Plopping down

Puerto Viejo de Talamanca
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Wow, been a long time, huh?  I have no one to blame for that but myself, I guess.  There's something about the Caribbean coast that just sucks any motivation out of you and makes you do what everyone else does and sit around all day.  I spend my days helping out at the dive shop ("The best dive shop for miles around," the owner, Dave, jokes derisively), and reading a lot.  It's definitely a beautiful part of the world--the water's warm, the sand is soft, and all that stuff--but I'm kind of over the whole scenic thing by now.  The internet place here is the only place in town with air conditioning.  Last night, the entire town lost power.  The bugs are so big that last night, I could swear one of them had grabbed me by the shoulder and was trying to drag me out of bed.

Playa de Punta Uva
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All told, there's a lot to sort of be frustrated or grumpy about here in Puerto Viejo, but the pace of life is really, really slow, and people just sort of shrug their shoulders and say, "Welcome to Costa Rica."  There is something to be said for being a "local" here though... you stop making friends with backpackers and start making friends with the gringo owners of things.  Last night, we all met at the bar at Rocking J's (the biggest hostel in town) and sat there with the owner of the dive shop, the owner of Rocking J's, the daughter of the guy who owns the scooter shop, and a few dive shop instructors.  It was essentially the core of the business aspect of the whole town, gathered in the open air and just hanging out.  It was weird how much power these few kids, most of whom are only a few years older than me, could wield over the locals.

I'd say an interesting and slightly disturbing moment was when I sat down for a drink with Ray, the guy who I'm renting my house from for the month.  He's an old Welsh guy, kind of rough around the edges, and generous when it comes to lengthy discourses.  Ray was sitting in "his" chair, giving me his thoughts on life, when he said, "It's like this: you make money and you spend money.  You make more money, then you spend more money.  Unless, of course, you're a Jew."

It was... interesting, I guess you could say.  I kind of stopped, looked down at my beer, and said, "Um, I'm Jewish."  Ray paused for a solid, uncomfortable 20 seconds and finally mustered, "Well, I wasn't being offensive."  We carried on our conversation, but every now and then, I could see him pause and sit there thinking for a bit, as if searching for clues he had missed earlier that would have tipped him off that I was Jewish.

Thankfully, Ray has left for a month-long trip to Canada, leaving his daughter Amy (from Wales, obviously), his employee Anton (Channel Islands), and me to keep the homestead.  He also left a huge brown dog named Bruce for us to take care of, and a new black-and-white puppy that he named Toby (which we vetoed and named Bacon).  So yeah, other than the occasional bout of anti-Semitism, going four rounds with the bugs in my room, and the humidity that actually makes you think you could just make a scooping motion in the air and collect water, things are going alright.  It was a really nice feeling to have a closet for the first time in forever.