Back to Costa Rica

In two days, I make my glorious return to Costa Rica. The summer that I visited occupies a special place in my heart. I had just finished spending two weeks in the California desert doing CAX. I was mainly dirty and hot during the entire two weeks, but the nights I spent under the cool desert sky left me with memories among the beautiful of skies that I have ever seen. I would awaken to the padding feet of coyotes as they ran by my cot at night. After spending long, hot days in the sun, the cool, dry air after sundown was one of the happiest times of the day. After leaving the desert, I spend a few days at home before embarking on the second part of the summer. Since my flight was delayed in getting into Houston, I had missed my flight to San Jose, and would be hanging out in H-town for about 10 hours or so until the next flight came. Luckily for me, I had some dear friends in Houston that had no trouble picking me up and entertaining me for the next few hours. I got into San Jose later that night, where wouldn’t you know it; but I ran into Chrissy Gilder in the airport…Small world indeed.

I was to spend half the summer with a group from the University of North Carolina for the duration of my stay in Costa Rica. I was staying with a family in the vicinity of San Pedro. My family proved to be extremely nice and my home-stay mother was very patient with me and we tended to have long discussions about my classes and the general state of things in the country while we listened to Led Zeppelin in the evenings. The group was fantastic and made up of very interesting people. We took morning trips almost every day and spent our afternoon hours in class. Andrew, Vinnie, and I found a local bar the first or second night we were there called Las Tuquitas, which roughly translated to “fire logs” if I am not mistaken. We started off almost every night there afterwards. It was a local dive at best, but after a couple weeks there, we were as accepted as regulars who had been patrons for years. I made many good friendships and acquaintances there, though I am sad to say that I have not maintained contact with anyone from the place.

Several of our weekend trips were fantastic as well. Our first major trip was to a resort called Tabacon, an area rich in hot springs nestled at the foot of the volcano Arenal. Arenal is noteworthy in that it is a very active volcano, and that most nights you can see lava flowing down the side of the mountain. One of my most memorable experiences in the country was sitting in the hot springs one night, having a drink while watching the lava floes and monkeys playing in the trees above me. It was a first time for a lot of things for me at that moment, and it will thus likely remain a fond memory until the day I die.

The next weekend was spent at the Marriott Los Suenos, a fantastic Pacific ocean hotel near the surfing town of Jaco. In the back, it had a maze of freshwater pools and canals that were interconnected throughout the whole complex. I drank entirely too much rum that weekend, and was a general mess. A side note to that was a great memory of the summer was in leaving the place. I began reading the Rama series by Arthur C. Clarke at the beginning of the summer, and now, six weeks in, I had finished the four book series; a total of about 2,500 pages of material crossing vast distances in time and location. It was a wonderful series and I would recommend it to anyone who has a love of any kind of science fiction. I remember closing the back cover of the final chapter and exhaling like I had been holding my breath. I felt complete and yet lonely. I had grown to truly love those characters and identify with the story; akin to the feeling when finishing the Harry Potter books, except with more closure…

The following weekend was an adventure. Andrew and I were determined to take a trip from the depths of insanity. After deciding against going to Cuba at the last minute, we rented a car and drove down the Pacific coast of the country, stopping at the beach towns along the way. We knew people in some towns, and met new people in others. It was a generally grand weekend with exceptions like having a gun pulled on us by a security guard, sleeping in the car one night, and having to navigate washed out roads and one lane bridges…What was great though was that it gave us a perfect opportunity to get outside some of the most traveled roads and see some other parts of the countryside. It was awe inspiring to drive up rain forested mountains via winding and motion sickness inducing roads; motoring past glamorous villas and coffee plantations sprawling across the hillsides.

In the end however, my fondest memories are of those with whom I shared these experiences with. From two gorgeous Tican strippers gyrating all over my (gay) friend Andrew, to running into Katie Manchester while waiting for drink in a small bar near the University; there were strange and great and confusing times nearly every day. I shall never forget those people and times during that great part of the summer. I have some magnificent stories and pictures from those weeks spent in Central America. Even so, I am excited to return to such an enchanting nation farther along in life.

Live triumphantly.