Otavalo

Monday 29th February 1988

Jackie went hacking off on his bike for a training run while I went down for a hot shower and breakfast. On his way back Jackie cycled through a hail of stones and clouds of CS gas as he passed through a riot at the University! I then went into the market and bought a new nylon sports bag for 2,500 Sucres. My old one is on it’s last legs, having split several times now and the zip is fucked. It is a nice blue bag which was made in Korea and had something about the Olympic Games written in pidgin English on the side.

It is a warm sunny morning for a change and there is a big military presence on the streets. I packed my bags and joined Hannes in the restaurant for fruit salad. Then we bid farewell to everyone. “The bastard Englishmun’s desertin’ me”, said Jackie as we shook hands.

It will be boring without him. Last night he told us that on his return from India he was brown, shaven-headed and emaciated by hepatitis. “I looked like fookin’ Ghandi, yer ken?”. He was sitting on the side of the road when an old woman came up and tapped him on the shoulder and gave him a Kit Kat!

We walked quickly to the main bus terminal where there were three floors and rows of windows for each destination. We bought tickets to Otavalo for 165 Sucres for a bus leaving almost immediately at 10:40 hrs.

Otavalo, capital of Otavalo Canton, has a population largely made up of the Otavalo indigenous group. It is located in Imbabura Province of Ecuador. The town has an elevation of 2,532 metres (8,307 feet). It is surrounded by the peaks of Imbabura (4,630 metres (15,190 ft)), Cotacachi (4,995 metres (16,388 ft)), and Mojanda volcanoes.

The bus initially seemed to do a tour of the Quito suburbs picking up passengers and then we headed north. Each valley we passed through was different. The first was arid with scrub bushes and grey sand, the next fragrant with the scent of pine from the forests.

The landscape became hillier and greener with patchwork fields that could be in Wales. Finally, we saw the lake and volcano which are above Otavalo. The driver hammered into the many bends with the apparent intention of seeing how fast the bus could take the bends without turning over.

This was in addition to the now familiar crazy overtaking in the most inappropriate and dangerous places. We finally pulled into the town square where we alighted from the bus and walked down Calle Roca to the Residentilisa Belita.

Here we got excellent clean spacious rooms for 400 Sucres each. Number 3, my room was simply but excellently furnished with a tourist poster of Cuenca on the white walls. I did some washing (laundry) just as a thunderstorm started.

As the rain abated Hannes and I walked into town for a meal. We ate in a pleasant local café and chatted to a couple from Herefordshire. After eating we strolled around the town looking in the craft shops and munching peanuts and Milky Bar chocolate.

It was very quiet and seemed like a Sunday afternoon. There were a few desultory stalls in the market and a few indigenous Indians in trilby hats wandering about, as well as a few dogs. The main square has palm trees and is very Spanish colonial.

Back at the hotel we chatted with the friendly owner and watched the clouds clear from the summit of the volcano. The owners dog cheerfully tugged at the sheets drying on the washing line while the owner went on an insect hunt with his fly swatter.

At 19:00 hrs. we walked down into the town for some food and a few drinks. After a grand tour we concluded that there was no exiting nightlife in Otavalo on a Monday night. Most of the bars and restaurants were empty. We finished up in a Korean restaurant for Chop Suey and a beer.

At 21:00 hrs. we were back in our rooms, bloated and tired. Otavalo has a quiet tranquil atmosphere, and the people are very friendly, quick to smile at you. I finished off the last few pages of my book “Whirlwind” and turned in at 22:00 hrs.

Panecillo

Sunday 28th February 1988

We assembled in the restaurant for breakfast in various states of hang-over. A great deal of food and a lot of tea was consumed by all. Today’s target was the Panecillo, the hill with the angel overlooking the city.

Jackie set off on his bicycle and Hannes from Bavaria and Aneka, and Anja from Sweden joined me to bundle into a taxicab which cost us 300 Sucres to take us to the summit of Panecillo hill. There was a good panoramic view of the city and the surrounding hills.

We sat on the grass while the two girls made pulseras (colourful woven wrist bands). Interested locals and dogs looked on with bemusement at Jackie went through his daily yoga routine. The sun peeped out a few times and we had several short sharp showers.

After a couple of hours, we got a pickup taxi to the Plaza de Independencia and went to a restaurant for lunch. We had a huge three course almuerzo at a table adjacent to one occupied by four transvestites. The Spanish verb “to eat lunch” is almorzar and the noun is almuerzo. The traditional almuerzo, also known as menu del día, is a fixed-price fixed-menu lunch, served from around 12:30 p.m. till around 3 p.m. in Ecuador. Traditionally, the almuerzo is the big meal of the day.

Jackie kept up his light-hearted insults to the Swedes, calling them Swiss and chortling about the band ABBA being their finest musical achievement. Feeling well stuffed and tired we strolled back to the hotel at 13:30 hrs. where the two Swedish blokes had finally emerged from their beds looking extremely fragile.

We sat around for a bit and then I went out to look at some camouflage T-shirts that they had in the market. I had seen them earlier but the stall was not there anymore, so I pushed back through the press of people and returned to the hotel.

At 17:30 hrs. I went to the cinema with Hannes and the two Swedish blokes (Kent and ?). We saw “The Hitcher” which all three of us has seen before, but thought it was worth seeing again.

The Hitcher is a 1986 American road thriller film directed by Robert Harmon and written by Eric Red. It stars Rutger Hauer as the title character, a murderous hitchhiker who stalks a young motorist (C. Thomas Howell) across the highways of West Texas. Jeffrey DeMunn and Jennifer Jason Leigh appear in supporting roles.

While driving through the New Mexico Desert during a rainy night, the college students Jim Halsey and his girlfriend Grace Andrews give a ride to the hitchhiker John Ryder. While in their car, the stranger proves to be a psychopath threatening the young couple with a knife, but Jim succeeds to throw him out of the car on the road. On the next morning, the young couple sees John in another car with a family, and while trying to advise the driver that the man is dangerous, they have an accident. While walking on the road, they find the whole family stabbed in the car, and John sees that the driver is still alive. He drives to a restaurant seeking for help, but the police blame Jim and Grace to the murder and send them to the police station. However, John kills the policemen and pursues the couple, playing a tragic and violent mouse and cat game with Grace and Jim.

It cost us 125 Sucres and the auditorium was packed with people of all ages, even little kids. For the rest of the evening we played a card game called Cheat while the Swedes told us of the numerous times that they had been robbed in Peru and Brazil:

* Robbed sneakily and at knife point on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro on 2 occasions at night.

* A money changer running off with all their travellers cheques in Salvador in Brazil.

* A midnight intruder in their hotel room in Brazil who was later caught and beaten by the police to recover their money.

* Numerous tales of bag slashing, snatching, pickpocketing and diversionary ruses.

The evening left us feeling very wary about travelling through Peru and Brazil but made us more determined to be security conscious.

Mitad del Mundo

Saturday 27th February 1988

Jackie set off for the “Mitad del Mundo” on his bike and I went off to find a bus to the same destination, which was the line where the equator crosses Ecuador 23 kilometres north of Quito.

