Somewhere in Guatemala
Guatemala City wasn't far from Antigua. There was little I had been sure of during this trip, but I knew this. I remembered the ride from Guatemala to Antigua a few days earlier. It hadn't been particularly long then, and I wondered why the reverse seemed so long now. An old man next to me had just woken up.
"Excuse me," I asked. "How far until Guatemala City?"
"Guatemala City?" he grumbled.
"Sí."
"This bus isn't going to Guatemala City," he explained. He yawned, and closed his eyes. Our conversation was over.
"Excuse me," I said to a woman to my right, "How far until--"
"This bus isn't going to Guatemala City." She had said the same words as the old man, but unlike his words, hers showed concern. Her muscles contorted into an expression I had seem countless times during my travels, as though I were some sort of beached whale that didn't have the wherewithal to find the sea again.
"Oh," I sighed. I was getting quite used to getting lost. "Where am I going then?"
She told me the name of a small town not far ahead. When we arrived, she showed me the bus stop where I should wait for another bus to take me back to the capital. "Are you sure you'll be all right?" she asked. Her smile was genuine.
"Yes, of course." And I meant it.
A few hours later, I still meant it--meant it to each of the passersby who stopped to ask what I was waiting for. In the late afternoon people seemed to fully substantiate the woman's claim that a bus was coming soon. When night came, they became doubtful. And when the last of the lights turned off in the small store in front of me, the last of my optimism flickered out with it.
Shit.
There was nothing to do but wait. I had nothing but a notebook, and no way to see what I was writing. Then I remembered the novel in my bag, but I couldn't even see it let alone read it. I could do nothing but stare off into the darkness.
It wasn't a jungle--in the proper sense--around me. But if I hadn't seen it in the daylight, I might have thought it so. A low buzz ran like a bass, and occasionally the measures were marked with the scurrying of small feet or what sounded like the flap of wings. I looked around me at the few buildings that constituted the town whose name I had forgotten. People wouldn't build here if there were anything too ferocious, I told myself.
The night grew darker, and I forbade myself to look at the time. What good will that do? I thought. I had a fleeting thought that maybe time is a lot like money. Both mean nothing unless someone else shares your conception of them. Listening to the forest behind me, I knew there was no one awake who thought in those terms.
The street was growing lighter, and I walked to the side of the road, staring down the street where the bus had disappeared so many hours ago. There was a car coming, slowly. Of course, I had only seen headlights, but I knew enough about my own luck and public transportation to know it wasn't a bus. And yet as it approached, I saw that it was was large--whatever it was--and it was slowing down.
It looked rather like an apologetic van. Perhaps it had begun as something else, but pieces of metal were attached to it at odd angles so it seemed to have grown out somewhat. It gave the impression of an insect with badly damaged wings.
The driver in the front spoke out to me. Against the grumble of his ailing engine, I couldn't hear anything he said. I put a hand to my hear and shook my head. The engine died out, and the man repeated himself. And yet again I didn't understand.
He was speaking a Mayan dialect, and spoke it quickly. I spoke in Spanish, and asked him to do the same. There was no comprehension. I recalled the previous day in which I had hitchhiked with a Mayan family who spoke no Spanish at all. Yet that had been at some distance from Guatemala City. Apparently I was in a similar place--perhaps the same place for all I knew--because the man seemed confused that he wasn't being understood. I suppose he has a point. Spanish isn't the native language here anyway.
In time our charades ended, and the deafening noise of his engine began again. He and his vehicle inched forward so slowly that I thought I was going to have to push, until it hit a dip in the road and gained some speed, disappearing into the night.
I fumbled in my bag instinctively, trying to find something to pass the time. I felt the grooves of my harmonica, and did not resist the temptation to play quietly for a moment. Why do my travel plans always end this way? I thought.
It's because you don't plan, said a nasty voice in my head.
The nasty voice had a point, but as I thought on my lonely bench and the deserted bus stop, I realized I would have traded all the fine linen and hotel reservations in the world to be where I was right then.
A tall streetlight--hitherto dark--flickered to my right. In a moment the bus stop was bathed in a faint glow. I looked at the grooves of my harmonica again, and returned it to my bag. I withdrew my novel--bought from a vender in San Salvador who only seemed to sell Márquez--and began to read.
