Costa Rica, 05-01-2007
Cafe con leche. It sounds better than just coffee with milk, and tastes better too, although I suspect that’s just because I’m sitting under a tree at a Soda in Mal Pais, watching the surf crash against the rocks that Piedra Mar Soda is named for.
Piedra Mar View #1
Piedra Mar View #2
Breakfast Company
Unfortunately, Nae and I have realized we’d only changed $20 each into colones at the airport, and ended up quite a ways from the nearest bank. With only a few thousand colones left – a few dollars – a local Americano at the next table informed us the closest ATM was in Cobano, a town we passed 11 km back on the way to Mal Pais. He noted, helpfully so, that it’s wise to get there early, as sometimes they run out of money.
With this info in hand, we asked the ever-present Franz about the best way to Cobano. Taxi, or he could rent us a quad for $50 per 24-hour period. It seemed a bit steep, but we needed colones, and it was also an opportunity to see the countryside.
I require a 60-second primer on the ATV’s operation, as I haven’t ridden a quad in over 20 years – not since hanging out with my friend J.R. in Prescott. For some reason, when asked how long it’d been, I said 15 years, and I’m not sure why. Not like it’d make a difference.
'Nae in Playa Hermosa
A few minutes on the road was enough to get acclimated, and I also understood why some of the regular visitors brought along their snow-boarding goggles: the roads are dusty as hell, particularly when you get stuck behind one of the many mini-SUVs or tractor-trailers for a hundred meters.
We’re in Cobano a half hour later. Before killing the motor, I turn back to Nae, who’s been riding shotgun, if that makes sense.
“I’m glad we didn’t rent the bikes for this.”
For, if I was alone, I would’ve ignored advice and taken a bicycle on the hilly seven mile journey, surely chewing up a whole day getting her and back. As it was, I was dusty and sweaty enough without exerting myself. But I still would have done it, if not to test my fortitude, then just for the story.
Card in, money out, and we’re in the super-mercado buying granola, milk, water, watermelon, and cerveza. Seemed like a balanced take at the time.
We’re lost. I’m having so much fun tearing about on the quad, I miss the turnoff for Mal Pais. We backtrack and try a different road. No luck. Fortunately, there’s a small farm house with the matron outside sweeping. I don’t know how large the gas tank is on this thing, if it has a gas gauge, or how far we’ve gone. If I had pride to swallow, I would’ve, but as it stood, I was just trying to remember how to be polite in Spanish.
“Disculpe, donde esta Mal Pais, por favor?”
I was taken aback that I was actually able to pick out “four kilometers” and “turn right.” I also hoped that the part I didn’t understand didn’t consist of the phrase, “what ever you do, don’t ….”
Relaxation
We’re only a few minutes down the down road when we pass a local rural cemetery. I was positively beautiful in it’s simplicity and it’s presence within a large open pasture. My mind is on finding the turn-off – which ends up being extra-ordinarily apparent – and how guess as to how much gas we may have left. I don’t think about stopping and taking a photo, despite having my rig with me, and I believe it may be one of the greatest photos I’ve never taken.
Franz has described how to get to Playa Hermosa, just a few kilometers up the road from Mal Pais. The directions are characteristically quaint: through Santa Teresa, past the bridge under construction, around the school, and it’s on your left. It’s bright on clear, despite the weather report we read before we departed LAX, so we hop back on the quad and make good time. Guessing as to our location, we strike off on a short path that lands our quad smack in the middle of a beautiful deserted beach.
We back the quad into the shade of a tree, as much to cool the seat as to prevent spoiling the beauty of this postcard moment. The sky is a deep blue with textured clouds deep shooting up from horizon, the sand unmolested, waves rolling over small rock outcroppings in the surf, and not a soul to be seen.
Playa Hermosa #1
Playa Hermosa #2
Bonus points for Franz.
Sated with sun and warm water (and a truckload of photos on my photos on my part), we roll back toward Santa Teresa. By now we’ve realized we hadn’t had a substantial meal today and stop in town to get some grub, postcards for those expecting them, and some new shades for myself as I’ve recently donated mine to the sea.
Mal Pais to Playa Carmen
The place we’re looking for either isn’t open or isn’t serving food, and our hunger gets the better us. We know when we plop down in the distinctly European-styled cafe at the crossroads of town – which was under rapid re-development, looking much newer and “nicer” – we’d feel out of place. And we did. More than anywhere thus for, despite that proliferation of Ingles, panini’s with greek salads, internet access and track lighting. The meals were decent, but twice the cost of a local soda without any of the charm.
I just awake from a nap on the hammock, and Franz suggests going up the hill to a resort that has a pool with swim-up service and a great view. He’s right again, and we spend the evening swimming in a warm negative-horizon pool a couple hundred meter over the shore, watching the sun set over the kilometers of coastline stretching beneath us.
We get to talking with a few locals there, all ex-pats. The resort is run by Roger, looking the part of a tried and true Jimmy Buffet disciple. He’d left the US permanently back in 1980, and landed Costa Rica not too long thereafter. He and the other ex-pats all live here via the standard 90-day stints of in-country punctuated by 3-day trip to Panama, Nicaragua, or back to the US to visit family. Most work in tourism, running cabins or restaurants.
Sunset over Mal Pais
Both Nae and I take a shine to Joe and spend most of the evening talking with him. Joe tried his hand with a blind bluff selling condos in Panama, and found out he had a knack for it. He sold over 5 in his first weekend, and 70 within the first few months. Concluding he was on somewhat of a hot streak, he also decided to buy a strip club – price including all inventory – in Panama.
On the first night, he discovered the inventory consisted of precisely nothing, and had to run down to the local supermarket to by 200 beers.
And then all of his Columbian “dancers” were arrested.
But he took it all in stride, summing it up with the eternal wisdom that only comes with the sobriety of distance, “Just because you know a lot about this side of the bar, doesn’t mean you know anything about the other. Especially when it entails illegal Columbian strippers.”
Vista de Olas Pool
We’re walking back to the quad, perched at the top of the steep and rocky road that lead to the resort. It’d dead-dark out now, with very little moonlight and no ambient streetlight to speak of. Hell, there wasn’t even a street, much less a dirt road. Mostly rocks, really. Nae asks an interesting question.
“Do you know how to turn on the headlights?”
“No, but there’s only so many buttons, one of them has got to do it.”
I do find the switch for the lamps, but I also drive halfway down the hill with my left-turn blinker on.
Back at the Piedra Mar Soda, between bites of casado con pescado, Nae and I notice that the ground is teeming with the subtle movement of what appeared to by june bugs or beetles. Leaning over, I pick one up, discovering it’s a hermit crab. All of them are hermit crabs. And they’re all scurrying about frantically, unconcerned with retracting back into their shells when they feel movement or are disturbed. Do they know a storm’s brewing?
Last Sliver