Mile-High Reflections
Trip Start
Aug 08, 2008
1
41
42
Trip End
Oct 12, 2008
San Jose,
Province of San Jose,
Costa Rica
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Just in the last week, I forgot to mention that I tried (and liked) guaro, Costa Rica's signature liquor made from sugarcane, and some of the local coffee liqueurs. Or that, after extensive taste testing, I found I prefer Pilsen to Imperial, because Pilsen has a little more bite to it. I didn't write about any of the great conversations I had floating in the hotel pool in Tortuguero with my dad, or walking along the beach or through the butterfly garden with my mom. I never told you that one of the "nothings" I did in the hotel room in San Jose was watching a movie in Spanish. It gave me a little thrill to realize I understood almost every word of dialogue. Maybe I've picked up more than I realized.
I took pictures, but never wrote about the weekly salsa classes at the Home Base, or the historian that gave a lecture the first week. I also took a picture of a dirty, soaked, stuffed rabbit in the gutter that I passed every day on the way to school (a route I can legitimately describe as "uphill both ways.") It looked so forlorn. And then there were the bugs; those bizarre fuzzy caterpillars that looked like lint balls, giant hairy spiders, and moths the size of parakeets.
I also noticed but forgot to mention in my summary of observations that Puma seems to be the most popular brand around here; apparently it's the most affordable. One of the books I'm reading mentions the phenomenon of "middle class" Ticos spending a month's salary on Reebok shoes. I wouldn't spend an entire Saturday night's worth of tips on a pair of shoes, but then, I am cheap.
No matter how obnoxious it was, I will probably soon forget the dissonant symphony of barking dogs every night, or the humidity that turned my cough drops into a pool of cough syrup at the bottom of my medicine bag. Almost every afternoon the dampness gave way to rain, which sometimes fell with such force, the drops bounced a foot off the ground. Occasionally it stopped before sunset, and a rainbow emerged.
I never took pictures of those kids who came by for help with their English homework, or the way the volunteers always arranged ourselves at the dinner table, or the place where we took our laundry. I have a few of the old church with its broken windows and sunken foundation, but they don't do it justice. I got some of the "NO TLC" graffiti in San Jose, but I still haven't looked up what that means.
I should have written about the fun we had playing Taboo or making late-night ice cream runs. Or the time we got stopped by the police for a drug search on the way back from Manuel Antonio. Or sharing one last bowl of popcorn and talking about boys with Anna, or those godawful microwaveable chicharrones (pork rinds, for you gringos.) Alli's pickup soccer games with the local teams, the bracelets Caitlyn was always weaving, Sarah's uncanny ability to deduce meaning from context, Brian's repertoire of Disney songs, Caroline's bartender stories, all the other volunteers, especially the Canadians (who turned out to be pretty cool, after all), Marta's special vegetable soup for when any of us got sick--these things were always around, so I never got around to writing about them. I had a Word document with a bullet-point list of stuff I wanted to weave into my entries at some point, and even now I've only just scratched the surface.
There will always be more to reality than there is to the story. Good writers make choices; instead of trying to cram everything in, they carefully select as few details as possible to make the narrative come alive. I never quite figured out what I wanted this to be--a good story that even strangers would enjoy reading, or a thorough and honest diary that just happened to be public? Even now, as my plane is about to touch down in Boston, I'm hamstrung by the twin conceits of thinking my blog is art, and thinking everything I experienced is important.
