another chapter

Well I don’t really have time to write this, as we have to catch a bus to san jose in 45 to start the first leg of my journey, but the last 24 hours deserve acknowledgement. Last night Rob and I went down to the plantation to tear it up with the folks for a night: salsa style. I can’t get over the people here. Some of the videos I have from last night are caricatures of hilarity. We stood out on the basketball court, surrounded by ticos, teaching them to shotgun. Every few minutes Wenceslao would ask us if it was time to shotgun yet. The ladies really wanted Rob and I to salsa, and there was no way we were salsaing with salsa experts without a little liquid courage in us. The Pilsen flowed like water and we were dragged onto the floor by Paola and Margarita, wives of Olger and Wenceslao, respectively. I had the absolute time of my life pretending I knew how to salsa, and I daresay that to the untrained Canadian eye it probably looks like I do. People kept handing us beers and the night flipped into fast forward as the room spun around us. All I could see were smiles in the blinking lights and the bass in my gut – they could hear the jungle rocking all the way up to Pacuarito where rob lives. There comes a point in nights like this where you don’t notice the language barrier anymore. After stumbling the crooked mile home down the railroad tracks rob and I gingerly kept to ourselves as we shuffled past some seedy gangsters out on the path. We passed out in our beds. . . or at least I think that’s what happened. Truth be told I woke up on the floor with my head on my backpack. .. not sure how that happened. Today we went down to the plantation when we were good and ready, rob puking every few minutes in the costa Rican humidity. Margarita kindly made up some beans and rice for me while rob passed and we talked awhile. I gave the two families a CD with some pictures from Canada and from my blog. Rob dropped off some Maple Syrup. I gave Wence and Margarita some Canadian coins as a souvenir, along with my Spanish-english dictionary with a little inscription thanking them for their hospitality. It couldn’t approach what I got from Wence. I’d commented one day on his bad ass machete sheath and he said he’d get me one. Today he presented me with a machete in a beautiful ornate leather sheath, hand cut and stitched with a pocket on it for a pocket knife and another for a cell phone. What a sign of the times. The gift is absolutely priceless to me and I will never forget these last two weeks. Time to pack out.

Pura Vida