18th november

Did not sleep well. I gave up trying to sleep on, in or under the sleeping bag and eventually used it as a pillow but I think it heated my head up! The sleeping bag is crap! It is tapered so that the foot end is quite thin, but I like to stretch my legs when I sleep (as I may have mentioned 97 times!) Not to mention that it is too hot for this climate. Everything else was okay; I just need to sort out a pillow. Having said that, I’m moving into the double bed tomorrow, the one in the bedroom. It’s a decision I’ve made.
I wake up at 6:30 to the usual percussion of the rain on the roof, and I get up. I know I have fresh underpants and I’m looking forward to putting them on - small victories count for a lot at a time like this! As I am searching through my cupboard for said underwear, something moves – there’s a fucking bat in my cupboard!!!! Hanging upside-down from a hanger next to my shirt!!
Whassat all about?
It shuffles around a bit and stretches its wings and just when I think its about to take flight, it just folds itself up again and, I presume, goes back to sleep. I don’t know enough Spanish to find out what its plans are so I don’t speak to the bat. It doesn’t seem too perturbed either but it knows I am here.
I thought bats hung around in colonies. Costa Rica is a republic. No wait – that came out wrong. Let me try again …
I thought bats hung around in colonies. This one is on its own. Is it outcast, a loner? Doesn’t like the smell in the batcave? I watch it hanging from the hanger and wonder how anything could be happy spending so much time with its head in its own armpit. And boy, are they ugly!
I have a headache. I need a coffee - actually, I need a tea but there isn't any. I put on the clothes I had grabbed from the cupboard after shaking them out – I want to make sure there wasn’t anything else lurking around. I had just got downstairs when Over comes over and wants to show me the trails.
“I just got up,” I tell him in English knowing full well he can’t understand English but fully expecting him to read my mind. “I need a coffee before I can go anywhere.” I’m hoping that the international mayday signals of bleary eyes and ‘bag-of-potatoes’ face transcend language and borders.
He looks me up and down as if to assess me. Why is everyone out to assess me?
“Quince minutes por favor,” fifteen minutes I ask and without waiting for an answer, put the kettle on to show him I am serious. It’s something I believe to be important in life – always put the kettle on when you’re serious.
I have a coffee and fill up my plastic satchel with stuff - a small map of the area, my camera, pencil and notebook, Spanish dictionary and ciggies. I consider taking food, not knowing how long we are going to be out there but I decide against it cos I didn’t want to appear like a nonce! I’m sure if hunger struck us, we’ll hunt down a woolly mammoth or something. I put on my work boots and set out, going down to the swamp and across the bridge, passing yesterdays handiwork as I go and sidestepping the spare planks. On the other side, Over comes out of his house wearing rubber boots.
“¿Estos ok?” I ask him pointing at my workboots. These ok?
“No” is the cursory reply. I come back and change into the odd wellies that I made my own yesterday. I bang them against a wall to clear the mud and a lizard drops onto the floor adroitly and scampers off. (Whether it was the same lizard as before or a different one – I don’t know. That would be something that the lizard community would organise amongst themselves). I go back across the bridge to find that the sun has come out. I lose my footing on the bridge still wet from the rain shower, slipping on the bridge in my bi-sized wellies and I feel my stomach muscle go a bit*.
I’m ready. Over looks readier but I guess that’s to be expected. He turns and strides away down the side of his house and across the lawn, slipping between some trees at the side of the creek. I follow. Negra is padding around unruffled, expectant and decidedly unexcited by events. The creek runs right behind Over’s house, coming within twenty or thirty metres at the closest part so we are almost immediately upon the creek and looking for a way across and into the forest for real. We walk along the creek for a few metres and then take the log that had been placed across. A plank lay next to it. The log and plank are just like the planks on the bridge – wet and slippery, although these are also mossy or slimy because of their persistent dampness.
For the next two hours, he leads me around this particular trail and I have no idea where we are going, quickly losing my sense of direction. I’m half expecting Predator to appear. It is like Jurassic park. Every time he thrashes at the undergrowth, the forest spits out a hundred flies and bugs into the air that have to then settle somewhere, usually on our skin by way of our hair. I am forever wafting my arms around through irritation. If I get too close to him as he forges his way through the foliage, I find the branches and leaves springing back and whipping me, hence I keep my distance. I now know what the machetes at the house were for. Over is there chopping lots of things into bits and I am machete-less, half naked. It won’t happen again.