On the way I stopped by at the main Post Office to dispatch a card. Most of the kiosks were closed but I found one which sold stamps. While waiting in the queue I noticed that the old lady only had one Sucres stamps. The woman in front of me had a letter to America and I watched with amazement as the stall owner covered every inch of space of both sides with about fifty overlapping stamps.

I decided to try another place as there was no way that she was going to get forty stamps on the available space on my postcard. Luckily another window had ten Sucres stamps. I then followed Calle Chile up to the market area and the roundabout where it met Cuenca.

I spotted a “Mitad del Mundo” bus edging through the crowd and managed to jump on and get a good seat behind the driver just before the hordes crammed aboard. We then went north through a long tunnel and out along the Pan American Highway.

The bus stopped and started to allow passengers to get off or more to cram on. I was the only gringo on the bus. After just over an hour, I spotted the tall column with the globe on top. The entrance was via a row of columns with busts of famous Ecuadorians.

The Ciudad Mitad del Mundo (Spanish: [La mitad del mundo], Middle of the World City) is a tract of land owned by the prefecture of the province of Pichincha, Ecuador. It is located at San Antonio parish of the canton of Quito, 26 km (16 miles) north of the centre of Quito.

The grounds contain the Monument to the Equator, which highlights the exact location of the Equator (from which the country takes its name) and commemorates the eighteenth century Franco-Spanish Geodesic Mission which fixed its approximate location; they also contain the Museo Etnográfico Mitad del Mundo, Ethnographic Museum Middle of the Earth, a museum about the indigenous people ethnography of Ecuador.

The 30-metre-tall (98 ft) monument was constructed between 1979 and 1982 by Architect and Contractor Alfredo Fabián Páez with Carlos Mancheno President of Pichincha's Province Council to replace an older, smaller monument built by the Government of Ecuador under the direction of the geographer Luis Tufiño in 1936.

It is made of iron and concrete and covered with cut and polished andesite stone. The monument was built to commemorate the first Geodesic Mission of the French Academy of Sciences, led by Louis Godin, Pierre Bouguer and Charles Marie de La Condamine, who, in the year 1736, conducted experiments to test the flattening at the poles of the characteristic shape of the Earth, by comparing the distance between a degree meridian in the equatorial zone to another level measured in Sweden. The older monument was moved 7 km (4.3 miles) to a small town near there called Calacalí

The four points of the compass were marked along with a line denoting the position of the equator. I went up to the viewing gallery just below the globe and spotted Jackie below me, resplendent in his new “Café de Colombia” cycling shirt. I descended quickly through the Museum of Ecuadorian Geography and caught up with him.

He had made good time despite a puncture en route. We then ran about doing the tourist bit, taking photographs of each other at the equator and with one foot on each side. It started to spit with rain and, as there was little to see apart from the monument in a desert plain, we headed back into town.

I caught the bus almost immediately and after a while we passed Jackie with his Walkman on and wraparound sunglasses, pedalling furiously uphill. The return journey cost 25 Sucres, the same as the outward bus fare. By now it was pissing down with rain.

The other passengers were a mixture of locals, some in ragged work clothes carrying bundles while others were in their Sunday best finery, all jammed together. Back in Quito I checked the café where I was supposed to meet Jackie, but it was closed. I ran back to the hotel, trying to dodge the rain and the cascades of water from overflowing gutters.

After a discussion in the hotel restaurant with some of the other guests we decided to have a party. Jackie and I went downtown to the supermarket and bought a couple of bottles of dark rum, a huge flagon of port and an assortment of fruit to make a punch. We combed the street market area looking for a pineapple in the pissing rain. In the end we got one in the supermarket.

Back at the hotel we got underway with preparations. Gerard from New York supplied his Walkman with speakers, and we bought a plastic bucket for 300 Sucres to make the punch in. At 19:00 hrs. everybody abandoned plans to eat and started drinking in our room.

We had a full house with two Swedish girls, two Swedish guys, a Swiss girl, the young English “doctor” and American Gerald. It was a good party, but the lethal punch meant that I got drunk too quickly and had to go up onto the roof for some air and respite.

Back at the party we chatted, danced and generally pissed around until 01:00 hrs. When the last guest left our room Jackie continued to sing Bob Marley songs at the top of his voice for about twenty minutes. A good time was had by all!

Simón Bolívar

Friday 26th February 1988

After breakfast I had a shower. The water was boiling as I lathered myself all over and then it went off. Terrific! I then had to use the freezing cold water to wash off the soap. We went out shopping and Jackie bought a bottle of Paco Rabanne eau de toilette for 500 Sucres. Today there are 385 Sucres to the $US dollar. I suspect it was counterfeit but it smelt OK.

We then went on a tour of the city’s bicycle shops. Jackie was looking for a new gear cog to cope with the steep climbs of the Andes. He ended up buying just a “Café de Columbia” cycling shirt which he was delighted with, yelling “Ooh ya bas”! and kissing it, much to the amusement of the locals.

We went on to the American Express office in an area where the expensive hotels, tourist shops and agencies were. It was sterile and modern, and we felt like scruffy intruders amongst the affluence.

We recrossed the central park where a couple of elderly lovers were hugging and kissing on the rockery. The riot police were out with their plastic shields at the ready by the Simón Bolívar monument.

In the old quarter we met a Bavarian bloke called Hannes and the two Swedish girls, Aneka and Anya. Together we went to a restaurant with a great “Menu de Hoy” for 200 Sucres. We chatted and demolished soup, steak, rice and beans, jelly and a chocolate cake.

Afterwards we went up to the Basilica del Voto Nacional but it was closed. Jackie decided to go off on a bike ride, so I went off to wander around the shops. I bought a small spiral-bound notebook and pondered over buying a new bag but decided against it.

There were a lot of Indians dozing by their stalls that were laden with toiletries, nylon wallets, digital watches and pens. One fellow was selling unmarked pharmaceutical drugs from a briefcase. As evening fell the streets got busy with people going home and the roads got saturated with buses, on which kids hung on to the outside for a free ride.

On the way back I passed a stall which was selling live crabs, cooked while you wait. Two old women were haggling over the price while the crabs twitched futilely against the string tethering their claws. Back at the hotel we had a coke and watched the Swedish girls playing cards.

Back in our room we relaxed, reading and writing. I bought some great postcards if Indian folk from the Post Office earlier today. It was very quiet apart from the shouts and chants of children playing in the street outside.

We ate at the hotel as usual and chatted with other travellers, but mainly with a New Yorker discussing music and favourite music bands. Time passed pleasantly and quickly until 23:00 hrs. when we went back to our bedroom to read for a bit before crashing out.

La Alameda

Thursday 25th February 1988

Yesterday the Policia got a chance to use their CS gas as students protested in the city centre. Apparently, they were complaining about the high cost of living in Ecuador while the tourists found it so cheap. Law enforcement services in Ecuador are provided by the national police, called “Policía Nacional del Ecuador”. The police force is part of the Ministry of Interior. The National Police is in charge of public security, law and order and criminal police investigations throughout Ecuador.

It was the second day of demonstrating and today the police looked as though they were expecting more trouble. They trooped into the city centre with their white helmets, machine guns (Uzi’s? The Uzi is a family of Israeli open-bolt, blowback-operated submachine guns first designed by Major Uziel "Uzi" Gal in the late 1940s, shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel. It is one of the first weapons to incorporate a telescoping bolt design, which allows the magazine to be housed in the pistol grip for a shorter weapon.) and batons as I walked out to the Post Office.

