We went to Costa Rica. Got back last night. We roamed the coastline for a week looking for surf around Playa Tamarindo, a beach town that succeeds, if you want it to, in making turistas de Norte Americanos feel comfortable in southern Central America. At the northwestern perch of the country, Tamarindo occupies Costa Rica’s westernmost point along the Pacific, on a peninsula that hooks downward like the trigger of a hand-grenade. The volume of rain that falls during October should simply rinse away the mountainsides. Approaching from beyond—from the valleys and offshore—dark, bulbous clouds empty like watering cans until they are on top of you, rain pelting you with the force of a garden hose in close proximity. The sea turns murky, especially near the rivermouths, where sand and sediment and surely varying quantities of sewage from upriver color the near shore waters a suspicious brown. But the fields where the bulls gnaw grass, and the jungles where the monkeys swing and the furtive big cats hunt—the roots that keep the mountainside in tact—grow into a deep, hydrated green for miles. Now is the wet season; the local guide Flash—a stoner whose nickname derived solely from his Caucasian features—says you knew that before you came, so no complain, man, we surf.
This part of Costa Rica, known unendearingly as Tamagringo, owns a visible influence of western tourism. You probably knew that before you came. A hundred yards from our base at Witch’s Rock Surf Camp, a tiny strip mall houses an HSBC branch, the England-based global banking giant, and a neon Subway sign glows where Jared sought a slimmer self through five dollar footlongs. English is as much of a second language there as Spanish is here—although not formally recognized, public notices often serve warnings in both tongues. All over town, cheeseburgers “as big as your head” don’t taste like authenticity. Lots of light skinned folks travel here to try surfing, search for better waves than they find at home, or to drink on top of a different bar stool. Other parts of the world could be less familiar to Americans.
But one only needs to take to the roads to find elements of life that are steadfastly un-American. Tamarindo is about an hour drive from Liberia airport, an easier arrival alternative than San Jose. (The Freds, a father/son duo from San Clemente, California, drove five hours from San Jose around landslides and over washed out roads.) Double yellow lines, pedestrian right-of-way, dog leash laws and the police that enforce them in the States inflict no similar version of civil order on the roads of Costa Rica. Vans packed with tourists, luggage and surfboard bags strapped to the roof, regard the confines of opposite lane traffic as nonexistent. Shitty Kia 4x4s and dented Toyota sedans with jet black tinted windows pass parades of rusting dual-axle flatbed trucks and whining scooters at 100 kilometers an hour as oncoming traffic grows larger with speed. Stopped school buses solicit no more than a slight tapping of the brakes—an otherwise costly offense in the first world. Soaked locals exert as much ownership of the road as drivers—shoulders as we know them are nowhere to be found. A parent shuttles his child wearing no helmet on the top tube of a bicycle past an aging ranch hand smoking a cigarette, teaching his horse to Spanish step on the side of the road. Pedestrians walk the edge of the macadam, umbrellas open, moving for no vehicles. Dogs crisscross the freeway during lulls in traffic, trudging through ankle-deep mud in the roadside trenches, seeming to have evolved enough to dodge death like Frogger at the arcade. But vultures drift above, wings spread as wide as a human is tall, waiting for a misstep. In the States, there is a hierarchy to the roads: bikes yield to humans and cars yield to both, and law enforcement is quick to remind you. But Costa Ricans enjoy less structure; rather, pedestrian, cyclist, driver, chicken, and dog demand their piece of the pavement equally.
This minor absence of regulation feels freeing from a New York City life chaperoned by cops wielding rifles, clearly delineated bus lanes, signs, crosswalk signals, orange tollbooth cones, so many, many signs. It reminds you that beings can, at times, function without menial ordinances. Left to their own devices, cars will pass others safely despite painted lines, students will reach school on time, dogs will learn not to become road kill, and surfing instructors will only fall asleep after smoking herb.
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