Thank God I got on the wrong bus, I thought.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
El Ladrón y La Gringa
San José, Costa Rica
Though I had no idea where I was, the intersection felt important. The streets were wide by Costa Rican standards, and their convergence--at the corner of San José's largest city park--seemed central. But as I neared it, I noted that no cars were passing through. Instead, all four lines of cars stood locked in a deadly face-off, honking and rumbling, but not moving.
Looking for the cause of the commotion, I easily passed through the busy intersection, weaving between still cars and jolting ocassionally at their honks. On the other side of the road, I soon identified an altercation that had undoubtedly lead to the chaos.
Though there were but two combatants, their argument had drawn a large number of spectators and peace-makers. The on-lookers engulfed a small (and terrified) boy caught in a headlock by a much larger, college-aged woman. Her blonde hair and awkward style of dress suggested that she didn't hail from San Jose.
And as she yelled--which she did repeatedly--my suspicisons were confirmed. She was American. Looking toward the spectators, she motioned toward the small boy in her grasp and cried, "¡Es un ladrón!" He's a thief. Her accent was terrible, but the spectators seemed to understand--or at least comprehend that the boy had presumably done something to land in a headlock. The boy struggled and cried, and through his cries and her grasp it became evident who the real criminal was. "Cálmate, gringa," I murmured under my breath.
"¡Es un ladrón!" she garbled stupidly, her red tourist hat beginning to fall off her head as she shook the boy. Seeing no positive response, she continued to yell idiotic things. She then desperately removed one arm from the lock to motion to the boy as though the crowd were somehow unsure whom she was addressing.
Everyone appeared to be waiting for the woman to explain exactly how the boy was a thief or (more properly still) for her to release the boy and discuss the matter in a more civil and less dramatic way. A tall man moved in toward the couple, and said something to them that was lost over carhorns. But whatever it was, he was able to gingerly pull the pair apart and lead them to the sidewalk where I was standing.
The woman seemed very upset now, or at least frustrated that her fifteen minutes of flagging fame had come to so anticlimatic an end. Gasping, she explained in broken Spanish that the boy had tried to sell her drugs. I waited for her to justify the "ladrón" label, but she never really did. Instead, she continued to talk about "drugas"[sic], receiving little more than blank and ocassionally frustrated stares. After a few minutes of not being understood, she pointed a frustrated finger at the crying boy and said simply: "marijuana".
I began thinking nasty things about the woman, and was horrified at my thoughts. Most snobbishly, I questioned how someone with Spanish that poor could really be a reliable witness to a drug offer in Costa Rica. Far more relevantly, I wondered why she wanted to be that witness at all. The boy, holding his neck where the woman had held him, was kneeling with his head on the sidewalk, his head drenched in his own tears.
Ignoring her victim, the gringa added further details to her stoy. She had gone up to the boy to see if he was selling gum, because--apparently--all Costa Rican children double as gum salesmen. She then became "disgusted"--this word was in English--when she learned (or thought) he was selling something else.
The attention of the crowd was running low, and people began to disperse. A man helped the boy to his feet and told him to run along. More people left and the cars drove on.
"Did you see that?" the gringa cried in English, suspecting--correctly--that I could understand her. Insted of replying, I walked away to show her that I too was "disgusted." A kind Costa Rican woman put an arm around her as the last people walked away. I moved on too, and found a nearby bench where I could try to put my thoughts to paper.
My thoughts never did come together clearly, but a number of loosely connected threads began to tie together. I thought first of the Monroe Doctrine, and though it has been two hundred years since its adoption, Americans still believe they have the right to police Latin America. Inspired by an unfailing belief in the superiority of American justice, the history of Latin America is littered by a series of interventions that draw the legitimacy of American justice into serious question.
Of course, the tragedy of the American notion justice is not unique to Latin America, nor is it--by any means--flawed only only in its international appropriations. Within our borders, it fails far more than it empowers. And perhaps therein is the principal that ultimately governs it--the paternalistic notion that an enlightened few have the right to dictacte ethics and their enforcement for the many. That is, at least, how Latin American cases seem to work. When the Latin American people have been included in discussions of American intervention, the only voices tapped are those on whom the United States can rely to support its capitalistic and hegemonic agenda, those voices who will cave to the bad commercial and environmental agreements the United States has thrust upon its southern neighbors. The people never seem to matter.
