Stupid American

A dog slept on its side right in the middle of the Plaza de Cultura. J wondered if he wasn't dead, but then his ears twitched. Like a novelty, the sun shone for the first time after three days in San Jose. People walked around the dog. People walked around the dog, and he lifted his head to see if anything was worth getting up for, but it was Monday morning, and it looked like he was just going to sleep in and show up late for work. 

J awoke to the bangs and pows of the ciudad's creaking joints as it stretched itself awake and its inhabitants threw open van doors and pulled out ramps to unload the day's commerce. He went to the sink and brushed his teeth, put on some shorts, grabbed his pen and notebook, some change for a periodico. He descended the stairs and strode into the street.

The change from Saturday and Sunday was dramatic: the formerly deserted street was very picture of bustle: cars and trucks spewing fumes jockeyed for position in the honking, beeping, putt-putting gridlock; a man maneuvered an oxcart full of coconuts through the madness; another, un viejo, bent under a hundred-kilo sack of onions, humped his way slowly up the street; suicidal scooter drivers wove through the chaos; vendors heaped tropical fruit on stands at every corner, joyerias rolled up their metal doors, electronics shops, opened their cages, pedestrians jammed the sidewalks in both directions, and heads turned to follow every pretty Tika that scampered past so that no one was looking where they were going, and you figured something was going to have to give, something was going to have crash, wham, slam, but when it didn't, j thought, it ran like an intricate seventeenth century Swiss watch.

He regretted not bringing his camera, but he assured himself with a touch of pride that he could capture it with ink, paper, and words.

 8-20-00 Su 12:45 (I still don't know what time zone this is)

We're in the Blue Marlin bar in the Hotel Del Rey, San Jose, C. R. Last night we went to the college bars around the University of Costa Rica. It reminded me of being in Ensenada, except the exhaust fumes in this city will kill you. We ate in some little place, some chezas or something--chicken, beef, and pork on a stick with French fries, and a couple of beers. It wasn't that great. We walked back along the crumbling streets across from the university to our shit-hole room. Ants were crawling all over our stuff so we wouldn't get homesick. We talked about going to El Pueblo, which is supposed to be a bunch of clubs, but decided to turn in instead. We woke up around seven. I walked around until I found an AM/PM donde se vende periodicos. I got the San Jose Times. Breakfast was served a little later than usual because it was Sunday. The tile floors were slick because of a little plumbing problem. They gave us coffee, juice, scrambled eggs, toast, rice, and beans. The portions in the country are not exactly overwhelming. I didn't realize it wasn't an all-you-can-eat affair until a Danish tourist informed me in an unmistakably bitchy tone that the senora was doing me a favor. Stupid American. We packed up and overpaid for our midget quarters and decided to try out luck at the Hotel Bienvenido. Eighteen dollars. The gal working the desk was very nice. She arranged for us to get a 4-wheel drive Hyundai with AC for the week for three hundred. They're going to bring it to us tomorrow at ten AM. We told her we were going to walk to the Plaza Cultural. She gave us a stern warning to take a cab back or risk being assaulted. We put our cash in safe. We walked the gray streets with a healthy dose of paranoia and stumbled into a decrepit slum, with whores calling out from doorways their prices for services at ten in the morning. "I think we could get a cheaper room here," I said. Ha ha. We finally found the plaza and the Teatro Nacional. The theater ain't much considering it's the country's national monument. We sat at on outdoor cafe at the Gran Hotel Costa Rica. I finally felt like I was on vacation in an exotic locale. I had a couple beers and Rochelle had a hot chocolate and watched pigeons dodge pedestrians. I vendor walked over playing a tune on a ceramic toucan, and I bought it. The nearby casino didn't tempt me at all. After about an hour we set out to find the fames/notorious Hotel Del Rey, a fisherman and whore hangout, with a casino and sports bar.