Everyone was on their way to work, the Spanish descendants in their smart business suits and the Indians in rough homemade clothing lugging heavy loads on their heads or backs. The Post Office is more like a collection of stationery kiosks under one roof, each one selling stamps as well as envelopes, postcards and magazines. Present them with your mail and they stick the appropriate stamps on for you.

Back at the hotel I had a great hot shower, the first one since I left Mexico! This morning I went for a walk about the city, following the Carrera Guayaquil up to the Parque la Alameda. At one end there was a statue of Simón Bolívar, in the middle a quaint old conservatory, and in the corner a small lookout tower.

La Alameda is the oldest park in Quito,and the sector where it sits today was known to the natives as Chuquihuada (spearhead), presumably due to the triangular shape of the plain of land that the park occupies until today. The cabildo of the colonial city, aware of the need for a recreational space for the people of Quito in the purest style of European cities, decides the delimitation of a green area at the northern end of the city, and the works begin immediately after the signing of the Decree of the Corregidor Francisco de Sotomayor, on 8 March 1596.

Between 1785 and 1790 some of the interior roads that surrounded the small natural lagoon were created and that are still preserved today, the first monuments were installed inside to beautify the place, and the perimeter was closed with a low decorative wall. From the beginning of the nation's republican life until about 1873, when construction of the Astronomical Observatory began, the park was used by sheep breeders, who took their animals to graze on the spot.

In 1877 a comprehensive restructuring of the park was undertaken, ordered by Marieta de Veintimilla,niece of President Ignacio de Veintimilla and who served as Head of Government and also First Lady. Its redesign gave the park a more landscaped and European style, pleasant for the walks of the Quito high society of the time.

In 1887 an Alpine-style building, built entirely of wood, was inaugurated at the northern end of the park, which housed the first Botanical Garden of Quito, which was directed by the Jesuit priest and researcher Luis Sodiro. Years later that same building would be used to become the first School of Fine Arts in Quito, until a fire destroyed the structure in the late nineteenth century.

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Ponte Palacios y Blanco, also colloquially as El Libertador, or Liberator of America, was a Venezuelan military and political leader who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Bolivia to independence from the Spanish Empire.

Quito townsfolk had picnics amongst the trees or splashed about in the boating lake. I went up the tower which was more like a squat helter-skelter with a spiral ramp leading up to the top. It was not quite high enough to be able to see over the trees.

I headed back towards the old quarter as the new part was just a modern city with high rise banks and office blocks. The locals seem to think that shorts are an amusing item of clothing and I got the same stares and giggles as Jackie got yesterday.

In the Plaza de Independencia I took a photograph of a well battered armoured car. Independence Square (Spanish: Plaza de la Independencia, or colloquially as Plaza Grande) is the principal and central public square of Quito.

This is the central square of the city and one of the symbols of the executive power of the nation. Its main feature is the monument to the independence heroes of August 10, 1809, date remembered as the First Cry of Independence of the Royal Audience of Quito from Spanish monarchy.

The square is flanked by the Carondelet Palace, the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Archbishop's Palace, the Municipal Palace and the Plaza Grande Hotel. I went on to peruse the area where the Indians sold their fruit and vegetables.

Stalwart stocky Indian in trilby hats squatted behind coloured heaps of agricultural produce, raw bloody meat, fish or apathetic half-dead chickens with their feet tied together. Their menfolk seemed to be in bars drinking or laying on the sidewalk in drunken comas.

Later I went to find the main bus terminal but gave up after walking about a mile. It seemed to be a long distance from the city centre. I walked back up the steep cobbled streets to the centre. Outside the main churches vendors were selling the grotesque tortured pictures of Jesus Christ with his crown of thorns and evil-looking pictures of Mary.

Several churches, including the huge basilica with it’s twin towers were being renovated, shored up with timber and covered with wooden scaffolding. The monumental Basilica del Voto Nacional is the most important neo-Gothic building in Ecuador, and one of the most representative of the American continent. It was once the largest in the New World.

When I got back to the hotel at 15:00 hrs I needed a rest after all the walking. The high altitude doesn’t seem to be having any effect so far (Quito is around 9,000 feet or 3,000 metres. Someone flying to Quito from sea level experiences an elevation change of nearly two miles in a matter of hours).

Jackie came back singing as usual. His favourite song was “This must be just like living in Paradise”, which was a big hit for David Lee Roth. He would belt it out while he was in the shower! He remarked yet again how cheap it was in Ecuador.

We lay about reading our books until 19:00 hrs. and then went down to the hotel restaurant for something to eat. We were joined by an English student doctor who was out here on a three week holiday. He was studying rare diseases and presumably considered Ecuador a prime spot for research.

He left London two days ago and filled us in with the news, or in this case, the lack of it from Blighty (England). It was fairly quiet, so we went to bed at 22:00 hrs.

Virgin of El Panecillo

Wednesday 24th February 1988

We had breakfast consisting of eggs and bread with coffee in the hotel restaurant and went out to explore the town. A stone angel looks over the town from the El Panecilla Hill in the south. El Panecillo (from Spanish panecillo small piece of bread, diminutive of pan bread) is a 200-metre-high hill of volcanic-origin, with loess soil, located between southern and central Quito. Its peak is at an elevation of 3,016 metres (9,895 ft) above sea level.

The original name used by the aboriginal inhabitants of Quito was Yavirac. According to Juan de Velasco, a Jesuit historian, there was a temple on top of Yavirac where the Indians worshiped the sun until it was destroyed by the Spanish conquistadores. The street that leads up to El Panecillo is named after Melchor Aymerich.

In 1976, the Spanish artist Agustín de la Herrán Matorras was commissioned by the religious order of the Oblates to build a 45-meter-tall stone monument of a madonna which was assembled on a high pedestal on the top of Panecillo. Called "Virgin of El Panecillo", it is made of seven thousand pieces of aluminium (so not stone!). The monument was inaugurated on March 28, 1976, by the 11th archbishop of Quito, Pablo Muñoz Vega. The statue was engineered and erected by Anibal Lopez of Quito.

The virgin stands on top of a globe and is stepping on a snake, which is a classic madonna iconography. Less traditional are the wings. Locals claim that she is the only one in the world with wings like an angel.

Down below in the town we went to the Post Office to see if Jackie’s tyre had arrived. It hadn’t, but I bought some stamps. The police in the town centre were prepared for any trouble with light machine guns, plenty of CS gas grenades and a few armoured cars. The local indigenous Indians lugged huge loads about and sold fruit and clothing from the sidewalk.

Back at the hotel we changed rooms to one with a window and two nicer beds, for the same price of 600 Sucres. We then went to investigate the Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús. Jesuit architects began work on the Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús in 1605. The church was finally completed 160 years later and is now considered one of the finest examples of Spanish Baroque architecture in South America.

The Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús is located along García Moreno and Sucres in the historic centre of Quito, one block to the southwest of Plaza Grande. However, it was closed and we ended up browsing through the market place.

Jackie attracted a lot of attention in his shorts, vest, flip-flops and arab-style headdress. He bought some wrap-around shades (sunglasses) to complete the look. I invested in a digital watch for 590 Sucres (660 = £1 Sterling).