The phenomenon of American tourism--from which I cannot stand apart--parallels American interventionism. At its core, tourism in Latin America seeks to identify where Latin America can be useful for the American traveler, never the opposite. The impressions and experiences of the American tourist in Latin America are therefore eternally preoccupied not with questions relevant to Latin Americans, but instead with building and enhancing an Amerocentric view of the region--to essentialize not only differences between an American and Latin American way of life, but to prioritize the American--and through it to rectify the perceived inadequecies in the Latin American.
That is, anyway, what I see when I look to Latin American history. And that is undoubtedly what I saw when I watched the woman in the red hat. She believed she saw differences in law and enforcement in Costa Rica, but read them not as cultural variations but instead as a transgression against the infallable notion of American justice. And it was not enough to simply recognize the differences in legal enforcement, or even (unwisely) to comment on the perceived superiority of the American system. Instead, she believed that the onus was on her to be that police force, to bring about a stars and stripes notion of justice to a group of baffled Costa Ricans who had plenty of other more important things to worry about.
If she did anything, she drove home the point that it is insufficient to blame the American government or its partner capitalism for American interventionism in Latin America. The blame extends to all of us as individuals, who tour the world with perverted notions of our own cultural and legal superiority and our promise to extend it to others. That is, for me, what the woman in the red hat did and sought to do. Through her nationality, language, race, and birth, the woman believed that she could identify crime in Latin America and rectify it.
American intervention in Latin America has destroyed families, ecosystems, governments, economies, and people. I thought with horror that I had seen its most recent victim, upset not by governments or corporations, but by a tourist--too blinded by her own notions of justice to identify the redness on the boy's neck as the real tragedy.
Far off in the distance, I felt ill as I watched a young boy stumble home alone, undoubtedly too young to fully understand the history of American inventionism. As he rubbed his neck and limped onward, I felt grieved that he was not too young to feel it.
Though I had no idea where I was, the intersection felt important. The streets were wide by Costa Rican standards, and their convergence--at the corner of San José's largest city park--seemed central. But as I neared it, I noted that no cars were passing through. Instead, all four lines of cars stood locked in a deadly face-off, honking and rumbling, but not moving.
Looking for the cause of the commotion, I easily passed through the busy intersection, weaving between still cars and jolting ocassionally at their honks. On the other side of the road, I soon identified an altercation that had undoubtedly lead to the chaos.
Though there were but two combatants, their argument had drawn a large number of spectators and peace-makers. The on-lookers engulfed a small (and terrified) boy caught in a headlock by a much larger, college-aged woman. Her blonde hair and awkward style of dress suggested that she didn't hail from San Jose.
And as she yelled--which she did repeatedly--my suspicisons were confirmed. She was American. Looking toward the spectators, she motioned toward the small boy in her grasp and cried, "¡Es un ladrón!" He's a thief. Her accent was terrible, but the spectators seemed to understand--or at least comprehend that the boy had presumably done something to land in a headlock. The boy struggled and cried, and through his cries and her grasp it became evident who the real criminal was. "Cálmate, gringa," I murmured under my breath.
"¡Es un ladrón!" she garbled stupidly, her red tourist hat beginning to fall off her head as she shook the boy. Seeing no positive response, she continued to yell idiotic things. She then desperately removed one arm from the lock to motion to the boy as though the crowd were somehow unsure whom she was addressing.
Everyone appeared to be waiting for the woman to explain exactly how the boy was a thief or (more properly still) for her to release the boy and discuss the matter in a more civil and less dramatic way. A tall man moved in toward the couple, and said something to them that was lost over carhorns. But whatever it was, he was able to gingerly pull the pair apart and lead them to the sidewalk where I was standing.
The woman seemed very upset now, or at least frustrated that her fifteen minutes of flagging fame had come to so anticlimatic an end. Gasping, she explained in broken Spanish that the boy had tried to sell her drugs. I waited for her to justify the "ladrón" label, but she never really did. Instead, she continued to talk about "drugas"[sic], receiving little more than blank and ocassionally frustrated stares. After a few minutes of not being understood, she pointed a frustrated finger at the crying boy and said simply: "marijuana".
I began thinking nasty things about the woman, and was horrified at my thoughts. Most snobbishly, I questioned how someone with Spanish that poor could really be a reliable witness to a drug offer in Costa Rica. Far more relevantly, I wondered why she wanted to be that witness at all. The boy, holding his neck where the woman had held him, was kneeling with his head on the sidewalk, his head drenched in his own tears.
