So, after that 6:30pm entry on Monday 9-5, we made the following stops before finally hitting the road:
1, we went to a lumber yard to get $ for Jose and a large, strange man got in the car with us and to an ATM, from which he paid Jose and left
2, Dona Francisca{s so Cesar could bring something to Karolina and say goodbye to Santi
3, picked Marcos up at his house
4, An ATM for Cesar to get cash
5, someplace for Marcos to get something
6, Cesar{s friend to get the surfboard straps, but he wasn{t home so the surfboard stayed in the car with us,
7, MaxiBodega for beer and charcoal.
We hit the road at 7.20pm and drive through the green tunnel of forest leading northeast from Nicoya, over the Puente de Amistad and over to the Costanera Sud, onto which we turned south toward Pavones.
It{s like driving through the forest with a tribe of fairies - masculine fairies, like the ones in Middle Earth. Marcos looks especially like a fairy, with his long, skinny limbs and pointy ears and chin.
Nothing has prepared me for the experience of listening to Ticos talk to each other. It{s so fast, emphatic and casual, it sounds little like the Spanish I learned in school in Oaxaca. I revel in it, swim in it, as it fills the air in the car like smoke.
Cesar has his neck wrapped in a towel because he says he{s coming down with the flu, just like me and Karo. Jose starts sneezing an hour or two into the drive. Cesar jokes that the trip is going to be a health fiasco, and they all laugh. I translate slowly in my head and laugh a minute later.
The soundtrack is playing on Cesar{s ipod - Roots music of great energy and clarity, with positive upbeat messages about the future, and political content for the work class. I like a guy called Rastamanuel. Later the playlist shifts to rap, including a Cuban band I really like called Orishas.
The pace and scale changes drastically when we hit the Costanera, a 20th century transportation artery: a well-maintained road designed to carry people where they want to go without requiring them to interact with the people whose land they pass through - so stunningly different from what I have been seeing and loving about Costa Rica.
We drive straight through to Jaco, where we stop at 10.30 for a quick, cheap dinner at a soda, and Marcos lovingly reads the whole menu aloud. I tease in Spanish that Marcos is always talking about food and they laugh and take up the theme. I recognize the word for vulture and then I{m completely lost.
Later, though it{s not raining and I don{t hear thunder, every 10 minutes or so the entire sky lights up with sheet lightning. The boys seem not to notice. Jose later tells me there{s a lot of lightning in September and October. The word for lightning is relampagos, pronounced ray-LAMP-agoss!, which is clearly onomatopeic.
The recommended hostel in Quepos was full, as was the hostel they recommended, so we ended up at the 3rd hostel, with an itty bitty room with 2 bunkbeds and separate bath for $10 a person.
I couldn{t sleep and wandered around in my nightgown on the terraces outside, and then someone closed our bedroom door and I was locked out for the night. I spent the night on a couch outside, cuddling with the hostel puppy.
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