We then met Oliver, a tipsy local with several missing front teeth and a forced braying laugh. He took us to a bar in a covered precinct and talked to us in bad English whilst trying to work a flanker on the bar bill. He ended up paying for half the beer, which was probably not his intention.

We left him and headed back to the hotel at 15:00 hrs. We stopped for a huge “churrasco” meal with steak, eggs, rice and vegetables for 400 Sucres. When served in Ecuador, churrasco is a grilled steak usually seasoned with garlic, oregano, cumin, and olive oil. It’s usually served with rice, a few slices of avocado, fries, fried plantains, and a fried egg. This is usually a large meal.

We passed through a square where they were setting up seats and instruments for some sort of show later on. Jackie took a photograph of a man in a trilby hat (typical indigenous Indian headgear) sitting by a heap of garbage at the bottom of a restaurant rubbish chute. A lady scavenged amongst the trash and the women at the pavement stalls opposite looked worried in case this strange looking gringo tried to take their photographs as well.

Jackie has had to explain to the locals that the traditional Scottish kilt is not a dress. Most of the market stalls sell nasty plastic things and nylon clothing with imitation Nike, Adidas or Puma logos.

We ran the last bit back to the hotel as the overcast heavens finally opened and thunder and lightning dramatically animated the sky. We lay in our bedroom as the rain poured down outside the window. I went on to write some postcards while Jackie went out for a walk and returned at 19:00 hrs. We then both went down to the restaurant for supper.

We chatted with the Spanish guy and were joined by a talkative Brazilian with Rasta-style hair and clothing. He jabbered away and showed us his wares, an array of jewellery made from natural products and his portfolio of designs for tattoos. He gave me a pendant made from a sliver of stone.

Later we chatted to the Swedish girls. Jackie told us of how they fumigated his bicycle at the Honduran border where he had to queue with the trucks and cars! We carried on chatting and drinking the weak pilsener beer (4% abv) until midnight.

As we went to bed rain poured down into the central courtyard filling the fountain pool there.

Ecuador

Tuesday 23rd February 1988

I whiled away the morning with a short walk east of the hostel, browsing around the huge, well-stocked automercado on the way to the suburb of San Pedro. Returning, I got photocopies of my vital documents in the “Goldfish Copier Shack” next to the youth hostel.

I read for a bit, then showered (cold!) and shaved and put on my “best” shirt for the plane trip to Ecuador. At 11:50 hrs. I shouldered my pack and said goodbye to camp José in the restaurant, who said I looked beautiful! I walked across the city for the last time to the Bus Terminal.

There was a continuous queue for Alajuela and the Aeropuerto and a soon as a bus was full it left and another empty one immediately took it’s place. We passed near to the airport, but we didn’t stop at any obvious alighting point for it. Thus, I travelled to the end of the route at Alajuela missing the airport along the way.

I had to get a return bus (only another ₡ CRC 15) but now I was worried about the time. I sat impatiently while the bus slowly filled. It seemed like an eternity, but it was only about five minutes until it pulled into the forecourt of the airport.

I was clutching my plane ticket to Quite. VARIG BRAZILIAN AIRLINES number SJO VIO-RG #0424226884910 San Jose to Quito 23/02/1988.

It was now 13:20 hrs. so I immediately checked in at the VARIG desk and paid my departure tax of ₡ CRC 313 and spent my remaining colones on a cheese and ham toasted sandwich and a coffee. I passed smoothly through Immigration and met two nice Swedish girls and a mad Scotsman called Jackie Smith in the Departure Lounge.

Jackie had cycled across America from New York to Los Angeles and then down through Central America. He was now flying with his bicycle to Ecuador to continue his journey south. He only had shorts and a vest on and was most disgruntled when the captain told him that he had to wear long trousers for the flight.

He had to scrobble about in the hold to get some long trousers and put them on. The huge VARIG 767 was virtually empty with only about 30 passengers on board. The flight took less than two hours and was fairly uneventful with a nice snack and a non-descript in-flight movie.

We landed and went easily through Customs and Immigration at 18:00 hrs. and then changed up some money. There were 376 Sucres to the $U.S. dollar, or 660 to £1 Sterling. The Sucres was the currency of Ecuador between 1884 and 2000. Its ISO code was ECS and it was subdivided into 10 Decimos or 100 Centavos. The Sucres was named after Latin American political leader Antonio José de Sucres. Today Ecuador uses the $U.S. dollar as its official currency.

Jackie retrieved his bicycle and managed to break away from his fascinated audience at the airport and pedalled off towards the town centre. The two Swedish girls and I took the number 16 bus, at a cost of 10 Sucres, to the Plaza Santa Domingo. This busy square in Old Town is dominated by the Iglesia de Santo Domingo and the church museum.

The city of Quito looked distinctly European and reminded me of Athens in Greece. Quito (Quechua: Kitu; formally San Francisco de Quito) is the capital of Ecuador, the closest capital city to the equator, and at an elevation of 2,850 m (9,350 ft) above sea level, the second-highest official capital city in the world after La Paz in Bolivia. It is located in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes Mountains.

The historic centre of Quito is one of the largest, least altered, and best-preserved in the Americas. Quito and Kraków, Poland, were the first World Cultural Heritage Sites declared by UNESCO, in 1978. The central square of Quito is located about 25 km (16 miles) south of the equator; the city itself extends to within about 1 km (0.62 miles) of zero latitude. A monument and museum marking the general location of the equator is known locally as la mitad del mundo (the middle of the world) to avoid confusion since the word Ecuador is Spanish for "equator".

The bus struggled through rush hour traffic, and we got off near the centre of the city. There were lots of military and police on the streets and a couple of armoured cars, the response to students protesting on the streets of the capital.

I had studied the map of Quito on the plane and led the way through the narrow undulating streets from the Plaza Santa Domingo to the Gran Casino Hotel. The girls struggled along behind me, complaining that I was walking too fast.

Jackie was already at the hotel, and we got a double room together for 300 Sucres each. The first room that we were allocated had only one double bed and the second one had no light. We ate a good cheap meal at the hotel for about 250 Sucres and a couple of Pilsener beers.

Pilsener is a Pilsner - Bohemian / Czech style beer brewed by Cervezas Nacionales in Guayaquil, Ecuador. This was the first beer in South America and my first one south of the equator.

We went out for a walk at 21:00 hrs. but most places were closed, and the local indigenous Indians were settling down to sleep on the pavements around the plazas. We returned to the hotel where we had a final beer, as there was no water available, and went to bed.

Earlier we had chatted to a Spanish traveller, which was good for improving our Spanish language, and he seemed like a good bloke. In our room I had to perch on a stool balanced precariously on a table to change the light bulb. This heritage hotel had high ceilings.

Condorito

Monday 22nd February 1988

I had breakfast amongst the mob of Panamanian Cub Scouts in the hostel café before walking into town with several tasks to do. First, I went into the offices of VARIG Airlines to confirm that I was definitely on tomorrow’s flight to Quito in Ecuador.

VARIG (acronym for Viação Aérea RIo-Grandense, Rio Grandean Airways) was the first airline founded in Brazil, in 1927. From 1965 until 1990, it was Brazil's leading airline, and virtually its only international one. In 2005, Varig went into judicial restructuring, and in 2006 it was split into two companies – Flex Linhas Aéreas, informally known as "old" Varig, heir to the original airline – now defunct, and "new" Varig, a new company, fully integrated into Gol Airlines.

