Nicoya, Costa Rica -- night

Before I go over today's events, I will finish the events of 'anteayer.'

So, after leaving the restaurant at Playa Coyote, I continued walking north along the seashore for only about 100 meters before reaching Rio Coyote, which was high and brisk, as high tide was soon approaching. After looking at the current at its most passable point, I decided it appeared too fast and too deep to ford.

Fortunately, I saw a parked canoe on the other shore, and there was a man and a teenager walking towards it at that very moment. As they got in the boat, and before they pulled the cord to start the motor, I yelled across to ask them - in Spanish of course - whether they could take me across to the other shore. The man fired up the motor, and as they came toward my side of the river, he pointed to a point just a few paces inland, which was a better place to pull up. I was about to take off my sneakers but realized when they landed that there was no need; I could jump from the sand onto the boat. They carried me back to the other side of the river while I made some small talk about the Costa Rican national soccer team, "La Sele," short for "la seleccion." When I jumped off the boat on the other shore, I thanked them and continued on my way.

I walked on the beach for just a bit before I noticed a road right along the beach. It was a one-lane dirt road; a country lane if you will. I walked that for at least two kilometers. It was by either humble guanacasteco dwellings or abandoned high-class summer homes of the San Jose elite. In both cases, it felt very lonely as I sauntered along, kicking up dust in the coming twilight of dusk.

At this point, I was really feeling tired, near the point of exhaustion. I continued, patiently waiting for a car to pass to hitch a ride. Eventually, after a couple of energy-consuming kilometers, a beat-up pick-up truck approached me from my back; I turned to stick out my thumb and was accepted. The man was a butcher making his evening door-to-door delivery run, after the morning and afternoon task of fresh butchering. He promised to take me to a cheap room at the next beach, Playa San Miguel, but first I had to accompany him on his evening run.

I was happy to be sitting, and no longer walking. But all through his run, I was dying of thirst; I had to re-hydrate. I would have entered one of his clients' home, but I felt too exhausted to even leave the passenger seat of his pick-up truck. My upper trapezius muscles were shot to the point of pain just trying to raise my arms from resting on my thighs. The weight of my twenty-pound backpack had caught up with me.

But eventually we reached the house where I would sleep for the next two nights. When I arrived I drank a few glasses of water, then showered, then very nearly passed out. So that was that.

Now, as for today, I woke up in that house in Playa San Miguel, of which I was just speaking, at about 9:30am. After organizing my backpack and plastic bag, then eating breakfast of "pinto con huevos," and conversing with Emilio, a native resident of Playa San Miguel, I finally set off at 12 noon.

I walked the 50 meters to the north to the intersection where the bus from San Jose was to arrive. I got there just ten seconds before it arrived, just in time! I rode that bus for half an hour to Pilas de Bejuco, the last, and northernmost, stop on the ride before the bus turned around to make the return trip immediately back to San Jose. As I was told, Samara was the next town to the north with a bank, and so that was my destination.

From Pilas de Bejuco, I was still about 25 kilometers south of Samara, realistically too far to walk. And since there were no more buses in that part of the country and on those roads between those towns, I realized that I was to be dependent on hitchhiking, and hence the trust and generosity of others.

From Pilas de Bejuco, I must have walked nearly eight kilometers on that one-lane dirt road up and down some very steep grades. I began that walk at 12:30pm, so the sun was brutal, but fortunately there was an almost steady sea-breeze from a more northerly direction.

Upon rounding a bend very high up in the hills (mountains?) overlooking the Pacific, I came upon a startling scene: a motorcycle was lying rider-less on its side, and its rider was sitting/lying in the dirt with a gruesomely deep gash just below his right knee. I quickly realized he was foolishly drunk. A young man, his wife, and two children were already there, having been passing by on his motorcycle; they were trying to give assistance. I asked if I could help in any way, but I got no straight answer.

Just a minute later, a land rover came around the bend from the south (the first automobile from that direction during my long trek). The driver stopped and dismounted, but the drunkard insisted on re-mounting his bike to continue riding south, instead of riding in the back of the land rover to get medical attention. With the loose dirt of the road, the thinness of the road, the sharpness of many turns, the sheer cliffs dropping off immediately from the edge of the road, and - most gravely - the total drunkeness of the injured rider, I would be surprised if he is alive this very minute. At the moment, I didn't consider any form of protest worthwhile, and so I took no direct action. In retrospect, I may have been too passive, but who is to say whether any action would have changed anything. At least it wouldn't have hurt to try. I could only hope now against the odds that the drunkard reached his destination with no further mishaps.

The driver of the land rover gave me a ride about one or perhaps two kilometers to Punta Islita, where he had to go to work at a fancy, high-class hotel. I got out to resume my journey on foot.

I will stop here before beginning the description of the next part of my journey, which is one whole bringing me here to Nicoya, interestingly enough. As you may recall, Samara was still my destination at this point in the journey.

Right now it is getting late, and I should turn off the lights in hopes of waking early to go to the bank to cash my next traveller's check. I realize that I'm getting in the habit of continuing my story into the next entry. This is not intentional; it is purely circumstances in every case. But hey, a little drama and suspense never hurt the ratings. Until my next appearance in ink, pura vida!