Ignoring her victim, the gringa added further details to her stoy. She had gone up to the boy to see if he was selling gum, because--apparently--all Costa Rican children double as gum salesmen. She then became "disgusted"--this word was in English--when she learned (or thought) he was selling something else.
The attention of the crowd was running low, and people began to disperse. A man helped the boy to his feet and told him to run along. More people left and the cars drove on.
"Did you see that?" the gringa cried in English, suspecting--correctly--that I could understand her. Insted of replying, I walked away to show her that I too was "disgusted." A kind Costa Rican woman put an arm around her as the last people walked away. I moved on too, and found a nearby bench where I could try to put my thoughts to paper.
My thoughts never did come together clearly, but a number of loosely connected threads began to tie together. I thought first of the Monroe Doctrine, and though it has been two hundred years since its adoption, Americans still believe they have the right to police Latin America. Inspired by an unfailing belief in the superiority of American justice, the history of Latin America is littered by a series of interventions that draw the legitimacy of American justice into serious question.
Of course, the tragedy of the American notion justice is not unique to Latin America, nor is it--by any means--flawed only only in its international appropriations. Within our borders, it fails far more than it empowers. And perhaps therein is the principal that ultimately governs it--the paternalistic notion that an enlightened few have the right to dictacte ethics and their enforcement for the many. That is, at least, how Latin American cases seem to work. When the Latin American people have been included in discussions of American intervention, the only voices tapped are those on whom the United States can rely to support its capitalistic and hegemonic agenda, those voices who will cave to the bad commercial and environmental agreements the United States has thrust upon its southern neighbors. The people never seem to matter.
The phenomenon of American tourism--from which I cannot stand apart--parallels American interventionism. At its core, tourism in Latin America seeks to identify where Latin America can be useful for the American traveler, never the opposite. The impressions and experiences of the American tourist in Latin America are therefore eternally preoccupied not with questions relevant to Latin Americans, but instead with building and enhancing an Amerocentric view of the region--to essentialize not only differences between an American and Latin American way of life, but to prioritize the American--and through it to rectify the perceived inadequecies in the Latin American.
That is, anyway, what I see when I look to Latin American history. And that is undoubtedly what I saw when I watched the woman in the red hat. She believed she saw differences in law and enforcement in Costa Rica, but read them not as cultural variations but instead as a transgression against the infallable notion of American justice. And it was not enough to simply recognize the differences in legal enforcement, or even (unwisely) to comment on the perceived superiority of the American system. Instead, she believed that the onus was on her to be that police force, to bring about a stars and stripes notion of justice to a group of baffled Costa Ricans who had plenty of other more important things to worry about.
If she did anything, she drove home the point that it is insufficient to blame the American government or its partner capitalism for American interventionism in Latin America. The blame extends to all of us as individuals, who tour the world with perverted notions of our own cultural and legal superiority and our promise to extend it to others. That is, for me, what the woman in the red hat did and sought to do. Through her nationality, language, race, and birth, the woman believed that she could identify crime in Latin America and rectify it.
American intervention in Latin America has destroyed families, ecosystems, governments, economies, and people. I thought with horror that I had seen its most recent victim, upset not by governments or corporations, but by a tourist--too blinded by her own notions of justice to identify the redness on the boy's neck as the real tragedy.
Far off in the distance, I felt ill as I watched a young boy stumble home alone, undoubtedly too young to fully understand the history of American inventionism. As he rubbed his neck and limped onward, I felt grieved that he was not too young to feel it.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
SJO
Near San José, Costa Rica
The bus I was waiting for had left hours ago, a taxi-driver told me. He had hailed me down as I paced back and forth at the abandoned bus-stop, clearly looking lost and stressed. The way he saw it, I had essentially two options: to ride with him and pay a sum so large even he admitted it was outrageous, or wait for another bus that almost certainly wasn't coming.
I was now visibly frought, and the taxi-driver told me that he didn't envy my decision. Best decisions are made without pressure, he said, so he would wait in the taxi while I made up my mind. I pulled out the paper with the hostel information, looking for any sort of guidance. As I unfolded it, it was odd to recall that only a few hours had passed since I'd booked the reservation--or, indeed, since I'd finally booked the trip. As I stood alone at the bus-stop, enclosed by vacant streets (minus the one taxi), I saw the consequences of my impulsivity. Cheap flights do not necessarily imply smooth logistics, I noted.
