8th december

The bed is still the same Styrofoam moulding kit that I experienced before. The feathered songsters outside the guest room seem a little muted this morning however. I heard someone floating around so I get up and see what’s going on, walking into the kitchen as Danielle disappears throught he other side into the large hall. I saw the freshly made coffee pot and helped myself. I haven’t seen any of the household but not being a breakfaster, having grabbed a quick coffee and seeing no need to stand on ceremony, I set off early with the intention of walking to the airport to try to get a refund for my ticket. It doesn’t look far on the map.
When I flew out from Heathrow the airline people made me buy a return ticket. They claimed it was for visa regulations. Dave has given me directions but I’ve never been a great one for retaining information that I’m probably not going to use. I like finding places on my own reconnaissance. So, I set off, bearing left at the bottom of the drive and heading through the suburb. The sky is pale blue and cloudless, the air smelling of the fresh rain that dropped during the early hours. I have a t-shirt and jeans on but a word needs to be said about my trainers, I think. They were purchased about four years ago, an expensive declaration of the cool and stylish position I undoubtedly hold in the minds of those around me, and the wider public in general I should think. Hence, I bought O’Neill trainers, black and eye-catching and not cheap.
Listen to me, O’Neill’s corp. - they were crap! Both inners had come unsown within a month. Luckily, I didn’t lose them but became reluctant to throw them away, buying a pair of Nikes. Occasionally I would wear the O’Neills but always had to mess about with the inners, making sure they were in place before lacing up the damn things, and even then they would sometimes work their way up and I would have to relace them. The trainers sort of changed colour over the years, turning various shades of grey and lately, possibly a translucent brown. Looking at them now, I think I was a very short time away from inventing a completely new colour. It really was difficult to work out what it was. Anyway, I set off walking in these trainers because I like to get my ounce of blood out of everything I buy.
The birds are chirruping to me as I go by and the crickets are already happy darting around. The breeze is wafting, the sun is shining, the occasional stream is trickling and cyclists are cycling. And so the world spins. I pass mainly rectangular plots containing rectangular houses and for all I know, rectangular people. Nearly everything is single story, and most have various degrees of security measures on show, even if all they can afford is the stereotype large, loud dog.
The walk takes me about an hour and a half though the outskirts of the town, the airport being on the outskirts too. Early on, I see a sign that signifies the aeropuerto as being ‘that way’ (pointy arrow) and then another telling me that it was ‘4 kilometres’ away in ‘that direction’. I head the way the sign points and see nothing. I double back to check the sign and double back on my double back, heading the way I originally had, trusting to central American sense of direction. Ages later, I see the control tower in the distance so I abandon the signs which are obviously rubbish. It should be easy to find an airport, just watch a plane take off and head for the point where it departed the ground. The problem had been thus far that although I had heard many of them take off I couldn’t see anything.
So it was that I turned a corn and make the top of a rise and there is the runway with the tower in the distance. The runway is surrounded by high fencing so I walk around the perimeter in the direction of the tower until I come to a bustling building with planes and things in evident proximity. I approach a desk and am informed that this is in fact the cargo terminal and the passenger terminal is further down and I should go there. I’m on the right track so with a skip in my step I set off further down the road to the said building. I reach it and head for the desk signified as being staffed by United Airlines and they sympathise but politely inform me that I have to go to the main office in San Jose to get my refund.
I have walked for two and ah half hours. I sit and had a cigarette. Of course, I could take a taxi but its not as if I’m in a hurry to get anywhere. I like walking. You see things walking and I do believe it’s very good for your contemplative muscle. Whilst walking, your mind wanders just as much as your feet do.
The passenger terminal is on high ground and I’m sitting having my cigarette at the front of it finding that my vantage point has quite a good view of the town proper of Alajuela. The expressway runs right down there in front of me and beyond a couple of double lane highways that lead into the town centre radiate from a junction to my right. The expressway is the central Costa Rican section of the Pan-American Highway that runs right through the Central American countries. I’m not sure where the International mall is but it isn’t too far from the airport because Dave Sr. took me past it when he took my for a spin that first weekend. To my right I can also see the sign for the Hotel Mango and I know that the Frisius are somewhere close to that too. I think everything in Costa Rica is within a one-mile radius!
I clambered down the grassy bank to the side of the expressway and tried to work my way across. Its probably illegal but I’ll just plead ‘stupid gringo brain’ if anyone pulls me up on it. I manage to dodge the traffic successfully enough to get across and I head for the highway that stretches away and into the city, thinking it to be familiar.
It’s the Radial Francisco J. Orlich and it is familiar, being the one that runs right past the mall. I follow it to the mall, having to walk in the wide gutter most of the way due to not having a pavement. Maybe I shouldn’t have been walking there but it wasn’t as if I was the only one. It's amusing that they call it by such a grand name because it really is not very big. Having said that, it seems that the bigger the name, the smaller the shop. The mega supermarkets are literally about the size of somebody's pantry.
