More Costa Fun

Its a quiet Sunday morning in Costa Rica, im back in front of a Spanish keyboard that I can t fully operate, and by popular demand, (2 people) I thought I d try to revive mamacitas travel.

This is possible only because of my in house cyber guru (jake) who coaches me as I plod and stumble through the many unfathomable changes of the internet domain. Seems as if Google bought Blogger and I had no idea how to make entries in the new format. Someone (Jake) fixed me all up, and now all I have to do is type on this crazy keyboard and have something semi literate and interesting to say.

If I stop capitalizing mid way thru, bear with. The shift key is in a weird place and i have to stretch my pinkie in an unnatural way. oww. Forget about contraction marks or other puncuation tools like question marks. Where are the right side up ones¿

I arrived last Monday very uneventfully. I had a 5 hour layover in Dallas, and I spent most of it with my nose pressed up against the airport windows, daydreaming that within a 45 minute cab ride I could be getting some Grammylove. I was very, very tempted to try to pull it off, but knew better than to :

A) Leave security and try to return without missing my plane (i d already had my whole backpack dumped and pawed through endlessly, once)

B) Arrive on anyone{s doorstep unannounced and

C) Try to tear myself away from baby slobber, giant, neck compressing hugs and long, involved , funny school girl stories in less than a couple of days. It would have just made it worse.

So I sat and stared and did my best imitation of the mysterious , love sick traveler. ¡Que lastima!

The airport in Costa Rica was easy, just like any other, with duty free goods, liquor and fast foods. Immigration was a breeze, all luggage intact.

Before they would let you out of baggage claim though, you had to put your bags through a single port baggage scanner. Reverse scanning.That was a new one .

Fortunately, I had been quick like a bunny while most people were still at the baggage carousel, trying to gather up their massive amounts of luggage and figure out if they should use the money exchange counters. So I breezed through this step. I imagine that with one scanner, the line could back up.

When I got outside, it was the usual noisy crowd of cab drivers offering rides, hotel personnell holding up their signs , families hugging and back slapping and assorted fellows offering to let you use their cell phones to call your amigos. A smile and a "no gracias, esperando por mis amigos" usually is all it takes. Even if my Spanish isn{t 100 percent correcto.

I scanned the crowd looking for mis amigos but didn{t see anyone I recognized. But everyone is on Tico Time, so no worries.

After 15 minutes or so, I spotted Zaida crusing along the arrival lane, scanning the crowd. No matter how confident you are, that{s always a relief.

"¡Zaida!", I shouted over the noise, waving for her attention. What a great feeling to see her face light up in recognition while she pulled over to the curb. She got out of the car and we had our own session of delighted hugging and exclaiming, loaded up mi maleta and took off for our 20 minute drive to Heredia.

I have to admit, it{s a wonderful feeling to arrive in a country so foreign and far away, and be met by a friend.

We talked all the way to Heredia. Even though it was as I remembered it, there{s always that moment of when you make a cultural shift as you dive into another world.

The town looks like a tumbling crazy quilt of every imaginable style of construction, everything from the best tile and stucco to whatever piece of salvageable building material that can be scavenged. The houses are pressed side by side right up to the sidewalks, which are broken and cracked and made of tile or patched cement. In some places the sidewalks are wide and smooth, in others, they are tiny one person witdths of heaved up concrete, all in the same block.

The whole house, including the driveway, which is sometimes made of beautiful tile, sits behind a locked, iron gate. Behind those gates you can see beautiful homes with gardens and fountains, small, two room apartment style places, and everything in between.

The streets are full of people. Everyone walks, or rides the thundering, diesel belching busses or takes a cab for the equivalent of a dollar or two. The traffic flies by, with a rolling stop and the stop signs and no traffic lights to speak of. Crossing the street is a learned skill.

It{s a different world.

In no time, we arrived at Marias blue gate and rang the bell.

She came and opened it wide, holding out her arms and exclaiming over me in Spanish, hugging and laughing and hugging somemore. I don{t think she thought I would really come back. (Try conjugating that last sentence in Spanish. oww)

I had my old room, bone rattling traffic, rumbling tin roof and all, and when I laid down in bed that night (this time I had the earplugs from the get go), that bed felt as familiar to me as any place I{ve been in the last year.

An unexpected side effect of living on the lam.

Right now, I can hear the church bells ringing, calling all the faithful for their walk to la iglesia. Time for my walk to el Parque Central to watch all the Sunday families.

The children buy bubble mix from the sidewalk vendors, and the air is full of soap bubbles that drift across the park on the humid, ocean drenched wind, right before the afternoon rains.

Love, Karen

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