The paper gave a street address, and said that a yellow bus would come by the terminal frequently and stop a few blocks from the hostel. I looked again at the sign hanging over the bus station, that clearly told me I was in the right place. The taxi-driver himself had admited this, but said that as I had landed so late there was little point in waiting now. It was hard upon midnight. The taxi honked its horn.
I returned to the hostel paper, simultaneously wishing that the taxi-driver would drive away and persuade me to get in his car. Then I noticed that the paper had said something I hadn't noticed before--that the hostel gate would be locked at midnight, and any tardy travelers would be left outside and forfit their deposit. I looked at the time and groaned. I was going to be one of those travelers. Well Andrew, I thought to myself. This is going to be quite a memorable night.
Part bus, part deus-ex-machina, a shuttle emerged from the darkness and pulled up alongside me. And then my heart sank--it wasn't yellow, and its destination sign was for another city. As the bus doors breathed open, I stupidly stared up at the bus driver. ¨Thirty-fourth Street and Third Avenue?" I asked doubtfully.
"Nobody knows where that is," the bus driver said politely, taking advantage of a teachable moment. "Here, we talk about things being next to other things. What is your hotel by?" he chortled.
I stared at my paper dully. It said something about the Toyota Building, but given the awkward English I was unsure whether it was part of the directions or an advertisement. Not knowing what else to do, I answered, "El edificio de Toyota." The Toyota Building.
"Yes, of course!" The bus driver said, "get in." I looked at the paper one last time. The bus didn't match the paper's description or the taxi-driver's. He gave me a foreboding look from the other side of the road, shook his head, and murmured, "no."
I smiled at him helplessly and boarded the bus. I had no idea where I was going or if the bus was going there. And as the bus turned left at the first road, I saw my last hope fade; by my calculations San Jose simply couldn't be anywhere but to the right. Oh well, I thought again. If I'm going to be without a place to stay, it's probably best to be on a bus instead of in the street. And there was something decidedly romatic about being on a bus going nowhere. That is, I supposed, until we got there.
Still feeling claustrophobic from the plane, I opened the window and welcomed in the new climate. The air was warm and humid, but pleasantly so. The few people still awake waved at my head, protruding from the window like a canine on a joy-ride.
We drove for fifty minutes or so, and I knew then that the gate was certainly closed and that I had landed in Costa Rica without a place to sleep. Live in the moment, I told myself. It'll all work out.
The scenary faded and houses appeared in its wake, all of varying sizes and colors, perfectly interlocking with each other and the hills they rested upon. What a beautiful country, I thought.
The bus stoped, and I was instantly anxious for it to move again. The driver said something to the passenger behind him, and then like a game of telephone the message was gradually passed back to me. It was my stop. Disappointed (and nervous), I left the bus, and felt the eyes of the whole bus on me as I awkwardly turned in circles looking for something that would tell me where I was. The bus driver smiled, and continued to wait for some sign I was in the right place. I faked a thumbs-up and a smile and walked in a random direction. He smiled and drove away. Shit, I thought, as I took in my surroundings. A few palm leaves blew in the night breeze, and a stray napkin floated through the air like an airborne jellyfish. I'm totally alone, I realized.
I returned to my paper and it deciphered something about Taco Bell. I wander around the block a few times, and finally run into a man who was sweeping in front of a restaurant. "Excuse me, where is the Taco Bell?" I asked.
"You came all the way to Costa Rica to eat at Taco Bell?" he replied. "It's closed anyway."
"No, no," I said. "It's so I can find my hotel."
He seemed much happier and pointed me in the right direction. The directions then said (as I understood them) to turn two blocks north. I had no idea what way that was, and tried every direction until I found something that looked sort of promising. "Look for the blue house" it said. In the moonlight and the streetlight, everything seemed blue.
Eventually though, I found a gate that said in peeling letters, "JC Friends". I went up to it, and tried to pull it open, but my fears were confirmed. It was locked.
A few cats jumped around on the yard on the other side of the gate, each appearing quite happy to see me. I comforted myself knowing that the cats would probably very much like to let me in if they could. One of them purred and brushed his body up against the gate's bars. I felt happy.
A police officer appeared in the distance, and it occurred to me how bad it would look were I caught staring through a locked gate at one in the morning. Perhaps I should try and find the Parque Central and just sit on a bench, I thought. It would be better than talking to the police officer anyway.
The cats were growing more excited by the second, and one put out a paw and playfully touched my leg. Other purred and rolled over. Then the door to the building opened, and a dark figure walked across the yard. The cats scurried away and pretended to look angry at me.
