I left Kelowna behind for Seattle where the JetBlue ticket agents dealt with our own luggage and the 5 massive duffel bags Glen Lahey of Kids Explore collected from the generous people and businesses of Williams Lake. The kind-hearted donated a countless array of items destined for the lucky few in the tiny poverty stricken villages surrounding Juanquillal on the country's north east coast.
JetBlue and Kids Explore have combined efforts to not only help the needy but to save lives, to date they have delivered 13 40 foot containers to the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
From Seattle after an hour of banter with the check in desk we jumped on a 747 for the 5 hour flight to JFK in New York. After the plane quickley filled the pretty stewardess direct Glen and I to the emergency aisles for ourselves to stretch out in much to the dismay of the other minions around us. Glen had the gift of the gab and the employees really liked Glen and apprecitaed what he was doing for these poor people in the Caribbean.
The business of getting the goods where they are needed most is not new to Lahey but the bureaucracy of a new country was. Costa Rican immigration officials seized the swelling duffel bags. After a frantic hour of pleading minced with a bit of yelling and lots of sweating we were assured that the goods would be waiting for us at the immigration office in Liberia on Monday morning. Glen doubted that very much.
Our shuttle carried us a kilometer to the rental car mall, not long were we on our way with a mid sized Toyota and a wing and prayer.
Finding Liberia from the airport was a piece of cake, finding reasonable bar to have an ice cold beer wasn't. A few come back on ourselves, a right here and a left there, we found the typical city center square where people went for whatever reason. It was the community square and wherever there is a community square there is at least one bar and yes we found it. After a quick refresher it was time to head out.
From Liberia we headed for the coast to find a $60 a night waterfront hotel Glen promised existed but I was skeptical. We rolled into a tourist infested Tamarindo. Surf shops and restaurants dotted it. Blonde brown skinned surfers greeted each other with "dude" and throngs of other US, Canadian and European groups mingled along the villages main road looking relaxed and trendy. Our dinner consisted of a pulled chicken and and yam fries at a no frills restaurant run by a couple of young *local tipicos who complained the Canadians were the worst tippers. *(Costa Ricans)
The Tamarindo Best Western was going to have to do, Glen got the Argentian kid at the front desk to $75 a night for a small room with a cot, the maintenance guy struggle to get up some stairs and into our tiny room. By the time the bed was in every trip to the toilet would become a mini obstacle course but at the end of the day it had AC and a balcony and with a local sweating Pilsner clutched in our hands.
Saturday came and went and Sunday was a steamy 32 and Glen was hell bent on seeing a beach. The BW front desk Argentian gave us a crash course on roads in the area and gave us the disappointing news that there were no coastal roads along paradise. Most of the roads leading to the hundreds of beaches were dusty, gravel veins twisting through small villages consisting mixing of poor and rich lifestyles. The charred countryside looked like it was ready for the rainy season yet vibrant green patches of varieties of flora and fauna ran rampant along Hwy 21. Columns of black smoke rose contrasted against a blue sky from garbage burning. The country was immacualtely clean and the people were extremely friendly and helpful and it was hard to get annoyed when things took twice as long. Costa Rica is the kind of place that reminds you of what it is like to live life.
Fate tooks us to Playa Arrellana. The large beach was peppered with night black lava rock and an array of locals and tourists dotted the sun drenched beach. Surfers out in the distance patiently waited for that wave to sail them through the sticky air. Others crested the waves with a jump or duck. We were on tight budget and Glen hoped to get a $25 a night room with oceanview but I was starting to doubt it. We had no reservations for any nights nevermind this night. It After a quick visit to Playa Arellana, a surfers paradise, where the wide open beach met with aqua blue waves which crashed in on a variety of beachgoers dotting the landscape under a scorching sun which could render you sunburnt in 10 minutes, we headed out into the unknown the dusty roads lead us
From Playa Arrellana we headed south into the unknown. Our rental car guided us through the windy pot holed roads intermixed with stretches of gravel roads until we reached an odd enclave named Jaunquilal. Glen decided that he would trust his instinct and climb a dirt road into a hotel named Iguanazul. Upon rolling into the parking lot you were invited by pathways draped in beautiful flora and fauna. The odd gecko and even a fair sized iguana would cross your path, stop, look at you, then slither off.
Glen stumbled across this place after seeing a weathered faded sign, he made his way to reception after parking near a lush forested area and I retreated to the shade. The wind rattled the palm trees contrasted against a dark blue sky making the scene look like some kind of surreal dream.
Iguanazul was a paradise lost literally the 20 year old hotel had seen better times economically and was now a big hotel with few guests. The high ceiling rooms with red tiled floors were basic but were air conditioned and had million dollar views. Their beach was one of the most beautiful and secluded beaches I had ever seen. It was called Costa Rica for a reason, it had literally hundreds of beaches along both coasts, a place where you could easily disappear from the world.
