This particular morning was not unlike the beginning of any other day on this trip — completely ignorant of what lay ahead, but comforted by the casual ambivalence that youth provides. We were three guileless gringos, hitchhiking our way out of San Jose, Costa Rica on our way to the Caribbean port town of Puerto Limon. Guided by our ten-year-old National Geographic map, we were taking the “highway” from the capital to the coast, which turned out to be not a highway at all, but rather the most charming of roads, winding through hilly jungle interspersed with coffee plantations, called “fincas.” Now all we had to do was find some kind soul willing to share their transportation. I had learned that traveling with two young, attractive women, was helpful in this endeavor — we didn’t have to wait too long for a ride. On this particular morning, we were almost three months into the trip.
“We” were three college grads from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. I was traveling with my love interest at the moment, Sara and her childhood friend, Nancy. At this point in our adventure, I was frustrated with Sara and at odds with Nancy, but we were too far into the trip to quit.
Just then, a well-used VW Beetle pulled over and a young Rastafarian with long dreadlocks offered us a ride.
“Donde vas?” he inquired, (where are you going?).
“Puerto Limon”, I said.
“Por que Limon?” he asked, (why there?).
“Barco para Colombia,” I answered, (boat to Colombia).
Fortunately, our driver spoke better English than I did Spanish and we were able to share with him our goal of securing a place on a Colombia bound freighter. As there’s no road to Colombia from Panama, we’d determined we’d have to get there by water, since flying was out of the question, as it didn’t fit our budget. So far, we’d gotten all the way from Detroit without leaving the surface and were confident we could maintain that strategy to accomplish our objective: Colombia.
Why Colombia? When we originally planned this trip, a fellow from Colombia was supposed to accompany the three of us, some bartender from Ann Arbor that Nancy knew. He mysteriously canceled out at the last minute; that’s if you believed he ever existed, which I didn’t. I think she made the guy up to overcome my reluctance to travel overland through Central America with two women. It was 1974 and I felt justified in my concern of the dangers inherent in such a journey, but testosterone won out in the end.
Back to the day on the trip. Our Costa Rican driver, ‘Ticos’ as they call themselves, soon lit up a ganja joint, which I readily shared with him. It was a little early in the day to be getting stoned, but I was caught up in the moment. We listened to his music and enjoyed the ride until he pulled over and said that he was turning, and our road was straight ahead. We were now on the outskirts of town, and the “road’ had turned to gravel, framed by large palms, a tunnel into the foreboding jungle. Verdant hills were visible in the distance, leading to the Caribbean Sea, somewhere beyond.
Standing there in this idyllic countryside, basking in the warm sun, a large, tandem axle flatbed truck pulled up and offered us a ride in the back. We gladly accepted, throwing our backpacks onto the bed and hoisting each other up. Sara typically needed more help than Nancy, who was loathe to admit that she ever required my assistance. We put our gear next to the bags of goods they were hauling and I stood behind the cab, looking down the road, enjoying the buzz and the beauty of the Costa Rican countryside. It was a great day for an adventure!
It soon became one too. An hour or so into what I guessed would be a five- or six-hour ride to the coast, something up ahead interrupted my daydreaming. Something was entering the road from the jungle. Some kind of animal, one I didn’t recognize. Something I’d never seen before. Not this big anyway. It was a snake — a big orange and black boa constrictor! And it was crossing the road.
“Snake!” I cried, desperate to get my oblivious companions’ attention.
The driver had seen it too and swerved to hit it. The big truck ran it over and bounced violently in the air, giving us a jolt. Looking back, we could see the big critter, 10–12 feet long, rolling over from the impact. We watched in awe as the creature ‘righted’ itself and continued crossing the road, disappearing into the jungle.
“Oh my God!” I said, still not believing my eyes. ”Did you see that?”
The girls nodded silently, also awestruck by both the size and resiliency of the beast. We’d all seen snakes before, but nothing like that.
