The man who was interested in me is telling a hilarious story.
“
So there I was, a 38 year old freshly divorced man with a cat named Cuddles who had just crapped for at least the tenth time on me and my Porsche convertible as I was driving her to the emergency vet at three a.m. She had snot. A lot of snot. So much snot that she couldn’t breathe. She could crap, but she couldn’t breathe. I was driving Cuddles to the emergency vet, in the rain, at three a.m., covered in cat shit, wondering if she was going to make it, and also wondering whether this car would ever smell right again. It doesn’t, by the way. And this is when I realized that it had been one of my better days in a while,” the fit man said.
He had packed much information into his story. His age, that he was divorced, that he wanted people to know he was wealthy, and that his life was miserable. He was about my age and he had checked me over two or three times. It must have been my outfit, or lack thereof. It is just so hot that I threw on the absolute minimum that covered everything that needed to be covered. And I threw on no bra or anything else. Even I know that men will look at breasts, no matter how tiny, if we women leave them out there to be seen.
Once again I surprised myself by not reacting the way I normally would. Perhaps Costa Rica might have a future for me after all if my ingrained habitual responses are unwilling or unable to assert themselves? I already feel like a different woman. A woman who will wear a loose gauzy top in the tropics and not care that men look at my microscopic forty year old breasts.
Joe
“
It is late, so I will drive you all to your bungalows,” the driver says. Like Salvaro, the driver seems to need to have a reason to drive us up the hill. It must be some Costa Rican thing. He grinds the gears and slowly, nearly painfully, works his way up the hill. He drives all the way to the top, to my bungalow.
“
We are here sir,” he says to me. “We leave for surfing at six,” he says.
Since Costa Rica is in the equivalent of the mountain time zone, this equates to eight for me and Shannon.
“
Gracias,” I say.
“
Gracias,” Shannon echoes.
I was sitting by the sliding door so that I could exit first. All the other campers decide to exit at the top and walk down.
“
Can I see the view from your porch?” Shannon asks.
The other campers acquiesce in her little deceit and leave us to walk the few steps to my bungalow. They wait for the driver to start the van down the hill, and then they follow behind.
“
Good night you two,” the pretty Asian woman says. “See you at six.”
Shannon
I am walking towards Joe’s bungalow in Costa Rica feeling like I have never felt, acting in a way I have never acted, wearing an outfit that I may only have worn while alone with my sister on the hottest July days in Ohio, and maybe not even then.
No-one knows me here except Joe, and while Joe knows me in July and January in Topsail, he does not know me here. I don’t know me here. They say that ‘no matter where you go, there you are,’ but having experienced just this one day here I no longer think that’s true.
We step up onto Joe’s porch and he steps towards the colorful hammock hanging there.
“
There’s room for two,” he says.
I pull a comfortable looking chair from the other side of the porch and place it near the hammock. I take his hand in mine and sink into the chair. The warm humid air is so thick, even thicker than the most humid August day in Ohio, or the hottest day near the Atlantic. I think this air must never be dry. The jungle and its giant plants tells me that I am right.
“
How have you been?” Joe asks.
“
Just like I wrote in my letters. Working, writing, visiting with my sister, visiting with my family. You?”
“
Just like I wrote,” he answers. “Working, thinking about you, planning this trip, thinking about you, helping out with the Foundation.”
“
I don’t know if I ever told you how much I respect the work you are doing for the Foundation,” I say.
“
Thank you,” Joe answers.
“
And thank you for what you are doing for my sister’s research.”
“
We should all be thanking her. She’d make ten times what she makes if she was in industry. But she stays in her lab and works and works so the kids might have a chance someday.”
“
Yes she is dedicated,” I say.
“
And I know for every dollar the Foundation gives to her lab you give a hundred,” Joe says.
“
I have been very lucky with the gas and oil,” I say.
“
We’re both very lucky people,” Joe says. “But with the gas and oil you made your own luck. You found it, no-one believed you, you invested in the mineral rights, and then helped develop the technique for extraction. So yes you’re lucky, but you did make your own luck...”
I think about what he just said. What man would describe himself as being ‘lucky’ after having his only child die from childhood leukemia and after having his wife commit suicide? What man would describe himself as lucky when he only gets to see his lover for a few weeks a year? No man who had been through that would call himself lucky. But Joe had just called himself lucky. Perhaps time does heal all.
We sit quietly and before I know it the two flights, the drive, the dinner, the warm humid air and the rain forest all combine to make it nearly impossible for me to leave the chair.
“
Maybe you should sleep here tonight?” Joe says.
“
Maybe I should sleep in this chair?” I answer.
“
I think you should go inside, and close the screen. I can walk down to your bungalow if you give me the key,” Joe says.
“
Thank you,” I answer.
Gently he lifts me from the chair, places me on his turned down bed, turns off the lights and closes the screen behind me. I hear his footsteps as he picks his way down the crushed stone path. Somewhere in the rain forest a bird calls once, then calls again. Perhaps he calls a third time, but I am asleep.
I dream. A vivid erotic dream that starts with Joe then blends in the driver and the divorced man from dinner. Although asleep my subconscious is aware that I have never had this type of dream. But that same subconscious reminds me that it is just a dream and that I am in Costa Rica and everything is all right.
Playa Jaco
It is six a.m. and the surfers are all in the van ready to go to Playa Jaco. Salvaro has loaded the truck with surfboards that he has selected for the campers. The truck is also loaded with helpers who will man the truck, man the whitewater, and generally help out with the group of five. The truck has been loaded with gallon after gallon of rinse water and with a cooler that is filled to overflowing with fresh watermelon and mangoes that have been plucked from the grounds. No trip is needed to any market for fresh tropical fruits, the market is all around on the grounds.
