Cultural notes, part 2

Cathy (the V.P. of H.R. from upstate New York) and I had a casado today with coconut-flavored rice and something akin to adobo/lemon-grass chicken at the out-of-the-way soda behind the school. Cathy's homestay hostess, Mayala, recommended the place to us because apparently this plate is a specialty of the Limón region on the Atlantic coast, and the guy who cooks it only comes by on Saturdays. This soda is really out of the way, on the side of a dirt alleyway that serves a few houses, and is completely hidden from the beach and the main road. Like many businesses in Costa Rica, this one looks like it's built off the proprietor's house. Cathy and I were the only ones there, and I've never seen anyone eating there even when I've passed by at noon. My guess is the owner just makes a little play money whenver someone decides to drop in. There isn't even a printed menu, so they probably just serve one thing each day. The cook didn't even ask what kind of meat we wanted. The plate was 3,000 colones ($6.00), which is already a great price considering it includes tax and tip. Even so, the same plate would be about 2,000-2,500 colones ($4-5) in Heredia, which Cathy could hardly believe was actually possible.

If you're from the U.S. or Canada – especially anywhere west of New York City – it takes cajones to drive in Costa Rica. The Tico driver's-license test is written . . . only. And much like the wilder parts of Europe, people drive fast through the busiest city streets. As you travel away from the city centers, pavement starts to become more and more rare. Even if the road is paved, drivers usually have to drive in the middle or left side in long stretches to avoid potholes. The dirt roads are pocked with holes, erosion channels and the occasional boulder. Even though this should be SUV territory, even little compacts that were never meant to drive on hilly, rocky roads travel them anyway. Our taxi to Café Diriá on Friday was the local equivalent of a Toyota Corolla, and the driver told us he'd already taken his one-year old transport to the repair shop twice. I can't imagine how a truck driver with a full load of coffee beans gets his precious cargo to Diriá going uphill on a road with erosion channels big enough to hold small children. With trucks and buses traveling on all grades of pavement (and lack thereof), many drivers and cyclists pass with reckless abandon; I've seen two or three near misses with oncoming traffic during my travels (happily, not involving the car I was in). The constant TV news reports of auto accidents are another unending reminder that Costa Rica has one of the highest accident rates in the world.

Tonight Dailis had a few friends over to watch more horror movies; they had gotten through the first 45 minutes of Urban Legends when I left. Just like my mamá tica Norma, the neighborhood kids are irreverant but friendly, talking it up and making jokes just like her. Norma is quite a character; she can be a big, brash wisecracking firecracker of a grandmother; but underneath it all she has a warm heart. She always looks out for me and makes sure I'm comfortable, all the while joking that I spend a lot of time out of the house prowling for women. She joked of another student at another house a while back who once said: "I like my mamá tica but she has a boyfriend." She and most of the neighbors have a good set of lungs on them; it probably comes from spending a lot of time talking to each other across the strip of dirt that serves as a street.

I stopped by Cathy's just after dinner. As mentioned, she's staying in a small apartment complex with the owner, Mayala. The two of them are always hanging out on the front porch at night with the neighbors passing by left and right. I was so tired that I took a nap on the porch until about 10 o'clock, at which point we hit the road and did a little bar-hopping. Everywhere we went, the dress code was ultra-casual: T-shirts and shorts were the norm. We started at the Tutti Frutti discotech next to Intercultura which was playing house music. It was noisy and dark, and obviously there wasn't an age limit since we saw 15-year-olds hanging around. They had a popular local drink, cacique ("cah-SEE-kay"), that Mayala told us about. It's only purpose in life is to get you drunk for cheap at 1,000 colones ($2) a shot. Cathy bought a shot of the stuff and even between the two of us we couldn't finish it. It was rawest, most vile and unrefined liquid we'd ever tasted, something close to Everclear.

We left pretty quickly and sauntered over to Bar Olas playing reggaeton on the other side of the school. It had a nice, open-air layout, although just one chica was dancing. The last bar we went to, Sol y Mar, had traditional live music – cumbia, salsa, merengue. There were a lot of people of all ages dancing and having a good time. I tried to dance once but the style of salsa here is so different that I couldn't do much of anything with my Tica dance partner. We ran into two other students, Connie and Emily; and two of Cathy's neighbors, Jason and Victoria, who are an English ex-pat couple. Poor Emily couldn't sleep because her hotel room was right next to Sol y Mar's dance floor – and when I say "right next to," I mean there's barely enough space to put a welcome mat in between. About halfway through the night, I met Luis from Nicaragua who manages a residential construction job in Cangrejal, just to the northwest of Sámara. He was kind enough to buy me a beer and talk with me as I practiced my Spanish with him. He has two sons, 4 and 1, back in Nicaragua. The financial opportunities here are so great compared to Nicaragua that he is willing to be away from home four weeks at a time earning his keep in Tico country. For me, it turned out to be an interesting conversation that gave me further insights into the relationship between Costa Rica and its neighbors. I thanked him as Cathy and I left for the night.