Not five minutes later, the truck slowed and pulled to the side of the narrow road. The driver got out and walked back to us, blurted out something in Spanish and pointed down a narrow two rut ‘road’ branching off the main road.
“Donde vas?” It was my turn to ask.
“Roxana”, he replied.
What? I frantically checked my map: no Roxana. Hell, no other road off this one, period.
“Ferrocarril aya,” he repeated, gesturing to the other side of the road. I looked and could see a well-used foot path leading off the road and into the jungle.
Since it was apparent he was serious, we reluctantly got our gear and got down. This heartless bastard was letting us off in the land of giant snakes, including one very pissed off one. Great. And on top of that, he’s recommending we go for a walk through the jungle! We stood numbly on the dirt road and watched the truck shift gears and disappear down Two Ruts Road to Roxana. I remember thinking that we hadn’t seen another vehicle in at least a half hour, maybe longer. As the noise of the truck faded away, the sound of the jungle gradually became apparent; we hadn’t really heard it until now.
My buzz was instantly gone; my instincts were kicking in. What had he said?
“Now what?” Sara demanded.
She looked at me expectantly. I was again reminded that she was a contributing factor to my being lost in the wilds of Central America. She was the quintessential blonde, blue-eyed American girl, with whom I was infatuated.
Ferrocarril? What was that? I’d heard it before. He said “ferrocarril over there”, pointing down the path. I took out my trusty English–Spanish dictionary and sounded it out: ferrocarril. There it was — railroad.
“Hey!” I said with false conviction. “He said that there’s a train down that path, somewhere.”
We talked it over: should we trust the guy who just abandoned us here and leave the road, go into the jungle – where the giant snakes live – and look for a train, or take our chances here? I went a little ways down the path — it looked okay, well-travelled. Still, the thought that it somehow led to a train — seemed implausible.
“Well, there aren’t any cars on this road.” Nancy said. “Let’s go for it.”
She was right — nothing was happening on the road. We strapped on our packs and gathered at the beginning of the trail; I took out my Swiss army knife and opened the blade.
“I guess I’m going first.”
“You’ve got the knife,” said Nancy.
With that, we stepped off the road and into the jungle.
Preparing for a deadly snake attack with two women glued to my back was daunting, but we progressed, one step at time, until we heard the sound of rushing water: a river. One without a bridge to get to the other side. While it was only 100 feet or so across, there was no telling how deep it was. Our options were bleak: take a chance crossing the river, or go back down the trail, where the snake was sure to be waiting, and take our chances hitchhiking. Choosing the former, we started taking off our boots and were about to enter the river when we heard the sound of a motor, a diesel motor. It was distinct and originated from somewhere around the bend, up the river. As it grew louder, I saw the second most unusual occurrence of the day: a dump truck, a really big mother, was coming around the bend, in the middle of the river!
We stood there, mouths agape as the biggest dump truck we’d ever seen pulled up in front of us. The driver, a young black guy with a gold front tooth smiled and said in a Caribbean accent:
“How you doin’ today?”
After recovering from the surprise of hearing English spoken, I answered:
“Okay, you?”
“Jus’ fine, mon. Where you goin?”
“We heard there was a railroad nearby.”
“Oh yah mon,” he grinned. “It’s just up ahead. Climb up and we go.”
That was easier said than done. He appeared to be two stories above us, made worse by the fact we were knee deep in the river.
“How do we get up there?” I asked.
“Oh come round to the udder side mon. Der’s a ladder.”
Sloshing over to the other side of the truck we found our way up and soon learned that he was hauling gravel from a nearby pit. Since the river had a gravel bottom, it was the best way for the big truck to travel. The girls yakked it up with the driver and we were soon at another trail that led into more jungle.
“You go down dere, you finds da train,” he said, again with the toothy smile.
“Okay, thanks for the ride,” I said, not realizing that as strange as this was to us, we were probably just as strange to him.
