Skin is crawling but kayak down Rio Ora is a cure that doesn’t bite. Iguanas, macaws and monkeys accompany me down one of the laziest rivers in Central America.
For a change of scenery I decided to upgrade beaches. Samara’s beach is idyllic, something out of a travel posture or off a bottle of suntan lotion. But all the Ticos say it’s nothing compared to others north and south of it.
You can see one problem with Costa Rica by taking one peek at my ankles. Mosquitos are deadly here. I haven’t been typing much this morning because it’s hard to type when your hands are too busy furiously scratching bites.
THURSDAY, JULY 18 – SAMARA, COSTA RICA You’re not too old to take up a new sport at 57. Billiards. Bowling. Bocce ball. They all come to mind. Surfing, however, is not one of them. Before coming down to one of the great surfing nations in the world, I’d surfed before. That was 1976. I was 20, had just broken up with my high school […]
Central America is a huge center for language schools and Samara seems to be one of the epicenters. Every non Tico I meet seems to be learning Spanish here. It’s a nice idea. You go to school for four hours a day and then use what you’ve learned on the beaches, bars and dusty streets of the village.
TUESDAY, JULY 16 – SAMARA, COSTA RICA I’m sitting on the apartment’s tiny balcony looking out over a Pacific Ocean that’s as flat as a pane of blue glass. The only white water I see consists of a few small breaks near the shore where I thought I’d try surfing for the first time as an old man. However, when I went to the surf […]
MONDAY, JULY 15 – SAMARA, COSTA RICA Here’s one way to get away from ex-pats even in a place without many: Dive into a jungle. Costa Rica is lousy with rain forests. Jaguars still roam the dense growth throughout the country which, from the air, looks like the Amazon with beaches. The jungle in Samara, the Werner Biological Reserve, is a private jungle. Named after […]
SUNDAY, JULY 14 – SAMARA, COSTA RICA Apartment living is a great way to see Third World countries. Or, maybe this apartment is a great way to see Costa Rica. I’m sitting in a spacious, tiled living room with wrap-around windows that perfectly frame the Pacific Ocean. Yes, it seems like it’s the whole Pacific Ocean. The windows are that big. A hillside of palm […]
FRIDAY, MARCH 1 – CANCUN, MEXICO Am I home yet? It’ll be nice to get back to Colorado and be warm again. It’s rainy, gray and miserable in Cancun – in more ways than one. This place is mankind’s cesspool. It’s debauchery in its filthiest form. If planet Earth had a morality scale, you could only locate Cancun with a submarine. This place makes Las […]
THURSDAY, FEB. 28 – HAVANA My taxi in Cienfuegos stopped to pick up a ride before we headed up to Havana, and I didn’t know if it was a home or a vandalized construction site. It was a small one-story house which didn’t appear to have a front door or any glass on the windows. The paint was peeling. The front yard was a mix […]
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 27 – CIENFUEGOS, CUBA Never judge a person by first impressions – unless, of course, it’s a hot Cuban babe whose first question is “Where are you staying?” – and don’t do it with cities, either. When we dropped off Marco here on the way to Trinidad, I thought Cienfuegos was a dusty little outpost with nothing but an overrated plaza. I couldn’t […]
TUESDAY, FEB. 26 – TRINIDAD, CUBA I just sat down in a sweaty Viazul bus on my way to Cienfuegas. The Cubans call the bayside city “The Pearl of the South.” It could be the Hades of the South and I might go. I couldn’t handle one more visit to Trinidad’s Casa de la Musica or see one more ’53 Chevy paperweight. Trinidad is real, […]
