Leaving the Valley

© davebrenner

Mural in San Juan, Costa Rica.

The first few days my brother and I spent in the valley allowed us the opportunity to become well-acquainted with the family and neighbors. It also gave us the chance to brush up on our Spanish before having to converse with bank tellers, bus drivers, street vendors and so forth once we left the comfort of Atenas, a place that one American neighbor described as “the Mayberry of Costa Rica.”

In a few days, we already had enough experience in the local bar, Los Mangos Cantina, to successfully order una cerveza Imperial, tequila con limón and un guaro con Coke. As bourbon is to Kentucky, guaro is to Costa Rica – an essential for any cultured local. It tastes similar to vodka with an extra touch of sweetness and can be mixed with just about any soft drink or juice, although there are some boozers who prefer to swill it straight.

We would practice phrases that the family taught us while conversing with the bartender and other patrons. I quickly learned that a few drinks will strip the self-conscious edge from the struggle to speak a new language, which ironically made our conversations much more fluid and personal. If guaro was served at the beginning of every Spanish lecture in college, I might have already been fluent.

Armed with our improved Spanish vocabularies, my brother and I decided to leave Atenas for the first time and venture out on our own. On day five, we were bound for San Jose on a bus packed full of people in ninety degree weather. We were dropped off in the center of downtown and left to our own device to find our way to a bed.

I heard of a place called Hostel Casa del Parque that was located somewhere near the national park in San Jose, so I hailed a cab and we headed in that direction. Unable to create small talk, we cruised in silence aside from Christmas songs on the radio to which the driver would occasionally sing along in a horribly off key melody.

He dropped us off on the west side of the park, which is quite small, but pleasant to walk through during the day. At night it is a popular place to find drug dealers and prostitutes, as we were warned by a gentleman from North Carolina who welcomed us to Hostel Casa del Parque.

His name was Jim and he had been living in various spots across Costa Rica for the last seven years. Before then, he was touring with the Grateful Dead across the United States. He was forty years old and still partied like he was twenty, never being caught without a lit cigarette and a 40 ounce of beer somewhere nearby. He seemed hell-bent on never conforming to the American standard for a man his age, which is probably why he left the United States. I couldn’t help but admire and appreciate his stubbornness.

As we drank on the rooftop terrace, Jim explained that the hostel was one of the few aristocratic homes in the center of downtown that hasn’t been purchased by the city. Although the outside of the place looked slightly rundown with graffitied walls and barred windows, the interior was impressively decadent, embellished with oak floors, skylights and a spiral staircase. The terrace offered an awesome view of the park and the mountains that encircle San Jose. It’s also a great place to watch clouds pass above the city a night, as though the city were a steaming cauldron. 

The hostel turned out to be an excellent place to meet people who gave us insight on what to see and do during our stay. A French artist named Alex suggested that we check out Monteverde, a small town in the mountains of Puntarenas that is known for great hikes and tours through surrounding tropical rainforests. Without much further ado, my brother and I decided that we would be leaving for Monteverde the next morning.