Amazingly, I find that I’m there too early and hardly anything is open. It’s 09.45. Deciding I’m hungry, I get a burger and drink from - strangely enough - a burger joint, and kill some time waiting for the shops to raise their shutters. I spend some time at the mall, not having seen a proper shop for over forty years and wondering at the marvels of smooth floors and smooth assistants. It’s ok, it has everything you would need but the shops have the habit of sending someone to stand at the doorway to shout at you and tout for business, telling you how good their stuff is and ‘what kind of shoes do you need?’ I find the PO Box’s and checked the PO box number that Jim mentioned in his e-mails. Dave had given me the key when I arrived along with the keys to the trunks and the PO Box number was on the cell phone box. I had made a note. The only mail in there is a telephone bill so I’ll give it to Dave when I get back. I'm not paying it! The name says ‘Rothman’ which I think is the name of one of the FGGM chappies.
Then I walk back up the radial to the junction and head for the Hotel Mango sign that is my point of reference to find the Frisius that also were not far away. After a couple of wrong turns, I eventually find the premises hidden in the trees. Dodging the traditional large loud dog on a sliding link chain, I knock on the door and Margot opens it.
“Hello,” she says. She seems to look right through me.
“Hi. Do you remember me?” I immediately know this will be hard work. “I’m David. Dave Gardella introduced us last month.”
“Yes. I remember.” She recognises me but she doesn’t seem pleased to see me. Doesn’t she know that I’m killing time and want to look at the Macaws? Entertain me!
“Well, I’m trying to get some things together for the tour and I wondered if I could talk to you, maybe take a few notes for the blurb. I just need some basic information and maybe get a couple of ideas. Is that ok?”
“Well, it’s not a great time really. Could we do this next week?” She doesn’t look like she’s letting me in.
“I have to go back to the farm at the weekend. It will only take ten minutes. Would it help if I came back later?”
“Well, not really.” She looks back into the house and then back at me. She opens the door a little. “Well, come in then”. I don’t think that she doesn’t want to see me; it just seems like an intrusion at this time. (David Jr. had warned me that she was a bit of a buzzard and I know that Dave Sr. is a little suspicious of them. I guess I am too). It’s tough going. We go inside and she gives me a little walk around, showing me some chicks that have just hatched and gives me a little bit of a talk.
“We don’t immunise them against anything. We let the body build up their own defences as they would in the wild.” She’s only going through the basics really and it’s obvious her mind is elsewhere. I decide not to push it too much and I don’t even see the point in taking any notes. I switch the conversation to Jim.
“Have you heard from Jim lately?” I ask.
“Jim? No. I haven’t heard from Jim for a long time. I don’t know what’s happening with him. He promised us some things but we’re still waiting. I think someone said that he was somewhere…”
“Morocco?”
“Morocco? Is that where he is now? We haven’t heard from him at all.”
“Has he done anything for you in the past?”
“Oh yes. He gave us some laptops. They were very useful in the forest. It’s much better to be able to log things on the laptop than using pencil and notebooks. The people in the forest can watch the birds and put everything that they see onto the computer.”
I am a little surprised. I had built up a picture of Jim as someone who goes around making empty promises, but it seems he does come up with the goods at least occasionally.
Margot’s English assistant Marty enters into the room. It seems that her father is extremely ill and she’s wondering whether to go back on today's flight or not. This is what is preoccupying Margot. Apparently, they also have a meeting tomorrow with the Ministry and some officials and they are worried about it.
Well, it’s an interesting place anyway, but I would not go back unless I was invited. Margot has not heard from Jim either and I was building up a disconcerting picture of his activities. What is he up to? He doesn’t seem that reliable - and he seems make promises and then vanishes.
I walk back to the house the way I came and calculate that I have walked approximately eighteen miles over a period of about nine hours with the couple of stops that I took. Back to my trainers. I take them off and find that I have a blister forming on the sole of my foot. It’s not there yet but it is tender to touch. ’How did that get there,’ I wonder. Looking at my trainers up close, the sole has become so worn that it is now paper-thin in places and eighteen miles of walking on asphalt has almost done them in. I decide to get some new ones and then I think to myself that I should wait. I still wear these in the rainforest from time to time when it is dry and even then, they get muddy and wet. No point in messing up a new pair. I’ll get a new pair when I leave the forest. It pleases me that I buy crap stuff and still get loads of wear out of them.
There are very few pavements in this country, especially out of town, and quite often the pavements that are there are remarkably high. To make the simple transition from walking on pavement to walking on road would require abseiling down the side of the kerb, incredibly up to a metre high in places. Also, the Jeeps, pick-ups, and lorries are quite wide which causes problems on narrower roads and the drivers don't stand on ceremony either. The bus drivers seem like nutters and the rest no better. These things and the tendency of drivers to swerve all over the road in trying, understandably, to avoid the ubiquitous potholes all contribute to the extremely high accident rate.
The addresses are given like directions presumably because of the marked absence of street signs and town signs. If I wanted to get a taxi to get back to the house, I would have to tell the driver to go “400 yards north of Otto’s bar.” Having tried to find the airport through street signs, I concur with this sensible development. It seems I walked the long way around the airport and if I had gone around the other direction, it would have saved me a couple of miles.
It might also be because the addresses are so boring. Where are the funny named streets?