David McCaig from Vancouver ran the Iguanazul for twenty years. The tourist boom had disappeared and you could count the amount of people passing through on your hands and feet. Jones had cut Glen a deal on our rooms for a week.
Monday morning we headed to the Liberia customs office to see the status of the charitable goods being held for cash. The main customs guy, a friendly overweight man in his sixties promised he could help us through his interpretor teenage son.
The customs guy had to inspect the duffel bags which were being brought over by airport staff where the goods languished overnight. Each item was itemized and then hand written on a piece of paper Glen and I had to sit there waiting as he check marked and tapped in the prices into an old computer while his son and another aged man played games on their computers, an annoying bleep would go off every few seconds breaking the awkward silence. Eventually after beating the crap out of the calculator he passed it to Glen. He looked like he seen a group of ghosts. The price to release the goods were $800. I could tell Glen was about to cry in anger. After some wrangling and idle threats never to do business with Costa Rica again and help the countries needy the Liberian agent cut it in half to $400, then after more whining and a threat to go to the local media he dropped it to $240. But you would have to come and pick it up tomorrow when the paperwork was
After 9 trips to the Dominican in two years I could tell right away the latter was the poorer country and Costa Rica was well off in comparison to alot of other Caribbean and Central and South American countries. For one the country is immaculately clean and Costa Ricans take pride in their country except eating the odd turtle or it's eggs.
After a long day and frantic but beautiful ride back we dragged our tired and sweaty bodies into the dark parking lot of the Iguanazul in Juanquillal. A few cold beer were in store.
At the bar I met Dave Keist hunkered over his beer and I could tell he was traveling through dark days. Keist was a neighbor to the Iguanazul for 9 years since leaving behind the US for a piece of peace. But that wasn't coming anytime soon, he and his wife were in a bitter battle for the same property and the deadline for the case loomed a few days into the future and the thought of it brought him down into borderline despair mixed with terror and tinged with lonliness.
The grizzled Kiest was a journalist, without a pot to piss in, worked on countless high publicity crime cases in Fort Lauderdale in the seventies, then moved to Alabama in the eighties. His cheat sheets read like a mafia/gangs horror novel. Going from murder to murder, courthouse to courthouse to write about the worst of the worst of humanity covering The Outlaws Motorcycle Club during their rein of terror in Florida, the brutal hits the mafia carried out to the rise of The Triads in the bible belt. Many of his headlines involved torture and mutilation at the crime scenes, death threats were common along with the funerals he covered. A fire begins to rise in him when he talks about his bygone newspaper days. He talks about his good buddy Al Rockoff, who was portrayed the the Academy Award winning The Killing Fields. He told me a story when a group of Japanese photojournalists came into the newspaper for a visit and Keist brought Al Rockoff's name up in conversation and one of the Japanese men got all excited and said " I know Al Rockoff, he taught me how to shoot burning tank without dying in explosion!"
But quickly between the news stories he is lost to bouts of depression over his local beer as he slips back into the nightmare of losing his acre of paradise to his wife.
Glen and made sure the rental car received a good pounding. The veins of roads stretching from city to village some only a dirt road with every vehicle pass belched out a red storm. The windows went up ahead of time and went down as it settled but this Costa Rica road ritual was repeated constanly. The Argentian guy at the Tamarindo Best Western wasn't lieing when he said the roads were hit and miss.
But every road took you to a new town hidden from the world. A group of spiders monkeys danced from tree to tree while we ate at a local Costa Rican home turned restaurants on any road headed towards any beach the signs told you to follow.
Back at the Iguanazul the peacful nights with the sound of waves crashing and a bright moon set against a star peppered black drape it was easy to forget the rest of the world for moments.
The next day we had to get up early because the kids were showing up for a party at the resort and to receive a gift from the overflowing duffel bags Glen brought from donations from generous people and businesses in Williams Lake.
I was ready! Had both a stills camera and a HD Sony palmcorder in position to record the onslaught. It was calm and first and then they started to stream in like popcorn on a stream. Then the kids would break apart and make small pools around the carefully seperated charity merchandise Lahey had lugged half way around the world which consisted of second-hand shoes and toys. The parents swarmed in and hovered around ther curious kids and for a few seconds we all believed a riot was imminent.
Glen tried his best to quell the situation in really bad Spanglish but it was no use, they didn't understand a word he was saying. I could only film and try not to burst out laughing. Glen looked at me in desperation but I didn't sign up to be a translater. Not long after a female employee took the reins and stuff was even put back so it could be distributed fairly. Glen pulled it together and everyone left happy but not without a hot-dog, drink and a dip the the Iguanazul pool.
The last couple of days were spent marvelling at even the smallest things in Junaquillal, Costa Rica. A beautiful country with so much to offer. It recent years certain areas were hit by the economic downturn but the beauty of the country and the safeness lures people to the Central American jewel.
Costa Rican photographs:
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