We rappelled down into the water and waded over to the other bank. With our boots back on, we headed down the path and after a much more confident walk, we came to a clearing and there, like an apparition, was a genuine train station.
“Wow, there it is, unreal!” Sara exclaimed.
We must have looked odd, three gringos emerging from the jungle, but none of the folks on the platform seemed to mind. The old wood platform squeaked as we bounced down to the ticket window. We bought three tickets to Puerto Limon and three fairly cold Orange Crushes, and sat in the shade and replayed our unusual morning.
I heard the train before I saw it creak into view, puffing its way through the jungle, the misnamed Caribbean Princess. We were soon on board with the chickens and goats, on our way to the coast. After a while, the smell got to us and Sara and I moved out onto the platform to enjoy the evening air. Through the palm trees we could see the moon rising over the Caribbean in the distance. Sitting there, it was hard to imagine a more romantic scene: the train gently swaying, clicking along on the tracks, while the fresh evening sea air cooled off a long day’s journey. We had earned the right to relax and enjoy the end of a long day. Until Sara started screaming, startling me such that I damn near pitched myself off the train. “Something’s biting me!” She screamed, frantically grabbing at her back in the darkness.
I lunged forward as the tracks came too close for comfort. Hanging on, I grabbed her to keep on board.
“What’s wrong? What is it?”
“My back, my back!” she screamed, trying to tear her shirt off.
I frantically rubbed her back, but felt nothing.
“Let’s go, inside!” I got her up and back into the train car.
Once inside, as discreetly as possible, I pulled up her shirt and looked at her back. There, about six or so inches apart, were three big, red angry looking welts — something had indeed bitten her. We later guessed that there must have been a scorpion on the outside platform and it had crawled up on her and popped her with its stinger as it crossed her back. Fortunately, the outskirts of Puerto Limon soon appeared and we gratefully disembarked, hungry, tired and ready for this day to be over.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t done with us yet.
The Hotel Costa Rica was the first place we came to — a cheap pension, our kind of hotel. A friendly woman with a bright gold tooth front and center rented us a room with three beds for the bargain price of two bucks each. After dropping off our packs, we were soon back on the street, looking for food — we were starving. A friendly Comedor provided us a tasty meal of tacos, chalupas, frijoles and very cold cervezas. Satiated, we contentedly headed back to our room, ready for a good night’s sleep.
As we approached the door to our room, something told me to proceed cautiously.
“Nancy, open the door, quietly,” I said.
As she did, I reached inside and turned on the light switch. There, covering the beds, chairs, tables and, most importantly, our backpacks were literally, hundreds of roaches!
Both girls shrieked.
“Yikes! They’re everywhere!”
We rescued our packs and went in search of Senora Gold Tooth, who greeted us with her inimitable smile.
“Que quiere?” she inquired, (what do you want?).
“No me gusta cucarachas!” Nancy replied.
Our shock at the idea of seeing bugs in our accommodations was not very convincing. The Senora let out a booming laugh, collected a couple of keys and showed us more rooms, none of which appeared any more promising than the first, although one had the biggest spiders I’d ever seen inside a building. We decided that the Hotel Costa Rica wasn’t for us and, minus a refund, went on down the road, eventually finding more reliable lodging at the Hotel Caribe, where we spent the remainder of our stay in Puerto Limon, looking for our ride to Colombia. But that’s another day on the trip. That night, we slept soundly and dreamlessly, as our sensibilities undoubtedly needed a rest as well.
Originally from Detroit, Doug Guido graduated from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, after cramming a 4-year education into 6 years. Subsequently he set off on a ‘Siddartha’ journey through North America in a ’64 Corvair Greenbriar camper van, covering 20,000 miles in six months. After arriving in Houston Texas, he entered the homebuilding field in the roaring ’70’s and ended up in Tampa in 1981. He has written short stories over the past thirty years, reflecting on various incidents in his life that he hopes are entertaining. He recently compiled his stories in a published memoir entitled I’m Only Living Once: As it turns out, once is enough,
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