"Andrew?" he asked.
"Sí..." I answered shakily.
"I've been waiting for you."
I felt guilty and overjoyed at the same time, and he onlocked the gate and let me through. The cats instantly stopped feigning their anger, and instead blocked my way to the house at the end of the yard, circling around my legs and purring. It was a lovely greeting after a stressful night.
We (including the cats) passed into the lobby and the man went to the computer. "We only have three guests," he said. "I decided to wait for you because I couldn't stand having just two." I thanked him profusely, and moved my items to my room, sent a brief email, and went to bed.
The bus I was waiting for had left hours ago, a taxi-driver told me. He had hailed me down as I paced back and forth at the abandoned bus-stop, clearly looking lost and stressed. The way he saw it, I had essentially two options: to ride with him and pay a sum so large even he admitted it was outrageous, or wait for another bus that almost certainly wasn't coming.
I was now visibly frought, and the taxi-driver told me that he didn't envy my decision. Best decisions are made without pressure, he said, so he would wait in the taxi while I made up my mind. I pulled out the paper with the hostel information, looking for any sort of guidance. As I unfolded it, it was odd to recall that only a few hours had passed since I'd booked the reservation--or, indeed, since I'd finally booked the trip. As I stood alone at the bus-stop, enclosed by vacant streets (minus the one taxi), I saw the consequences of my impulsivity. Cheap flights do not necessarily imply smooth logistics, I noted.
The paper gave a street address, and said that a yellow bus would come by the terminal frequently and stop a few blocks from the hostel. I looked again at the sign hanging over the bus station, that clearly told me I was in the right place. The taxi-driver himself had admited this, but said that as I had landed so late there was little point in waiting now. It was hard upon midnight. The taxi honked its horn.
I returned to the hostel paper, simultaneously wishing that the taxi-driver would drive away and persuade me to get in his car. Then I noticed that the paper had said something I hadn't noticed before--that the hostel gate would be locked at midnight, and any tardy travelers would be left outside and forfit their deposit. I looked at the time and groaned. I was going to be one of those travelers. Well Andrew, I thought to myself. This is going to be quite a memorable night.
Part bus, part deus-ex-machina, a shuttle emerged from the darkness and pulled up alongside me. And then my heart sank--it wasn't yellow, and its destination sign was for another city. As the bus doors breathed open, I stupidly stared up at the bus driver. ¨Thirty-fourth Street and Third Avenue?" I asked doubtfully.
"Nobody knows where that is," the bus driver said politely, taking advantage of a teachable moment. "Here, we talk about things being next to other things. What is your hotel by?" he chortled.
I stared at my paper dully. It said something about the Toyota Building, but given the awkward English I was unsure whether it was part of the directions or an advertisement. Not knowing what else to do, I answered, "El edificio de Toyota." The Toyota Building.
"Yes, of course!" The bus driver said, "get in." I looked at the paper one last time. The bus didn't match the paper's description or the taxi-driver's. He gave me a foreboding look from the other side of the road, shook his head, and murmured, "no."
I smiled at him helplessly and boarded the bus. I had no idea where I was going or if the bus was going there. And as the bus turned left at the first road, I saw my last hope fade; by my calculations San Jose simply couldn't be anywhere but to the right. Oh well, I thought again. If I'm going to be without a place to stay, it's probably best to be on a bus instead of in the street. And there was something decidedly romatic about being on a bus going nowhere. That is, I supposed, until we got there.
Still feeling claustrophobic from the plane, I opened the window and welcomed in the new climate. The air was warm and humid, but pleasantly so. The few people still awake waved at my head, protruding from the window like a canine on a joy-ride.
We drove for fifty minutes or so, and I knew then that the gate was certainly closed and that I had landed in Costa Rica without a place to sleep. Live in the moment, I told myself. It'll all work out.
The scenary faded and houses appeared in its wake, all of varying sizes and colors, perfectly interlocking with each other and the hills they rested upon. What a beautiful country, I thought.
The bus stoped, and I was instantly anxious for it to move again. The driver said something to the passenger behind him, and then like a game of telephone the message was gradually passed back to me. It was my stop. Disappointed (and nervous), I left the bus, and felt the eyes of the whole bus on me as I awkwardly turned in circles looking for something that would tell me where I was. The bus driver smiled, and continued to wait for some sign I was in the right place. I faked a thumbs-up and a smile and walked in a random direction. He smiled and drove away. Shit, I thought, as I took in my surroundings. A few palm leaves blew in the night breeze, and a stray napkin floated through the air like an airborne jellyfish. I'm totally alone, I realized.