Next stop was the bank where I changed up another $20 U.S. dollars, and then the Post Office where I posted my postcards and letters. A window-shopping spree ensued, walking around the big department stores looking at books and clothes.

I was tempted to buy a T-shirt but wanted to save my money. I bought a “Condorito” comic book to try and translate in order to improve my Spanish. I strolled back to Toruma Youth Hostel in the warm sun to do some writing and washing.

I sat out on the veranda and slowly translated “Condorito” comic strips, trying to adsorb new Spanish words. At 15:00 hrs. I was feeling really hungry, so I walked down to the nearest supermarket for some cheese, tinned sardines, hamburger rolls, tomato and a bottle of Sprite (carbonated lemon and lime drink).

I settled down at the table in my hostel room and thoroughly enjoyed making and eating huge, filled rolls – a real treat! I lazed about for a bit and then read up about Ecuador in the South American Handbook 1988. I also studied the San José section to see if I had missed anything exciting and concluded that I hadn’t. I could live without seeing every museum and church here.

At 18:00 hrs. I ate in the hostel canteen and drank their delicious blackberry (mora) juice. Back in my room I translated more “Condorito” jokes while the Cub Scouts ran riot outside in the main hall. The structure of “Condorito” is very simple: each page is an independent joke, without any continuity with others (though some jokes are larger or shorter than one page).

“Condorito” is a condor who is lazy, charming, irresponsible, and a cad. He was born in 1949 in Chile as a specific and spiky response to Walt Disney's 1942 charm offensive to conquer South America. Chile wasn't having it. Where Disney's personification of Chile is a plucky infantilized plane, Condorito is mischievous. He's adult, and so are his jokes. And, despite the fact that his eponymous strip has been one of the most popular in all Latin America, he's unmistakably Chilean.

I nipped out to the Bar Peru Tica at 20:30 hrs. for my last couple of beers in Costa Rica. I sat watching, but without understanding, a game of backgammon between a local and the manager of the bar. One American customer was drunk and staggered around muttering “shit, shit”, all the time.

The regular dice game (Craps? Craps is a dice game in which the players make wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice. Players may wager money against each other (playing "street craps") or a bank (playing "casino craps", also known as "table craps", or often just "craps").) was underway at the other end of the bar and a lady, who’s birthday it was, struggled with a huge champagne cocktail.

I polished off three bottles of Pilsen and some delicious bocas before returning to bed in the hostel at 22:30 hrs.

Feliz Feliz

Sunday 21st February 1988 (My younger brother Nicholas Frank Hawkins birthday)

My roommate got up early and plastered himself in Brut aftershave (MAD Magazine did a spoof advert for this with people in a crowded lift (elevator) with the tag line “In a crowded place it’s Brutal”). The room continued to reek of it when he went out.

Brut is the brand name for a line of men's grooming and fragrance products launched in 1964 by Fabergé, and now owned by the Anglo-Dutch company Unilever. It was very fashionable and popular in the late 1970’s in Britain.

I strolled into town after washing my faithful “Undress” T-shirt and concluding that hostel restaurant was closed on Sundays as the bars were still up at 10:00 hrs. I perused the goods in a huge supermarket, severely tempted to splash out on some luxury foot items such as cheese, fish, wholemeal bread and yoghurt, but decided in the interests of economy to get breakfast in a local café.

I enjoyed Gallo Pinto with eggs at an efficient and cheap breakfast bar and returned to the hostel to leisurely write some postcards. Later on I went on a photographic expedition to try and capture the essence of San José on film.

I started with the impressive war memorial statue in the National Park which was erected in 1895. It had the inscriptions:

* Los Jefes de la Campaña Nacional Centro∙americana 1856∙1857

* Batalla de Santa-Rosa 20 marzo 1856.

* Batalla de Rivas 11 abril 1856.

* Toma de los vapores en San Juan del Norte25 diciembre 1856

English translation:

* The Leaders of the Central American National Campaign 1856∙1857

* Battle of Santa Rosa March 20, 1856.

* Battle of Rivas April 11, 1856.

* Seizing of the Filibusters' Steamships in San Juan del Norte December 25, 1856

This was near the railway station for Puerto Limón and from here I drifted down towards the city centre. I bought a litre of skimmed milk in the supermarket and sat in the main square drinking it and watching the children chasing the pigeons.

I walked to the bus station, but it was too dull and ordinary to warrant a photograph. I bought some peanuts and got caught for a donation to the “Soldiers of the Cross” Mission. The Sisters in white uniforms frantically searched for one of their pamphlets in English in return for my ₡ CRC 20.

Back at the hostel I gasped in the icy cold shower. No matter how hot it is outside the water is always freezing cold in the hostel. Clean and refreshed, I sat down to write a letter to Pete Willis, a friend of my dad’s who had encouraged me to travel and explore the world.

At a garden party in the summer of 1983 at my parents’ house in West London we got into conversation with our friend’s father, Pete Willis. He had travelled back to the U.K. overland from Australia in a VW Combi Campervan in the 1970s. We were having second thoughts about going overland to Australia, but he said, “Just get yourselves an old Honda 50 each” (we got Honda 90’s in the end – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CT90 for details or Click here). “Ride one each until one packs up, then both get on the other and continue until that bites the dust, then continue by public transport.”

He waved expansively at my parent’s guests in the garden and said, “get out into the world, you don’t want to end up like these no-hopers!” My grandmother overheard him and said to me later “what a wicked old man, advising you to give up your happy family life and careers for a frivolous road trip.” Click here for details of this motorcycle trip across Europe and Asia.

It is really quiet at the hostel today; in fact, all of this side of the town is dead. I got talking to a Canadian girl called Susan and we chatted about Costa Rica and South America. She introduced me to her Peruvian friend, Carlos, and at 18:00 hrs. the three of us went out to eat together.

We went into the Feliz Feliz Chinese Restaurant which was a short way down the road, and I had a huge chicken chop suey washed down with Pilsen beer. We moved onto the Bar Peru Tico for a couple more beers. There were no bocas (bar snacks) on Sunday but an American in the bar offered us a huge bag of monkey nuts to help ourselves from.

We munched on nuts and chatted while a very bored looking waitress cut up serviettes to make beer mats opposite. A group of American ex-pats played a dice game on the bar. We were all tired and retired early at 21:30 hrs. I read my book for a bit but could hardly keep my eyes open.

Nacido Para Matar

Above: Toruma International Youth Hostel in San José, Costa Rica.

Saturday 20th February 1988

I awoke at 05:00 hrs. and true to form, because I was already up and packing, the alarm clock squealed right on cue at 05:30 hrs. I boarded the minibus which left promptly at 06:00 hrs. and we headed back through the run-down town of Quepos and the United Brands palm oil plantations.

The early history of the oil palm in Central America is largely the history of the crop with the United Fruit Company. Even though the major interest of the United Fruit Company since the last years of the 19th century had been the production and exportation of bananas, an interest in crop diversification has been long standing. The commercial exploitation of oil palm plantations started in Costa Rica in 1944, with the first plantings in the Parrita zone, near Quepos, Costa Rica, as an alternative for the land abandoned by the banana industry in the Central Pacific Zone of the country.

