Manuel Antonio to Montezuma- Costa Rica

After the Swiss Miss sisters took there leave of us in Dominical, the Berkeley bunch and I moved camp up north to the resort town of Manuel Antonio, a small plot of restaurants and hotels fronting a picturesque beach and the entrance to a national park by the same name. We got settled in, the Berkeley bunch again opting for a nice hotel on a wind blown bluff overlooking the ocean while I sweated it out in the hot, thick air of a hostel back off the main drag on the fridge of the jungle. After that, we got right to, as Leif so rightly calls it, 'work.'

'Work,' for us consisted of an early day time activity, for instance, a walk through the national park to commune with the white-face monkeys and sloths that lounge and forage through the trees, followed by a lunch --which always ended up being at the same place with the same tired waiter-- and then a good half day on the beach. This was considered the real work, "putting in time at the beach," an it was actually. You had to make sure to get equal distribution of ultraviolet light on all sides and get as much as your skin would allow without burning. This required lots of 30 SPF sunblock -- 40 for the face-- and cool off breaks under an umbrella or in the ocean. I'm not kidding when I say, it this is hard work.

A few day short of a full work week, the Berkeley Bunch had to get back to San Jose and take a plane back to the States and I moved on in search of sunny beaches on the Nicoya Peninsula. It wasn't that many kms away, but the journey would involve a least three buses, a cab, and a slow ferry to get there and, not being pressed for time, I decided to break up the trip and made a stopover in Jaco, midway up the Pacific coast.

Little more than a one road town with an uninspiring beach filled with drug pushers and prostitutes, Jaco is definitely lacking in the charm department. But, being the most access able beach town from San Jose (only 2 hrs away) it is a popular pace and the road is actually a four lane highway flanked by high rise hotels and teeming with old, fat American men on there yearly 'fishing' trip. The fishing, usually consisted of them going to the bar, picking out a working girl, drinking as much as possible and then heading off to there hotels. Occasionally they'll actually go out on a boat, so they have some pictures to show there wives when they get back home. I had the dubious honor of staying in a hostel just next to one such bar and had to pass by it every time I came and went.

On one such occasion, returning to my room after dinner, I turned the corner by the bar and almost stepped on a prostitute who was crouched down in the middle of the street with her (possibly his) mini-skirt rolled up around her/his waist as it urinating. startled, I stutter stepped by him/her barley missing the rather large stream that was flowing toward the gutter and too my amazement, she/he didn't even stop, move, or look away, it just stared back at me as if I had tripped over it's shoe while it was reading the Sunday times on a park bench. Classy place, this Jaco.

The next day, feeling compelled for some reason to move on, I walked over to the bus stop to await the next transport out of town. When I got there, I was welcomed by a young Tico boy who was also waiting for the bus. We chatted in my broken Spanish and I learned that he was a student who had a part time job at a pharmacy in the next town. He was nice, friendly and helpful, telling me where to go and what to see up the coast. We small talked 2 or 3 minutes, all the time needed to exhaust my Spanish vocabulary and then the conversation trailed off.

A few minutes later another kid on a bike pulled up and my young friend ran over to greet him. They started into an excited conversation, one that was moving too quickly for me to follow, and then the kid reached into his pants and pulled out a small but bulky hand gun. Needless to say, this sent a shiver up my spine as I was completely caught off guard. He handed it over to the guy on the bike who inspected it like it was his occupation and then, with a nod of approval, handed it back. Then, with a air of question in his voice he told him something. The kid looked around, first at me (causing me to break out in a cold sweat) and then around for anyone else that might be in the immediate facinity. Before I could begin to think what he was doing to raised the gun, cocked it and, with a ear piecing crack, fired into the bushes behind the bus stop. The shot echoed down the street and I turned around to see what the reaction of the people nearby would be. There was none. No one even broke stride, lifted a eyebrow, or cocked there head. Business as usual in Jaco I guess.

His friend took off and he sat back down, putting his gun back in his belt and shooting me a placating grin. When I asked him why a young student with a job was carrying a gun he again looked at me with a grin. "Es nesesario aqui, amgio, es nesesario," (it's necessary here, my friend, it's necessary). The bus pulled up a few minutes later and I was happy to to say good by to Jaco.