All the while he is leading me around, Over is muttering. I’m not quite sure that he’s talking to me – he know’s my Spanish was poor – but it is undoubtedly for my benefit. I understand bits of it and I find that if I keep saying 'si' and repeating the last word of the sentence, it prompts him on. He would say ‘si’ too. I’m sure it helps his confidence. I tell him I needed a chica to teach me Spanish.
Eventually, he leads me down a slope though some sparse foliage and to the bank of a marshy area. It’s quite wide, the water is knee deep and I don’t see a bridge anywhere. Thick shrubs down the sides bound the waterlogged area so I wonder what he has up his sleeve here, supposing we would have to go around. He walks up to the water’s edge and just wades right in and I watch the water come up to his thighs. ‘Ah,’ I think to myself. ‘That’s how we do it.’
Hell, I follow him. Why not? Except, I think I can see a way to walk on the grassy clumps and not get so deep in the water. It works because I take a slightly different route to his and the water never quite comes over the top of my boots, which leaves me with dry socks. We wade through this marsh for about forty or fifty metres, going around a heavily forested bit and I think I am in an Indo-Chinese Delta looking for the Vietcong. Should have bought my rifle and bandanna. Clambering onto firm land I feel like the application of British logic and common sense has saved me a soaking and then I glance at Over’s Boots. One of them has a great split in it behind the heel and water is pouring out. There was no point whatsoever in him taking the clump route because his boots leak anyway.
He leads onward and almost immediately we are upon the creek again and I can see his bungalow on the other side. There’s another log across the creek here but it is less substantial than the first and it is not accompanied by a plank. Half way across, one of my boots skids across the log and off the side and I find myself thigh deep in creek. So much for staying dry. I drag my leg out as quickly as I can and continue without making a big deal out of it. No point in being a nonce. I get to the opposite bank and I can hear the captive water in my boot squelching around as I tread. I suddenly wished I had a split in my boot like the one over has behind his heel – that way the water would drain away without me having to put on a show of taking off my boot. Ho hum!
From my satchel, the dictionary is the only thing I used when trying to decipher Over’s words I broke the pencil somehow. He says he will show me the other trails tomorrow...
Oh, and apparently there is a resident croc frequenting the creek outside Over’s house…
At 9.40am - the boy goes to school. What bloody hours does he keep anyway?
I work on the bridge for a while and after half-an-hour it starts to rain and it looks like it could be set in so I head indoors and have a coffee. My wellies are full of sweat because I was not wearing socks and the suction made them virtually impossible to take-off. I had a blister on my right little toe from the wellies. I would have expected it to be on my left foot, which was the too-tight one.
It pours down big style and I take a couple of pictures of the water pouring off the roof. I like the rain here.
The bridge is finished apart from just banging the nails into the planks. Once again, there is a big drowned beetle, like a cockroach, floating in the cold coffee at the bottom of the mug. I wonder how long it swam for before it succumbed. I wonder what exactly killed it. Exhaustion? I read somewhere that a cockroach can be born (or ‘egged’ – whatever), it will then run around and do its stuff, mate and then die, and in all that time it doesn’t actually need to eat anything. It can live, mate and die without eating anything. Blimey.
So I pour away the unfortunate drowned cockroach. It reminds me of my childhood when, as a family, we had a smallholding. Among other things, we kept ducks and my mate Andy and I were wandering around one day when I heard him say ‘hey, one of your ducks has drowned.’
I mean, how can a duck drown? I followed his gaze to where I could see a white tin milk pail, like a big tin jug with the top narrow than the bottom – like they have here in fact. It had been half full with rainwater and the duck had obviously dived in to investigate and not been able to get out again. Hence it drowned. There it was with just its feet and feathery butt sticking out of the top. It takes a pretty stupid duck to drown. Sunday lunch was especially nice …
My boots won't come off again... must wear socks. I look at my watch - twelve noon. Time seems to pass really slowly here. It’s not that I am bored, it’s just that time seems to go ... slowly. Still, my day is measured by sunlight anyway. It has been light for six-and-a-half hours and there are only five hours of light left
I take my coffee upstairs onto the balcony where I watch a spider complete a web whilst affixing my trousers to the post. They’re only transitory mate – they’re not staying there for long! They are not a fixture, know what I mean?