I returned to my paper and it deciphered something about Taco Bell. I wander around the block a few times, and finally run into a man who was sweeping in front of a restaurant. "Excuse me, where is the Taco Bell?" I asked.
"You came all the way to Costa Rica to eat at Taco Bell?" he replied. "It's closed anyway."
"No, no," I said. "It's so I can find my hotel."
He seemed much happier and pointed me in the right direction. The directions then said (as I understood them) to turn two blocks north. I had no idea what way that was, and tried every direction until I found something that looked sort of promising. "Look for the blue house" it said. In the moonlight and the streetlight, everything seemed blue.
Eventually though, I found a gate that said in peeling letters, "JC Friends". I went up to it, and tried to pull it open, but my fears were confirmed. It was locked.
A few cats jumped around on the yard on the other side of the gate, each appearing quite happy to see me. I comforted myself knowing that the cats would probably very much like to let me in if they could. One of them purred and brushed his body up against the gate's bars. I felt happy.
A police officer appeared in the distance, and it occurred to me how bad it would look were I caught staring through a locked gate at one in the morning. Perhaps I should try and find the Parque Central and just sit on a bench, I thought. It would be better than talking to the police officer anyway.
The cats were growing more excited by the second, and one put out a paw and playfully touched my leg. Other purred and rolled over. Then the door to the building opened, and a dark figure walked across the yard. The cats scurried away and pretended to look angry at me.
"Andrew?" he asked.
"Sí..." I answered shakily.
"I've been waiting for you."
I felt guilty and overjoyed at the same time, and he onlocked the gate and let me through. The cats instantly stopped feigning their anger, and instead blocked my way to the house at the end of the yard, circling around my legs and purring. It was a lovely greeting after a stressful night.
We (including the cats) passed into the lobby and the man went to the computer. "We only have three guests," he said. "I decided to wait for you because I couldn't stand having just two." I thanked him profusely, and moved my items to my room, sent a brief email, and went to bed.
LAX
Near Los Angeles, United States
"We leave for LAX at ten o'clock," the bus driver smiled, stretching her lips so wide that her sunglasses rose up on her nose. She then began to talk about the various security functions of the airport shuttle which no one--myself included--seemed to particularly care about. My twenty or so shuttle companions were instead engaged in their own conversations (German, Chinese, and English were all simultaneously audible), all anticipating the day's coming adventures.
With a groan, the bus rolled forward and merged unto the freeway. For a moment I watched Union Station revolve as the bus turned, but soon it was eclipsed by some nameless office building. The Disney Center peeked out behind a string of corporate buildings, before it too was lost behind a partiucularly large and dull one and was not seen again. Then the Staples Center. A few underpasses. Cars.
Apart from myself--for the moment immersed in a novel--there was only one other person who sat alone, a middle-aged man who clicked through the photo archive in his camera, reflecting on the people and times that he was leaving behind as the bus drove away.
Two planes descended overhead, each bearing travels whose journey would end a few gates away from where mine would begin.
---------
LAX. Tickets. Can I see your passport? As always I've arrived in the terminal far too early, fighting the weight of my eyelids as I sit at the gate and watch people appear and disappear like a silent film with missing frames.
The man in front of me is on the phone with his wife, and things aren't going well. He's trying to fix something with her that's been broken a long time. He seems to want resolution before he gets on the plane, and his insistance is making the problem far worse. He walks away, but his voice and sadness trail behind him like the smoke of a cigarette.
Two women and two men stand at the newstand, thumbing through magazines they don't intend to buy. I hear bits of their conversation--bickering but affectionate--and try and deduce who is dating whom. Any permutation seems possible.
A young-man--his arms akimbo, his stature still--stands against the window and stares into the distance at the hazy Los Angeles skyline. He carries a large (ostensibly heavy) green backpack, but never thinks to set it down. Adults run by him, kids run into him, yet he stands still as his thoughts race.
A large group of Canadians appears in my seating area, exposed by their passports and my immediate neighbor's persistent "aboots". The whole group of them are clad in various shades of black and grey, a color motif stretching even into their gloves and fedoras. I ask them where they are coming from. "We're in various bands," says my neighbor, whose nose-ring wiggles as he speaks. "There's a big bagpipe convention."
