Jaco City Limits

More than ready to leave that place, I messaged the host about my departure time.  He insisted on having the key physically handed over before leaving.  I waited around until Rita appeared again, handed her the keys, and went outside to wait.  It was only as I made multiple attempts to get an Uber that I realized I probably should have warned her about the trashcan.

She figured out pretty quickly that the lidded kitchen trash was now crawling with maggots.  Hey, not my fault.  All I did was throw the trash away.  I figured living in the jungle, the hosts would be accustomed to the mad bug issues (they had provided a can of bug spray), but judging by her call to her husband, it was still a surprise.  My Spanish stinks, but I distinctly heard her lament that ‘it’s only been a few days’ as she took the can outside to hose it out.

As I mentioned, it took several attempts to find an Uber as no one was available.  I sat outside the gate on what could only marginally be called a curb in the middle of nowhere as Rita puttered around in the apartment.  Eventually, she disappeared again without a word and I saw her jump onto a golf cart that sped her away.  And there I sat, swatting away bugs and sweltering in the sun all by my lonesome.  Travel can be so much fun sometimes.

I squealed in delight when I finally booked an Uber.  Dude showed up in a tiny car with no trunk, so he shoved my stuff into the backseat while I rode shotgun.  A silent 20-minute trip later and he dropped me off in downtown Jaco.  The Uber app couldn’t find the exact address, so I ended up in front of a tourist shop.  I had to walk a bit to get to the correct building.  The host came out to help me up the stairs.  Good thing too, because even with his directions, I wouldn’t have found the place.

The apartment, it turns out, is just up a set of stairs visible from the front of a glass-fronted building.  The first landing houses a gym while the next landing has a laundry room and a door behind a security code.  The host said I had free access to the laundry room and the gym while showing me into the apartment.  With lots of wood accents and cracks in the drywall, the place felt kind of old.  Still, it was clean with an obstructed view of the water.  An odd setup, but the place is already a step up from the last place simply by having two A/C units, one in the living room and one in the bedroom. 

Getting settled in, I discovered why my suitcase had been harder to manage during the walk to the apartment.  The rutty streets of Jaco had caused one of the wheels to fall right off.  Great.  I only just bought this suitcase a couple of months ago in Bangkok.  I had to buy that one because I found out in Sunny Beach that my original bag had developed a crack.  I really need these bags to last more than a couple of months.  I only hoped that I could find a replacement in a tiny beach town in Costa Rica.

The building is right around the corner from the beach.  This is a much livelier part of the ocean, making Jaco a beacon for surfers. There are at least three surf shops in town and a couple of stands on the beach offering lessons. The swell there is incredibly strong while the water is warm and inviting.

Having no interest in doing any more moving for a minute, I booked the place for another week.  Any other towns I might want to visit (namely Tamarindo, another popular expat spot) were hours away.  There was too much unpredictable rain to solidify any plans for tours or travel.  I mostly spent my time walking the main drag or hanging out on the beach.

The apartment itself was decent other than the noise.  There was construction going on all around the building.  There was a dude with an electric saw behind the house and a new building going up next door.  Then there was the gym downstairs with its loud music and the sound of weights hitting the ground.  The banging and clanging started around 7 a.m.  Good thing I’m usually up by then.

On Sunday night it began to pour outside.  It was the rainy season, so I didn’t think much of it.  Until the sound of water got really loud.  Like ‘in the apartment’ loud. I jumped up and turned the light on in the hall only to discover that it was the light itself that was leaking.  I quickly put a pot under the leak and messaged the owner.  Before I even heard a knock on the door, I heard all this banging and stomping above my head.  The leak soon stopped and I heard voices in the hall.  I opened the door to the owner and a woman ready to clean up.  He apologized and said he was looking for the source of the water.  After the initial surprise, I was more amused that annoyed.  I knew the place was old and it does rain a lot there.  I was just glad the owner lived in the building and was on the case so fast.

The next night the power went out. It had blinked a couple of times before, but, again, I didn’t think anything of it.  This time it was more than just a blink.  A quick check outside let me know that while the entire top floor was out, the gym was just fine. The hosts returned to switch on a battery powered light in the living room, assuring me that the power would probably be back on in a few minutes.  Again, I was just amused, even when the battery powered light shut off moments later.  The power came back on after about an hour.

I’ve been a homeowner and now been on the road for almost 6 months.  I’ve learned to roll with the punches.  So on Tuesday, I found myself wondering what was going to happen next.  Other than torrential rains (still the rainy season) there was nothing out of the ordinary to report.  The power went off again a few days later, but since it was during the day (and it wasn’t raining) I bugged out to the beach to wait it out.

My last place was still worse than this one.  At least I wasn’t killing bugs every morning while sweating buckets, so … shrug.

The town has plenty of restaurants, souvenir shops, and pharmacies.  I found a place that serves a great chicken chimichanga and strong, quickly disappearing adult beverages.  There are also places to rent ATVs and cars as well as stands promoting tourism.  One thing I was not fond of was the number of people wandering the streets panhandling.  I felt for them but quickly learned to clutch my purse a little tighter while on the street.

The thing is, I wasn’t feeling the pura vida (pure life) that this country is famous for.  Mostly, I just felt a sense of desolation.  I know that doesn’t make sense.  The place is green and pretty, the beach is great, the people friendly.  But there’s something underneath that feels like everyone is just getting by, like the laid-back attitude is there because there’s no point in reaching for something more since it’s not going to happen. I’m sure I’m just projecting some of my own weird feelings of displacement onto others but that’s still the impression I got.

This is an awesome place to have an adventure.  If you want to go there and rent a 4-wheel drive and just wander around, Costa Rica has much to see.  There are beaches, waterfalls, forests, and lots of animals.  You can go surfing, parasailing, ziplining – you name it, and it’s there.  But since I didn’t enter the country with that mindset, a lot of the place’s attributes were lost on me.  I can see dealing with the bugs and the heat and the crappy roads as part of a short-term experience, but actually living there?  I don’t think so.