I have lunch - hot dogs again but I pierce them this time. I wash the tomato under the tap even though I'm about to fry the hell out of it. The tomatoes I bought are the size of apples. I will have an egg too and I will do the dogs for longer this time …
When they are ready, the skin has again turned to crispy cellophane so I peel it off. It comes off in one piece and looks like some kind of sadistic condom. I put my dishes in the sink and see that it is full of ants so I swill them all away.
There is a heron wading around in the swamp ...
After a while, I notice I am being bitten so I go back inside and onto the balcony, have a banana and return the skin to the rain forest - poetic!
I look at the Sun by mistake, look away, and then close my eyes. The image is still there on my retina in fluorescence. It is dumb-bells! No, wait - a bone. No, wait again - a spanner! It slowly fades. I hear lots of buzzing but I don't see any flies. Some are loud, close and ominous. I go for a top-up of repellent and return to the hammock, waiting for the sun to disappear behind the top of the hill.
I wash my hands and the sink is full of ants again. Rats, once electrocuted are twice shy. Yet, the ants have come back for more punishment. How are insects so successful? Seem pretty dumb to me…
I decide to light the stove, not because I need to, but because I can! It gets rather smoky - much worse than yesterday so I have to open the door to get a breeze blowing through. I used wet wood. I decide to have a coffee. I decide to use the wood stove to boil water instead of the gas stove, not because I have to but because I can! I fill the kettle to the brim instead of just enough - not because I have to, but because I can! By the way, the wood stove is not actually wooden - otherwise it wouldn't last long...
4.55 - It is almost too dark to write so I light a candle. Boy, is it raining now! I put a big chunk of gavilán wood on the stove to see if it will burn okay. I have put the big stew pot full of water on the stove. I don’t know what I will do with it when it was ready but ... hey, I’m doing it because I can!
I make a pillow with a T-shirt stuffed with clothes…
I find a clean white towel (surprisingly) possibly that Joe or Dave left. I washed it anyway but it wouldn’t be dry until tomorrow.
I have an all-over hot wash with the water from the big stew pot. I knew it would come in handy for something. A bowl of hot water will always come in handy for something, is what I have always said. You can’t have enough hats, gloves, shoes, or bowls of hot water. At this point, I want put some clean clothes on but they are all stuffed into my pillow. Well, you can’t have everything, can you?
I go upstairs and transfer the bed sheets onto the double bed. One of the sheets is orange and the other is a nondescript flowery pattern. Both are very thin. After several hours of trying to get them square on the mattress and fighting hell-for-leather with the rebellious mosquito netting, it’s ready. It’s actually quite a convoluted process of untucking, moving, plumping, padding, squaring, throwing, placing, pulling, altering and then tucking in again until finally, everything is right. The mosquito netting really needs tucking in under the mattress along with the linen so that bugs and scorpions cannot climb the bed frame and squeeze under there with you. And it needs to be that way all day.
I don’t mind sharing. God knows I’ve woken up with one or two scary monsters in the past – but I have my limits.

The cupboard
I’ve decided its time to reach the parts that other beers cannot reach. I’m going to open the Pandora’s Box that masquerades as the small cupboard upon which the gas stove rests. I have my doubts though. It is not for mortal man to tamper with the realms of long dead cupboards such as this one. I fear the wrath of the legions beyond the veil. I fear the revenge of the otherworldly. I fear the worst.
Chocs away! I’m going in!
Gathering my meagre strength and fragile determination, I approached the sepulchre with a dread feeling that nagged and strained at the darkest recesses of my mind like a Hound from hell pulling at his lead. Outside, the sky was blackening and the clouds churned and I knew a storm was approaching this place of the sum of all darkness. The temperature dropped sharply and I could see my breath crystallising upon contact with the air. The cupboard rested there against the wall. It had rested there, putrefying, mouldering, for centuries and it rested still, forbidding me, daring me on, mocking me! Oh, how it mocked! The Damned thing. Look at its colour! I wanted to turn back but I’d gone too far. ‘I mustn’t do it. It’s a bad place.’ But I must! I must! It was written. It was my destiny!