"Good luck to you then," I say.
"It's over. It was in LA."
"Oh," I apologize. "How did it go?"
"Not very well," he and his nose-ring sighed.
A man sleeps with his head wrapped in a plaid shirt, his head balanced on his backpack in a way that is sure to render his back even more sore than air travel naturally induces.
A group of three men mutter in Portguese against the window. They carry with them large bags that undoubtedly bear some sort of instrument, and I wonder if these men were more victorious than the disallusioned Canadians I had just met. I eavesdrop on their conversation to find out, fail, and comfort myself knowing that I could hardly be expected to know the word "bagpipe" anyway.
The boarding call. Heads turn, and mouths yawn. The Canadians have left. The Portuguese move toward the line. The quiet man in the green backpack moves toward his sleeping friend, peeling the plaid shirt of his head to tell him it is time to board. The mysterious couples put the magazines back on the rack and rush past a disappointed cashier. Presumably somewhere a sad man is still on the phone with his wife.
I close my notebook, extract my ticket from its pages, and join them all at the gate.
"We leave for LAX at ten o'clock," the bus driver smiled, stretching her lips so wide that her sunglasses rose up on her nose. She then began to talk about the various security functions of the airport shuttle which no one--myself included--seemed to particularly care about. My twenty or so shuttle companions were instead engaged in their own conversations (German, Chinese, and English were all simultaneously audible), all anticipating the day's coming adventures.
With a groan, the bus rolled forward and merged unto the freeway. For a moment I watched Union Station revolve as the bus turned, but soon it was eclipsed by some nameless office building. The Disney Center peeked out behind a string of corporate buildings, before it too was lost behind a partiucularly large and dull one and was not seen again. Then the Staples Center. A few underpasses. Cars.
Apart from myself--for the moment immersed in a novel--there was only one other person who sat alone, a middle-aged man who clicked through the photo archive in his camera, reflecting on the people and times that he was leaving behind as the bus drove away.
Two planes descended overhead, each bearing travels whose journey would end a few gates away from where mine would begin.
---------
LAX. Tickets. Can I see your passport? As always I've arrived in the terminal far too early, fighting the weight of my eyelids as I sit at the gate and watch people appear and disappear like a silent film with missing frames.
The man in front of me is on the phone with his wife, and things aren't going well. He's trying to fix something with her that's been broken a long time. He seems to want resolution before he gets on the plane, and his insistance is making the problem far worse. He walks away, but his voice and sadness trail behind him like the smoke of a cigarette.
Two women and two men stand at the newstand, thumbing through magazines they don't intend to buy. I hear bits of their conversation--bickering but affectionate--and try and deduce who is dating whom. Any permutation seems possible.
A young-man--his arms akimbo, his stature still--stands against the window and stares into the distance at the hazy Los Angeles skyline. He carries a large (ostensibly heavy) green backpack, but never thinks to set it down. Adults run by him, kids run into him, yet he stands still as his thoughts race.
A large group of Canadians appears in my seating area, exposed by their passports and my immediate neighbor's persistent "aboots". The whole group of them are clad in various shades of black and grey, a color motif stretching even into their gloves and fedoras. I ask them where they are coming from. "We're in various bands," says my neighbor, whose nose-ring wiggles as he speaks. "There's a big bagpipe convention."
"Good luck to you then," I say.
"It's over. It was in LA."
"Oh," I apologize. "How did it go?"
"Not very well," he and his nose-ring sighed.
A man sleeps with his head wrapped in a plaid shirt, his head balanced on his backpack in a way that is sure to render his back even more sore than air travel naturally induces.
A group of three men mutter in Portguese against the window. They carry with them large bags that undoubtedly bear some sort of instrument, and I wonder if these men were more victorious than the disallusioned Canadians I had just met. I eavesdrop on their conversation to find out, fail, and comfort myself knowing that I could hardly be expected to know the word "bagpipe" anyway.
The boarding call. Heads turn, and mouths yawn. The Canadians have left. The Portuguese move toward the line. The quiet man in the green backpack moves toward his sleeping friend, peeling the plaid shirt of his head to tell him it is time to board. The mysterious couples put the magazines back on the rack and rush past a disappointed cashier. Presumably somewhere a sad man is still on the phone with his wife.
I close my notebook, extract my ticket from its pages, and join them all at the gate.
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