We made good time until we reached the mountains, where the bus laboured up the winding roads and used the gears to brake when going down the steep inclines. We got to San José at 09:30 hrs. and I set off along Avenida 1 on the now familiar haul across town to the Toruma Youth Hostel.

I bought some peanuts from one of the many open-fronted grocery stores near the bus depot. I called into the OTEC Travel Agent to reconfirm Tuesday’s flight on the way. I had breakfast in Room 7, consisting of peanuts and litre of milk.

I then went back downtown to eat bananas and mandarins in the sunny square behind the National Theatre while a clown entertained a crowd of children and vendors sold bubble-blowing kits. Construction of the Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica began in the later part of the 19th Century. At that point in time, Costa Rica had a minuscule population. And in San Jose, it just reached 20,000 but during this period it was time for growth with Costa Rica’s main export being coffee. This gave a very prestigious crowd of people to be an audience of the National Theatre.

To build the theatre, the president at the time placed a tax on coffee and raised enough money to support building such a theatre. The Teatro Nacional had problems when they began construction, but they brought in an Italian Architect to rectify any problems and make building go smoothly. Even with the new designer, the building process was rather slow and was not completed until October 1897.

I browsed in the huge Lehmann’s bookshop on Avenida Central and bought postcards from the “Bookstore”. The walk back to the hostel was a bit of an effort, so when I got there, I had an exotic natural fruit juice and a short nap.

The effeminate looking fellow in the canteen shook my hand warmly and welcomed me back, delighted to be practicing his pidgin English. I slept until 16:30 hrs. when loud music from the band The Psychedelic Furs blared from the common room.

I read my book “Whirlwind” for a bit and had supper at 18:00 hrs. “Whirlwind” is a novel by James Clavell, first published in 1986. It forms part of The Asian Saga and is chronologically the last book in the series.

Set in Iran in early 1979, it follows the fortunes of a group of Struans helicopter pilots, Iranian officials and oil men and their families in the turmoil surrounding the fall of the Iranian monarchy and the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Like many of Clavell's novels, it is very long and is composed of many interweaving plot strands involving a large cast of characters, as well as a detailed portrayal of Iranian culture.

As I was eating a coach load of Cub Scouts arrived at the hostel bringing an end to the tranquility. At 18:45 hrs I walked down the hill to the Cinema Bellavista to see “Full Metal Jacket”, or “Nacido Para Matar”, which I had seen before.

It was a great film, difficult to believe that it was shot in the U.K. It was also an opportunity to learn the myriad swear words presented in the Spanish subtitles! Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war drama film directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford. The film is based on Hasford's 1979 novel The Short-Timers and stars Matthew Modine, Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio and Adam Baldwin.

The storyline follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their boot camp training in Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, primarily focusing on privates Joker and Pyle, who struggle under their abusive drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. The second half of the film portrays the experiences of two of the platoon's Marines in Vietnamese cities Da Nang and Huế during the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War. The film's title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by military servicemen.

I got back to the Youth Hostel feeling very tired at 21:00 hrs., sterilised some water to quench my thirst and went to bed.

Cathedral Point

Friday 19th February 1988

After a big Costa Rican breakfast and a litre of “Dos Pinos” milk I went to explore the National Park. Dos Pinos is the main dairy producer in Costa Rica, though not the only one. Their products are excellent and varied. The milk is pasteurized and homogenized.

I waded across the brook to get to the entrance and paid my ₡ CRC 25 entrance fee. I then walked along the path with threaded through the trees up above a fabulous beach, which is rated amongst the top ten in the world. There were lots of tents amongst the trees where locals camped with there ghetto blaster music machines and kids.

I followed the path that did a circuit of Cathedral Point with its forest topped cliffs which is connected to the mainland by a thin land bridge that separates the park’s two most popular beaches, Playa Espadilla Sur and Playa Manuel Antonio. It is a huge, tall heavily forested headland and viewpoint which juts out into the sea.

At one point I nearly jumped out of my skin as the ground moved beneath me and a huge lizard scurried for cover. Further on a racoon-like creature with a black and brown banded tail (this would have been a white-nosed coatimundi, or coati) stopped to stare cautiously from the nearby trees.

As I followed the trail through the tall vine-covered trunks small animals, which looked like spiders with a black conker-sized body and long red legs, scampered into their holes in the bank. I concluded that they were some kind of crab, even though I was on top of cliffs which were well above the sea.

I went to pick up my bus ticket to return to San José tomorrow at 06:00 hrs. from the office on the beach at a cost of ₡ CRC 280 and met the man with the strange accent from the hotel. He turned out to be a German immigrant living in Canada. I went with him for a long walk along the beach and up into the hills along a dusty winding trail.

After a couple of hours, we staggered down to the road back to Manuel Antonio Playa, waiting for a short while for the bus and then continuing on foot to the bar. Here my new Canadian friend bought ice cold beers to quench our raging thirsts.

It was a posh bar geared up for wealthy tourists and the waiter rushed to top up our glasses from the bottles and change the ashtray for a clean one every few minutes. In between times he polished the already spotless bar surface.

We walked the last kilometre in merciless sun on a shade less road to a bar with a juke box for a couple more Bavaria beers. Back at the hotel we showered and had another beer for good measure. This weekend is supposed to be the last of the holiday season, the last before the end of the Costa Rican school holidays, so it was a real big event with half of the population of San José swarming in.

I did a bit of camera maintenance on my Ricoh KR-10 Super SLR (Single Lens Reflex). A single-lens reflex camera (SLR) is a camera that typically uses a mirror and prism system (hence "reflex" from the mirror's reflection) that permits the photographer to view through the lens and see exactly what will be captured. I blew out the dust and put in a new 35mm transparency slide film.

At 17:00 hrs I went to the beach with the intention of swimming but ended up just walking barefoot through the surf, watching the sun go down in an azure cloud-free sky. Children played on the beach and the surf crashed comfortingly giving a lulling sense of peace.

As the sun disappeared from view the insect chorus began and a few frogs hopped along through the grass. Last night one hopped through the restaurant while we were eating. I had my evening meal at the Grano de Oro, which consisted of a huge, foot-long mackerel served complete with head and tail.

I ate with an American who looked longingly at my fish as he munched forlornly on his rice and beans because he was trying to become a vegetarian. The two restaurant cats and the puppy called Pinto fought over the head and bones of the fish which I threw on the floor.

Afterwards I went out for a walk. There were millions of stars visible overhead and the campers had lit several campfires along the beach. Bright fireflies flashed about in the darkness. Nothing much seemed to be going on. Everybody was probably at the big disco in Quepos which was 7 kilometres away.

I went back to my room to pack my gear and have an early night.

Manuel Antonio

Thursday 18th February 1988

Luckily, I awoke at 05:00 hrs without the aid of my alarm clock which had stopped during the night. I sneaked quietly into the main hall to pack and set off for the Coca Cola Bus Station just before 06:00 hrs.

The bus to Manuel Antonio was quite a new, medium-sized bus with the destination painted on the windscreen. Like the destinations on other buses, the letters were decorated with an infilling of beach and palm tree pictures.