The rest of the room shimmered and faded away until it was just the handles and me. I stretched out my arms to their full extent and touched the ungodly things, burning my skin but I wouldn’t release my grip! Wouldn’t or couldn’t – it was all the same now! I was frozen! As I tugged at the unyielding doors, the blisters formed quickly and I felt my forehead breaking out in a cold sweat. God, my throat was dry! Is that a clammy hand on my shoulders? Who is that whispering in my ear? Go way! I must prevail! The voices are all around me! Digging deep, I forced my poor pitiful mind, giddy with fear, to compel my sweaty hands to heave again at the unwilling doors, held together as they were with the rot and decay of the sinful centuries. Prickly heat hit me all over and goose pimples rose until I had skin like the surface of a golf ball.
I was paling at the task now before me. ‘I’m not man enough! Let me go! Let me go!’ But they wouldn’t let me go and I somehow found a previously untapped well of strength from within. Steeling myself for a great last effort before I too joined the realms of the abandoned, the doors gave just enough to release a puff of purple smoke emanating from within as the festering seal was finally broken, a strange, low groan filling the room. I saw something skulk away into the corner of the cupboard, some hideous malformed shape that time forgot, something too gruesome for my eyes to comprehend. My eyes! My eyes! They screamed with pain – I hadn’t blinked for torturous long minutes.
Horrifying visions of decay and eternal anguish fumbled blindly through the ethereal mists of my subconscious mind, the lies of all mankind mingling with the truth of it all. My hopelessly inadequate, besieged senses were overwhelmingly assaulted with the images of the undead and the unborn. ‘Leave me alone!’ I silently screamed but there was no one to hear me, no one to help me. They pleaded with me for release, release from eternal damnation but I couldn’t help them. Oh, their pain! There was no one. No one except the undead and the unborn. A crack of lightning split the air outside and I knew that soon the legion forces would gather and merge. And then there was only the end.
‘They are here!’ The voices of the aeon-dead filled my ears until they became a deafening roar, a crescendo of the pain of the multitudes of all the tenants of this unholy place who came here to learn and for their sins, died here…
“Aaarrgghh!”
… and there it was, some herbal tea … the probable cause of death. I’ll have some of that later.
Oh, and some crayons.

This gavilán takes a long time to burn. It’s ok because I can vary the different types of wood depending on what I want them to do. If I just want the fire to smoulder on a low heat I can use a wood like gavilán, but if I want some real heat for cooking or boiling water I could use some rotten wood or a lighter type that burns more quickly.
I put the big stew pot on again and then fill up the stove with wood. It occurs to me that if it doesn’t burn properly, I could die of monoxide poisoning due to fumes so I blow it hard to get a flame. It makes me sweat. I get a hair full of ash and I hyperventilate. Actually, it is unlikely that I would suffocate because there are no windows, which is a shame because the place could probably do with fumigation anyway - again, an unlikely occurrence.
I have a very slight stomach ache cake possibly due to the new bacteria. I can imagine my old bacteria trying to fight off the new bacteria in my stomach and there is a raged battle with one group shouting 'Yakult! Yakult!' as a battle cry and the foes chanting ‘Danone’ back at them.
Hey, this stove looks cool - there is a lovely glow and it is very homely. It is quite soothing in the dark when there is no other light and nothing else to do. It's strange the drawing power of fire to humans. Every other animal seems to avoid it at all costs... bizarre. But then, I can’t really imagine a meerkat with a blowtorch…
Stayed up late this evening – almost 9pm! I head off to my new bed. I take up a coffee and have a cigarette before I turn out the candle. I put my portable transistor radio within reach so that I can listen to some music if I want to. I also have TCP and Germoline within reach if I need them. In fact, I have everything I need to survive for several years in bed if I have to.
Here comes that train again – with loads of rain this time…

Friends Over/TCP
enemies insects/ sleeping bag
undecided bat