At 7:00 the shuttle driver shows up. One look at the expression on his face when he saw all the bags indicated that things were not going to go as smoothly as I had hoped. He spent half an hour on the phone with the somebody in one of the office. I was informed that I had been told that I could bring one large suitcase. “Really and who told me that?” Well, apparently Mr Head office didn’t have the voucher in front of him so he backed down a bit and said that they had 4 other people to bring along with their luggage and that we would not all fit. I wished him well in explaining this to the other 4 people, but this was not my problem. I said, I could have shipped these bags yesterday for 2,500 Colones apiece if I had been told that I couldn’t bring them after asked, but that it was too late now. He called back 5 minutes later and asked if I would agree to an additional $40 fee for transporting all of my bags. I agreed and off we went. My driver, Oscar, didn’t speak a word of english. We never picked anybody else up, presumably they went in another van.
Oscar pointed out the various crops, “papaya, arroz, pina, canos de azugar”. I’d seen papaya. The rice fields didn’t look anything like the paddies I expected from VC films. Pineapples are pretty distinctive. Nobody had pointed out sugar cane to me before. We had a conection point in Siquirres where my bags were placed in a van that was the exact same size as the van I had been transported in. This van already had four passengers and their luggage.
The cast, a very attractive an friendly dutch couple. I think attractive, friendly are redundant with respect to Dutch, both in my encounters with them abroad and in the Netherlands. A very pleasant looking woman with strong asian influences but nothing strong enough that I would care to guess a country, probably half asian and half european, she currently resides in Oregon. The final character was, well one glance, an American hailing from San Francisco.
After breakfast it was time to board the bus, kind of an awkward moment. The asian girl had her stuff in the front seat next to the driver and retook her spot. The dutch returned to the rear seat and the American and I looked a each other awkwardly. All the boys have very wide shoulders. You don’t want to sit next to us in coach.
I got in first, there was no way she was going to be able to fasten her seat belt and sit in the seat next to me with out leaning at 30 degree angle, but the jump seat saved the day.
Turns out she volunteered to assist the Bribri indians in counting birds. Yes this week there were going to 118 thousand species of raptor on the reservation. I said “raptor as in hawks, eagles, buzzards…” She added “and kites.” I objected “There are only about 850 species of birds in Costa Rica.” She replied that these other were just migrating. “Let me ask again did you say 118,000 species of raptors?” She pulled out her iphone and clicked around for a while and said “oh, you’re right.”
How did she get this position? There was a posting in a biological journal. Oh are you studying biology? No, I just want to help. Ahh it all became clear to me now. Who covers your expenses? “While I cover my airfare and I give them $700 to cover food and lodging.” Now, I have been to the Indian reservation. She will be eating about $2/day worth of rice,beans and other local produce, living 4 to a cabin with no air conditioning. I’m sure they would have been just as happy if she sent the money and didn’t come to do any work.
Well apparently they have to leave 2 Indians around at all times. One walks around looking really Indian and the other runs the gift shop. I never saw any other Indians while I was at the place.
No matter what we were talking about the woman from Oregon wanted to make it about her. The Dutch had picture of some monkeys they had taken in Tortuguero, she wanted us to know she had been to Bali and they have monkeys there. She worked Palau into the conversion and everybody waited for her to finish her non sequitur. The volunteer asked about how I drove down here, I told her it was a lot better with a GPS and told here were you could get software for your Garmins with really accurate information. Oregon wanted us to know that when she was in Prague….
Everybody was dropped off, I was last, as I was further south than Puerto Viejo. The van driver looked at my driveway with a “what the f..k” look on
his face. As I didn’t want to shlep my bags up the hill I decided to goad him. “I was here two weeks ago, and I drove up that in a yaris. It’s kind of tricking driving. Man those things have really low ground clearance not like this van. But if you think it is too much for you, I understand.”
Well that did it. He was going to get the van up there. It took about 8 attempts. And no, there was no way in hell I would have attempted this in a Yaris.
I went past the gate, got the key from Saskia and Jerry came with me to help with the bags. Jerry is a skinny little tico, seventeen years of age, he can’t weigh more than 90 pounds. He grabbed two duffel bags at a time and walked up the hill and placed them near the front door. These bags weigh 40 to 50 pounds apiece, the hill is steep and has no steps. I fumbled with the key and by the time I got the door unlocked and the four duffels he had brought everything but the chair, which I managed.
Home! Finally.
Check out Mi Casa
Hell it was 1:00 in the afternoon. The day was just beginning. I’ll try to catch you up tomorrow.
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