to pay the $10 fee to get in. The fee is high because so many people were visiting the country's national parks that they were becoming overrun with tourists, and many -- including Manuel Antonio, which is small and acutely sensitive to human presence -- were in complete disrepair. Ticos, Bill explained to us, only have to pay 300 colones, about a $1.20, to get in, which enables him to have a pleasant surfing experience on Third Beach every day. We didn't tour Manuel Antonio on Friday because of the cost and because it only has two or three miles of trails; the rest is wilderness.

This gaily painted church greets visitors entering Quepos.

After the tour, we returned to the hotel, packed up, and drove Bustamente to Quepos. Jeff bought a hand-painted t-shirt for Ellen, his fiancée, and we drove up the paved but pot-holed highway past more palm plantations to Jaco, where we stopped for a late lunch. Jaco is much more cosmopolitan than Quepos. The restaurants and the crowds along the main street were speaking a variety of languages, mostly English. Even the waiter at the restaurant, to whom Jeff spoke in Spanish, would only speak to us in English. Jaco stretches along the beach, and has two streets, one along the beach and another that has most of the town's restaurants. It was 3 by the time we ate lunch, and we still had at least two hours to drive before arriving in Alajuela, the town just outside San Jose where the airport is located.

Beyond Jaco, we passed the Reserva Biologica Carara, home to crocodiles and all sorts of other protected creatures. Lana had told us of a bridge just past the reserve where we might see crocodiles loafing on the shore and in the river. Sure enough, several cars were stopped along the side of the road and people were watching the crocodiles sun themselves on the shore and swim through the muddy water. It was the first time I had seen such a large lizard in the wild. They really are ugly.

The remainder of the drive to San Jose wasn't special. We joined other roads and the pavement widened to two lanes; there were more trucks and more traffic, and signs for our hotel, the Hampton Inn, were carefully placed at all the major turns. We drove through unexceptional hillside towns including Orotina, Concepcion and Turrucares as we worked our way over the mountains and through the valleys. Police patrols became more numerous. I think they were looking for drivers who passed slower cars on the two lane roads, swerving into oncoming traffic at high speeds without any visibility around the corners. Passing the slower vehicles seemed like a necessity, though, to get over the hills in a reasonable amount of time.

The drive into San Jose illustrated that suburbs anywhere are unpleasant and devoid of character. Even in Costa Rica, a beautiful country with abundant natural blessings, the capital city's suburbs are a poorly designed mess of large roads bordering on houses with some small piece of land and perhaps a gas station. Sidewalks are laid haphazardly, cars drive at the highest possible speed, and no one cares.

We found the Hampton Inn and cleaned out Bustamente. The truck was covered in dust but perfectly functional; the new squeaks in the suspension added character. The rental agent at the airport was pleased to have the truck back in working condition, and got herself quite dirty inspecting it for dents, broken lights and stolen equipment. We took the shuttle back to the hotel, cleaned up, changed some money and went into downtown San Jose.

Our taxi driver spoke perfect English and has a son who works here in Washington for a bank. As we talked, we approached a bus driving slowly in the right shoulder. The taxi driver veered to the far right of the bus and passed it, almost tossing us in the culvert. He was very graceful about it. During the entire passing maneuver, including blinking some special KC lights mounted on his engine grill, he talked to me about his son. Then he said something in Spanish about crazy drivers. I told him I thought he had adequately demonstrated his driving prowess, and that after driving through the country Jeff would have done the same thing in that situation. He was amused.

The driver gave us the 3000-colones tour of San Jose, pointing out the sights including the Grand Hotel, the Opera House across the street and some of the larger cathedrals. We asked him to drop us off in front of La Esmeralda, a restaurant and the headquarters of the local mariachi union. The mariachis were gathered in front of the restaurant, wearing their colorful suits cut tight around the waist, some with sombreros and all jovially greeting one another. We were dressed in shorts, polo shirts and sandals, having been in the rainforest or on the beach all week. The Ticos passing us on the street were wearing suits and eveningwear, and it was too late to head back to the hotel to change into something more appropriate. We were timid about eating in La Esmeralda, underdressed as we were, so we walked up the street toward Key Largo, a bar I read about in the guide book. Key Largo was empty, though, and didn't appear to be serving dinner, so we walked around the block toward the Grand Hotel. The restaurant there looked even fancier than La Esmeralda, and the only other options appeared to be McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's, all of which are located in a three-block radius along a walking street.

We swallowed our pride and marched right in to La Esmeralda, hoping we could get to a table before anyone would notice our inappropriate attire. As it happened, most of the other patrons were also tourists who had read about the place in one guidebook or another, and we were just barely the worst-dressed table in the house. For dinner we decided on typical Tico fare; Jeff and I sampled the Tico steak, which of course came with beans and rice, while Taylor ate something more substantial and probably more succulent. Two rounds of drinks made us feel better about our predicament. Within fifteen minutes of our arrival, an American couple named Eric and Sara who we met at the tent camp came in. It's funny how people look completely different in varied situations; I wouldn't have recognized either if cocky Eric hadn't greeted us with a loud "Hello, ladies" as we sat working on our Imperial beers.

Soon after we finished, we walked back to Key Largo, where Eric and Sara showed up about 15 minutes later. We sipped Imperials in the tropical mansion turned sports-bar, and watched as the local prostitutes flocked in and tried to pick up older American men. No one paid much attention to us. After chatting for an hour, the three of us headed back to La Esmeralda to retrieve the guidebook, which I had left on a chair.

The waiter at La Esmeralda claimed not to have seen the libra verde, which was about as descriptive as I could be in Spanish. I was crestfallen. The book was such a part of our trip that I didn't want to leave it behind. As we walked out of the restaurant, a large mariachi band started playing. We stayed as they tore through one song after another, and as other mariachis joined in from all corners of the establishment. As we stood in the avenue trying to hail a taxicab, a car full of women screeched to a halt in front of the restaurant. One shouted out the car's window, "I have your booooooooook!" Turns out they were sitting next to us at dinner, and after we left the waiter gave them the book. After a quick exchange of my property and lots of smiles over our coincidentally simultaneous return, we got back in a cab and headed to the Hampton Inn.

The following morning, Taylor, Jeff and I had a quick breakfast and then took the shuttle to the airport. I said goodbye to my fellow travelers, then boarded my plane for Miami. As we lifted off the tarmac toward the open sky, we had views of the mountains that surround San Jose straight across the country to the Carribean. We'd had quite an adventure.