San Marcos De Tarrazu

I landed in Costa Rica to the organized chaos of a Central American election. In San Jose alone there were thousands of people appearing in streets decked with party banners while flags were waved crazily from the windows of moving cars. The television, instead of showing its usual fare of car crashes and swimsuit models, was packed with terrifying mug shots of the elected as the pole results trickled in. Walking though the Moscow esc airport I was unaware of this and was focusing instead on finding my ride into the mountains. I shouldn’t have worried, for as I slung my pack over my shoulder and stumbled towards the exit I caught sight of smiling faces and a sign plastered against the window: Tom Remp “Alto Quepos.”

It is a peculiar but welcome phenomenon that foreign taxi drivers may take several friends along for company during long journeys. Such was the case here, and I soon found myself sharing a taxi with three people, one of them my new home stay brother, Alian. They seemed remarkably cheerful considering my flight was two hours late and it was now eleven and pitch black outside. Together we hoisted my gargantuan luggage into the taxi and set off, though San Jose and upwards into the darkness.

Waking up the next day in the hills above San Marcos, I could hear the cries of the Piapia birds as they darted about. Dressing, I stumbled over piles of unfolded cloths and stood silently in the doorway of my little house, looking in silence upon blue sky and dark jungle. Coffee bushes edge the rocky path, banana plants cling to the soil and a large white dog rambles though the bushes. This is not the jungle of your nightmares, not the inky black wildness of The Heart of Darkness. This is a magical world of towering
Eucalyptuses, juicy sugar canes, muddy oranges and the dark red and bright yellow of the coffee beans.