The miserable looking driver filled his bus calmly and with a welcome efficiency and we set off just before 07:00 hrs. We passed out of town and through green, hilly rural scenery. I kept nodding off and being rudely awakened when my head hit the seat in front, or I slumped sideways into my neighbour.

After two hours we pulled onto a dirt road which followed the coast. Palm tree plantations lined the road, with the hairy trunks lining up in lanes which ran squarely as well as diagonally in a chequerboard pattern.

Occasionally we passed small communities with two storey wooden houses with green-painted corrugated iron roofs. These were arranged around a grassy square with a football pitch in the middle, or at least two crude wooden goals.

At 10:30 hrs we pulled into the dusty town of Puerto Quepos, A Pacific coastal town celebrated for its world-class sport fishing and the gateway to the pristine beaches of Manuel Antonio. We off loaded the family with the baby who had been crying for the last half hour.

A few minutes later we passed some beautiful beaches with offshore islands and pulled into the green verdant village of Manuel Antonio.

With the establishment of Manuel Antonio National Park in 1972, the people of Costa Rica decided to preserve, for future generations, one of the most beautiful and bio-diverse areas in the world. Although it is the country’s smallest national park, the stunning beauty and diversity of wildlife in its 683 hectares is unequalled.

Manuel Antonio contains a charming combination of the rain forest, beaches, and coral reefs. These beaches are the most beautiful in the country, lined with lush forest, and the snorkeling is excellent, too.

The forest is home to sloths, iguanas, the rare and adorable squirrel monkeys, white-faced monkeys, and millions of colorful little crabs. The trail that winds around Punta Catedral features some spectacular views. The park is easy to reach, south of the town of Quepos, and is near a good selection of hotels and restaurants.

Visiting the park, one is treated to an abundant diversity of wildlife. Cathedral Point, with its forest topped cliffs, was once an island but is now connected to the coast by a thin strip of island. This land bridge now forms the spine separating the park’s two most popular beaches, Playa Espadilla Sur and Playa Manuel Antonio. The southern facing beach, Playa Manuel Antonio, is a picturesque half-mile long, white sand crescent bisecting deep green foliage to one side and a private, secluded cove to the other.

I got a basic wooden room at the back of the “Soda el Grano de Oro” for ₡ CRC 250. I then set to work washing clothes and sewing up my bag, the end of which had practically been torn off on the bus.

These tasks completed I settled down on my bed to write my diary, trying to shield the pages from the constant dripping of my sweat. At 12:45 hrs. I set off to explore the area. There was a splendid beach with a narrow strip of white sand between the turbulent sea and rich tropical forest.

I had a Coca Cola at the main restaurant and was surrounded by tourists chatting with American accents. I went down to the beach for a swim, carefully watching my stuff left on the beach as this place is notorious for thieves.

A freak wave rushed up the beach and soaked my trousers and T-shirt. The ocean was littered with leaves. I walked back to the hotel to wash my sea-soaked clothes and dry out my wallet. It was only 15:00 hrs. so I had a siesta, napping until 18:00 hrs.

Then I had a shower and waited in the restaurant for the couple who ran it to return and cook the evening meals. I had a couple of beers and talked with the other guests, a Dane, a German and another chap with a Germanic accent.

Finally, at about 20:00 hrs. the couple roared up on a motorbike and cooked us all a great red snapper each. Afterwards I went out into the insect-vibrant night in search of a lively bar and the good nightlife that Alaskan Chris had told me existed here.

I failed to find anything of interest and after an expensive ₡ CRC 55 beer in a pleasant bar with music, I returned to the Grano de Oro where beer was only ₡ CRC 35. I chatted with the Danish guy who seems to have visited here a few times over the years and has witnessed it’s increasing commercialisation.

He told me that our “hotel” was the last bastion of the budget traveller, and even they were going to have a telephone installed so that they could take phone bookings! We all turned in at 22:00 hrs. There seems to be a large variety of bizarre and often huge insects here, so I checked the room thoroughly before getting into bed.

Apparently, it is possible to see approximately 352 species of birds, 109 species of mammals, large numbers of marine fauna, and hundreds of insects here. As I nodded off rain started drumming on the corrugated iron roof.

I awoke once in the night dreaming that the room was alive with rats and insects. I think that it was due to the noise of rain, now stopped, dripping from the roof and trees.

Mil Veces Adios

Wednesday 17th February 1988

A good breakfast of Gallo Pinto relieved the slight hangover and I loafed around chatting with Sean who had done a lot of travelling (we had Egypt in common). Many foreigners get confused about Gallo Pinto translated as (Spotted Rooster or Cock). Most would say it is just rice and beans, but that is far from true. And Costa Ricans might even take offense if you call it just rice and beans.

Gallo Pinto is the ultimate Costa Rica breakfast; they say if you can make it, only then you are ready to get married. That is the extent to which Costa Rican food defines the rest of the culture. Topped with two fried eggs, cooked rice and beans are also mixed with red pepper, onion, garlic, and chopped cilantro (Cilantro is an herb from the fresh leaves of the coriander plant).

Salsa Lizano might be the secret ingredient to this famous food. Sold by the bottle in local grocery stores, this sauce is a smoky, tangy and subtly sweet condiment that Costa Ricans toss on just about everything… But especially on Gallo Pinto. In fact, some people in Costa Rica will tell you that it isn’t Gallo Pinto without it.

At 10:00 hrs we went downtown to sort out a number of things. Firstly, I went to the OTEC Travel Agent and forked out the $270 U.S. dollars for a plane ticket to Quito in Ecuador for next Tuesday 23rd February 1988. Then Sean made an international phone call, and we went for a juice to combat the dehydration caused by last night's drinking session.

Sean then left me to find a bank that would change Travellers Cheques for U.S. dollars cash and I went off to find the Coca Cola Bus Terminal to check the availability of buses to Manuel Antonio National Park.

Costa Rican Tourist Information promised that Manuel Antonio was one of its jewels that you absolutely need to visit. An amazing flora & fauna that you can discover visiting the National Park as well as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. A veritable tropical paradise! Pura Vida!

I eventually found the Coca Cola Bus Terminal by the market on Avenida 1 junction with Calle 16. It was a bit of a challenge to find the Ticket Office which was cunningly disguised amongst the market stalls. I bought a ticket for tomorrow at 06:45 hrs., paying ₡ CRC 250 for the 165 km journey from San José.

My next mission was to check out Casey’s Secondhand Bookshop on Calle Central, Avenida 7-9. There seemed to be a lot of tramps (homeless rough sleepers) around the Bus Station area, sleeping on the sidewalk or walking around muttering (mental health issues), dressed in imaginative combinations of ragged clothes and plastic bags.

Casey’s had masses of books to browse around, while four fat Yanks played cards loudly in the back of the shop. I needed to urgently make use of the toilet facilities here and the Yanks thought that I was German because they couldn’t understand my English when I asked them where the bog was.

I bought “IT” by Stephen King for ₡ CRC 175 and on the way back to the hostel I bought some new biros (ball point pens). I am really splashing out the cash today! I also bought what I thought was milk but turned out to be some sort of nasty sour milk or natural yoghurt.

I sit here in the Youth Hostel writing while our “gardener” plays football with some Canadians, using a rolled-up paper bag as a ball.

