One midweek day I left for Puerto Viejo de Limón, a laid-back Caribbean town in the jungles north of the Panamanian border.
I’d intended to stay for one night and then head out and cross the Sixola bridge into Panama, but I never made it that far.
I spent my first day meandering town with a rental bicycle and a boogie board, riding the giant waves. I ate grilled steak skewers from a street vendor and I relaxed on the beach with coconuts I bought from a blind man with a machete. He held the husky fruit in his outstretched hand then split it in half with a single, unseeing swing of his blade. I flinched, he did not.
That night, I stayed at Rocking J’s; a youth hostel regarded as the liveliest in Costa Rica. Downstairs, it served the best marinated pork tacos. Upstairs, it held dorm rooms of colorful pop-up tents called “Tent City.” I was here by myself, but it didn’t matter. Nobody acted exclusive with their group of friends but invited me to spend the evening with them.
“Hey! How are you? Sit! Tell me a story!”
I ate, and I drank, and I fell asleep that night to the company of new friends.
~
The next morning, I awoke to the sound of rain pounding the corrugated steel roof and changed my plane.
Instead of continuing on to Panama, I decided to stay.