Having been to airports in Belize, San Salvador, and Managua, i was expecting a tussled passage way of unorganized lines and shouting. On the contrary, the newly renovated airport was quiet and clean on the inside. Of course, one you left the baggage claim it turned into a hodgepodge of people extraordinarily eager to meet whoever was coming out. Those situations always make me laugh. Like why do people have to push their way to the front of the glass, rub their hands and faces on it, shout, and hold signs so fervently. It's a small airport, and it's hard to miss anyone leaving. And it wasn't just eager family and children -- it was taxi drivers, chauffeurs, travel guides, everyone. Maybe the funniest part about it was the
poor lady hired to window wash. After every incoming flight, there'd be a wave of people walking from the baggage claim, and a wave of people smearing up the windows with their overzealous finger-pointing. When they cleared, she'd wipe down the smudgy hand prints and face-grease, only to find another flight had just landed.
I watched this cat and mouse game for a little while until I got bored and decided to strap on my backpack and go for a walk. I left the airport on foot (bad idea), found a little gas station, bought a couple of Fantas, found a little table, and watched a soap opera on the TV. Not surprisingly, the soap operas are just like the Mexican and American ones. This woman was sad because she'd suspected her husband was cheating, so she was being driven around town with her chauffeur. Then, stopped a light, she spotted her husband in full business attire carelessly roller-skating down the street with ice cream, holding hands with a sexy little tart in a pink mini-skirt. Then she lost it. Emotional catastrophe. I think i've cracked the code to soap operas. Simply find a creative way to set in motion a perpetual series of severe emotional breakdowns, and then try to inter-relate them. People love a good emotional breakdown.
So by now Chris and Natalie's plane was 2 hours late, and delayed another hour, so i returned to the airport, found a patch of grass under a palm tree, and took a snooze with my pack for a bit. As if ready to establish a tone for the entire trip, after i was dreaming of sugar plums, a tropical rain came out of nowhere. By the time I woke up, i was already getting wet. These surprise monsoon-manifestations would elicit bliss at some times, and anguish at others. But they were above all else, undeniably frequent. My PVC rain suit earned back it's $15 price tag.
After scampering back to the terminal, i was glad to find they would land in about a half-hour. Getting into the window-smearing festive mood, i decided to try to find a paper, write a sign for Chris, and push my way to the front. I even had it planned out. It was going to say "Señor Cohete de Atlanta". (it's a play on words, since Cohete means Rocket in Spanish). But Alas, the taxi driver I asked said he'd made his sign at the taxi station, and had no more paper. Plus, by that time they'd already landed.
When Chris and Nat did make it, i saw him quickly scanning the welcome window, and I think he expected to see me with a hand-made sign, grinning. Sometimes i think we think too much alike. Anyway, we met up, had Natalie-Chris-Daniel hugs time, snapped a quick photo, and caught a bus into San Jose proper to find a place to stay. Because of the delay, there were no more buses leaving for Los Chiles. According to Lonely Planet, there was an affordable backpacker Hostel near downtown, and we made it in, caught a cab, and got a tiny 2-bed room for the three of us. Cramped, impersonal lodging was the name of the game for most of the trip. But hey, Chris and Natalie had other opportunities and another 10 days after I left for sexy time right??. haha. Because Natalie had studied abroad in San Jose, she was our local expert, and we decided to go to a little area called San Pedro Montes de Oca, where the University of San Jose was located, and the hipster Tico urbanite college kids hung out. Oh ya, and Tico is the unofficial (but not slander) term for Costa Ricans.
The college area happened to be ablaze with youth -- In about half an hour, the International match between Costa Rica and Canada was going to begin. We were lucky enough to find a table at a street side cafe, after walking past a few obviously popular hang-outs, with college kids packed in and spilling out from the bars into the street smoking, drinking, socializing, blaring music. I took a couple small video clips, and then we sat down for a nice cold Imperial (the national Tico beer which is, interestingly enough, in a glass of ice). As I'm sure most of you know, soccer is the game in the rest of the world, and Costa Rica is no exception. I found myself pretty into the game, and remembering my old soccer days. I think at least once i caught myself shouting out "Fuera de Lugar!" (off sides). It's funny how you accidentally imitate and act out deep-seeded memories of your parents in your own adult life. It was a great way to end the first evening as we downed some beer-on-ice, munched on fried plantains, care asada, gallo pinto, and watched the Tico sports fanatics's oooos and ahhhs.
Sure enough, as we wanted to leave, rain attack number 2 came at us. Sharing an umbrella, we caught a bus back to downtown, and walked back to the Hostel. Back at the "Tranquilo Backpacker Hostel", people (all turists) were lazily sprawled in hammocks in the common room. Natalie, the most tired of all, crashed early and Chris and I bought a couple of Caguamas (kind of like a 40 oz.) for our beer-drinking catching up. There were a lot of people in the hostel's common room. Some girl from Colorado, her boyfriend from Utah, a bunch of Europeans. Many were reading, and some were writing in journals. I went to sleep excited about starting the trip to Nicaragua -- A starkly different country with a more raw feel, violent history, and the 2nd poorest economy in this hemisphere (a distant second to Haiti). Equally, I was excited to see my parents. It's an amazing phenomenon -- In Nicaragua, my dad changes from an over-weight Ph.D. environmental consultant with sleep apnea into a horse riding, cowpoking, guitar-playing jungle boy.
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