Staying Put

Journal Entry
April 16, 2006
Montezuma, Costa Rica


I'm still in Montezuma and have just decided to ride out the rest of my trip here. I'm a little disappointed to not be seeing Manuel Antonio, but I just couldn't handle the thought of organizing another travel day for myself and trekking around alone, trying to find a place to stay etc, etc. Even more so though is the fact that here I'm staying with friends and everywhere I go in town there are people I know. I have totally become a part of the local scene and it's a really great feeling. Getting to know locals, as far as I'm concerned, is the best reason to travel anywhere. Unfortunately it's not always the easiest thing to accomplish, especially if you're staying for no more than a few days or a week. All too often you find yourself meeting tons of great people, but they are all fellow travelers searching for that same small piece of the local reality that you seek, and only being able to observe a piece of it from afar. I've got a really great situation here and I'm not about to give up even two extra days of it.


ana and i early in the saturday night festivities

Today, I made a return visit to Isla de Tortuga. This time I went with Marcos and Roberto on the Cocozuma Tours boat. I wasn't just tagging along this time either. Today I was like another employee, helping Roberto with the cooking (and doing the odd translation for the English speakers on the boat). Fue un dia muy tranquila. All of us were out last night (and pretty hard) as the whole town, and then some, seemed to be out in the street for a massive Saturday night party. It was the biggest night in a week of many big nights. I have only seemed to party really hard in a few places along the way these past few months and this is definitely one of those places. I started things on this trip with a week of partying in Whistler and I'm finishing them up with a week of partying in Montezuma. It has certainly been a lot of fun.


ana, roberto and i later...clearly things have escalated

Anyway, today I somehow managed to get up for the 9am boat departure and, after a morning of preparing lunch, I lay under the shade of the trees on the island soaking up the PURA VIDA all around me. In the background a mariachi band was playing music, some tunes familiar and others not, the pelicans were fishing on the crystal clear blue water, people were laughing and swimming and the breeze was calming and soothing in the trees and against my skin. It's moments like these when true understanding of Pura Vida hits home.

It translates to "pure life" and it's hard to spend any time in this beautiful country without getting it. Pura Vida is all around me here and not a day goes by that I don't just stop somewhere and take a "pura vida moment". Usually though, it's many times in the day.

When we made the return trip from the island we saw two different families of dolphins swimming happily along and jumping out of the water right along side the boat. PURA VIDA
Almost everyday this week I've met tour boats when they return from Tortuga in the afternoon and shortly thereafter I'm eating oysters plucked from the ocean floor by my friends mere hours earlier. I've never liked oysters more. PURA VIDA
Right now I'm lying in a hammock on the porch, listening to the waves crashing into the rocks down the hill and staring at a bright, haloed moon that has been on both sides of full all week long. PURA VIDA.
The list goes on and on!


una cerveza and oyster fresh from the ocean

It's a life I'm sure I would find it easy to sink into for longer. I've thought often this week about how nice, and frankly easy, it would be for me to come live and work here for at least a little while sometime in the future. Thinking it would be cool to maybe move here for a Canadian winter (high season here) sometime and just work on the tour boat and vive la pura vida. NEVER SAY NEVER! There are certainly worse decision I could make.

Right now, however, I am a mere 3 more nights on foreign soil. It's a little hard to believe that in just a few days I will be at home again, looking for my apartment and getting back to work. The stage of reflection has begun and I know it will continue, and only grow more intense, in the coming months after I'm home and back into my life's very unroutine, routine.