Salvaro drives the lead van towards Playa Jaco and the helpers pile into the truck and follow behind. They drive the dirt road towards Jaco where all the open air everythings are closed, only the early morning low tide surfers are about. The rest of Jaco sleeps. The experienced surfers will surf Hermosa on the afternoon low tide. The beginners come out early, when hopefully the swells will be smaller, more learnable, and less crowded.
They leave the road from the rain forest and enter town. Concertina wire, window bars, and roll down metal store fronts create a stark contrast to the welcome open air town of last night, and an even bigger contrast to the rain forest from which they have emerged. They pass KFC, Taco Bell, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and Subway, all clustered where the coastal road enters the town. After the generic gringo fast food, which no Costa Rican from Jaco has yet to visit, they pass by the bars that are advertising live NBA basketball games, live NHL hockey games, and live English Premiere League games. They are in the part of Jaco where only tourists, their Costa Rican minders, and the locals who work ever visit. But there is only this one road to the beach, and so they will pass these landmarks every day.
Then they are at the beach. Those who have never seen Playa Jaco before instantly notice that the sand is black. Salvaro explains that the ocean here is always warm, and that there are only waves when the tide is changing, the rest of the time it is calm, or just gently swelling. Joe and Shannon instantly notice that the waves are spaced much farther apart than at Topsail. That the waves are more regular, and that they break from right to left for thirty or forty seconds. They instantly recognize why people travel from around the world to surf here. And Playa Jaco is where the small surf is located. Just two miles south as the crow flies, twelve miles by the coast road, around a five hundred foot cliff and headland, is Hermosa, home of the big waves, where the expert surfers will go in the afternoon. Where Salvaro and his son Tino will practice in the afternoons. Where the campers will go with cameras and return filled with awe.
Large odd shaped driftwood litters the beach, as do mangos, palm fronds, and two leftover drunks or druggies. The scent of rotting fruit and rotten drunks battles with the fresh ocean breeze.
“
The dog catchers will be here soon to collect them,” Salvaro says. He is referring to the local police who will not tolerate drunks or druggies sleeping on the beach during daylight and who collect them in an old F150 pickup truck that has a cage bolted into the bed, a cage that would be suitable for a tiger, or for a passel of drunks. Because of the truck the locals refer to the morning roundup police as the ‘dog catchers’. The beach is part of the essence of Playa Jaco, and an essential part of its tourism based economy. The drunks and druggies are not welcome where and when the tourista may see them.
Salvaro parks at the edge of the dark sand but does not exit the van. He is watching the break all along the beach, reading and feeling the ocean, deciding where he will lead the campers now that it is 6:30 and the sun has popped up. The campers wait expectantly. Those who have been with Salvaro before know that he may stay here, or that he may drive to another spot on the miles long beach where he feels that the sandbars and swells have combined to make the best wave.
“
What are you looking at?” a camper asks.
“
The ocean,” Salvaro answers.
The camper feels rebuked, feels like Salvaro has disrespected his question. Is ready to smart off, but then hears Salvaro preparing to finish his answer.
“
I am looking for the shape of the wave. Whether it is curling over or just rising up and mushing over. I am looking for where there is a rip current that might help us paddle out. I am looking for what the blender looks like between the waves. And I am looking for where the break is best to catch the wave. Do you see?” Salvaro asks. He has pointed to several places on the ocean while he speaks. The camper no longer feels rebuked. Makes a mental note to wait longer for answers, to accept the pace of these Costa Ricans, and of the surfers.
The Costa Ricans seem aloof, yet polite and approachable. Salvaro may be more of both, perhaps because he has been a celebrity for so long and now works with different groups of strangers every day.
Salvaro picks his spot and the helpers pile out of the truck. They lift the surfboards from the truck, place them in the sand, and perfect the wax. Salvaro draws an outline of a surfboard in the sand. He makes each of us rehearse how we will pop up, how we will stay low, how we will look for the shore, not down at the board. He has taught this lesson a thousand times to a thousand nameless faceless gringos who have come to his realm to try to glimpse what he has mastered. His patience seems nearly infinite, maybe shaped by all his hours and decades on the Pacific.
The campers start to paddle out. The stronger swimmers and stronger paddlers make it out through the small surf. The weakest paddler is pushed through the breakers by two young men who push his board. One helper goes outside the break with Salvaro, one stays in the blender, positioned to help any surfer that the ocean may decide to hold down. But the surf is small and regular this morning, the blender is at its lowest setting. There should be no danger today. All the surfers are on the outside, none have chosen to stay in the whitewater. Some campers will decide later in the week to stay in the whitewater when the surf is higher and the blender is on a higher setting.
Salvaro and the young men move so nimbly, so effortlessly, over, under, and through the waves, as though it is all second nature and walking or running is the alien thing, not being on a small board in the warm waters of the Pacific. The campers move less nimbly, burdened by long boards, and even one stand up paddle board that has been pressed into service for a particularly burly gringo grande.
Salvaro takes turns selecting waves and accelerating the surf boards for each of the surfers. Joe and Shannon each catch waves and work hard to remember their lesson from the Atlantic. It is much different here in the Pacific. The waves are individual things that steady the surfboards and provide long rides on exquisite geometric shapes. The two hours pass quickly and before they know it the campers are on shore getting rinsed by the helpers who pour gallons of fresh water over their heads and shoulders. Another helper slices the watermelon and mango and hands them to the campers along with glasses of fresh water. For those who are on their first day it is a morning and a feeling that they may never forget, and that they will certainly recall at some later time when they see a slice of watermelon or a chunk of mango. After two hours in the antiseptic salt water, the flavors of the watermelon and mango are intensified. Rivers of watermelon juice run down the smiling faces of the tired surfers and then are rinsed away.