Sean and I got talking to some other Canadians and Americans and after dinner at the Youth Hostel we all went to the flicks. It was not a film I would have chosen myself, but it was reasonably entertaining.

It was “Every time we say Goodbye”, or “Mil Veces Adios”, a love story about a girl descended from Spanish Jews and an American in the RAF stationed in Jerusalem in 1944. Research today reveals that “Every Time We Say Goodbye is a 1986 American drama film starring Tom Hanks and Cristina Marsillach. Hanks plays a gentile American in the Royal Air Force, stationed in mandatory Jerusalem, who falls in love with a girl from a Sephardic Jewish family.

The film has the unusual distinction of being partly in the Ladino language. With young lovers of very different backgrounds with religious/cultural differences, the film is an account of a forbidden love, and the sacrifices that are made in the face of prejudice.

Afterwards we were joined by some other hostel residents for a few beers in a Chinese Restaurant. Later the girls went back to the hostel and Sean, an American called Devon (because my ancestors came from there), the Youth Hostel receptionist and I went to a pleasant bar. This place did beer served with unusual and tasty bocas (tapas or snacks) for only ₡ CRC 45 a beer.

We got back to the hostel at midnight and crept into our dormitory.

Juan Santamaría

Above: Costa Rica's national hero, Juan Santamaría.

Tuesday 16th February 1988

I was up at 06:00 hrs busily copying out notes from the Lonely Planet “South America on a Shoestring” guide which Declan was taking back to the U.K. with him. We had breakfast and chatted to Sean, a young Canadian, as Declan sorted through his kit.

At 10:00 hrs. we left the hostel together to find the bus stop for buses to San José International Airport, or Juan Santamaría International Airport, Alajuela. This airport is the primary hub in Costa Rica and is located only about 1 mile away from the city of Alajuela, and just outside of downtown San José.

It is named after Costa Rica's national hero, Juan Santamaría, a drummer boy who died in 1856 defending his country against forces led by US-American filibuster William Walker.

The Lonely Planet book gave us a bum steer, but we found the yard where the buses left from at the end of Avenida 2, just past the big church on about Calle 14. There was a continuous queue and buses left just as soon as they were full. It cost Declan ₡ CRC 15 for a ticket to the airport and we shook hands and Declan departed.

Now I needed some money, so I changed up $70 U.S. dollars at the Banco Anglo Costarricense. Next stop was the Post Office for stamps, then it was back to the Youth Hostel for a much-needed shave and decontamination session.

I peeled off my filthy clothes, spattered with rain forest mud and dust from the road and plunged into an ice-cold shower. After a good scrub I emerged clean and fresh and cold, smelling of coal tar soap which I had bought in Puntarenas.

I wrote some postcards and then it was time to go to the dentist. The streets were busy, and the traffic was hooting furiously. I got to the dentist, nervous but glad to be getting treatment. The job was surprisingly quick and painless, and the dentist was friendly.

I emerged at 15:10 hrs. after paying ₡ CRC 750 for my dental treatment, but a lot happier for getting my filling replaced. I posted my cards and went back to the Youth Hostel to ponder what to do next now that I was a solo traveller.

There is only one flight a week from San José to Ecuador and it left at 15:00 hrs. on Tuesdays. I had decided to skip over Columbia and fly to Quito in Ecuador to continue my Latin American tour.

I ate a meal in the Youth Hostel, chewing tentatively with my new filling, but luckily it seemed to hold out. I went out into the city centre at 19:00 hrs. to try out some new bars which were recommended in the South American Handbook. I started off in Ye Pub which was familiar territory in which to start. It was dull drinking by myself, so I had one bottle of Imperial and moved on.

I couldn’t find Arturo’s Bar at the address which was given in the book, so I walked back towards the Youth Hostel to investigate a bar on Avenida 1, Calles 21-23 with the oversized name “El Quartel de la Boca del Monte”. This was very pleasant, with music, but expensive at ₡ CRC 60 for a beer.

I returned to the Youth Hostel and began chatting with Sean and before long a fiesta was going on in our room. Our amicable gardener supplied rum and coke and goaded the old American, calling him one minute “abuelo” (grandfather) and the next “hijo de puta” (son of a whore)!

The rum ran out and they sent a runner for some cane spirit. Ideal for cleaning paint brushes, guaro is a sugar cane-based liquor and is the best-selling distilled spirit in Costa Rica. It is known as "Costa Rican liqueur". As it has a neutral taste, guaro can be consumed pure or combined with any natural or artificial mixing.

The party went on until midnight with visiting locals and some Canadians who were here on a three-month exchange program. It was a great spontaneous evening, and a good time was had by all.

Back to San José

Above: Coca Cola Bus Terminal in San José

Monday 15th February 1988

We got up and packed our bags at 05:15 hrs., and as per usual when we were already awake, the alarm went off at the set time of 05:20 hrs. We got on the Puntarenas bus which set off at 06:00 hrs. with a throaty bellow from what remained of it’s exhaust pipe.

We bounced down the hillside trying not to look down at the terrifying drop on our left-hand side, the bus being dangerously close to the edge. At last, we bumped off of the dirt track and onto the tarmacked road for the last hour to Puntarenas.

We had a good breakfast in town and joined the huge queue waiting in the hot sun for the bus to San José. Declan got chatting to a local in dungarees who was waiting with his wife and two toddlers. After a 75-minute wait at 11:15 hrs. we got on a luxury bus to San José which cost us ₡ CRC 90.

Reaching San José after a two-hour trip we pulled into the familiar “Coca Cola” Bus Terminal. We checked into the Toruma IYHA Youth Hostel after the trudge across town along the Avenida Central. The hostel was packed but they managed to squeeze us in.

We threw our gear into the dormitory, and I picked up a welcome letter from home. We then set off into town for the OTEC Travel Agents on the 2nd floor of Edificio Victoria, Avenida 3, Calles 3 y 5. Declan was keen to get home to London, so he took the first available flight, which was leaving tomorrow for Caracas.

We had tickets from Trailfinders in London which were for flights into Mexico City and return to Heathrow from Caracas in Venezuela, open for a year. He got little change from $300 U.S. dollars.

We then went on to find the dentist that was recommended in the South American Handbook. This was Dra Fresia Hidalgo on the corner of Calle 14 and Avenida 15, near the Coca Cola Bus Terminal. The lady dentist was friendly and spoke English, so I made an appointment for tomorrow at 14:30 hrs. to replace my filling.

We returned to the Youth Hostel for an excellent cheap meal and found the hostel gardener playing bongo drums and maracas along to his radio in our dormitory. A miserable old bloke with a white beard who we had seen previously in Montezuma, was surprisingly appreciative to this din. This was surprising as earlier he had complained about us chatting in the dormitory.

In the evening we had a farewell shant (social drink) in Ye Pub, demolishing three jugs of draft Imperial cerveza while chatting, looking at the television and listening to soul music on the radio. The black barman was telling his friends about an encounter with putas (prostitutes).

We picked up a Big Mac from McDonalds on the way back to bed at 22:00 hrs.

St Valentine's Day

Sunday 14th February 1988

St Valentine's Day. No cards!

We got up at 06:00 hrs. and went out into a wet, windy morning in search of the Monteverde Nature Reserve. This was a cloud forest, so called because it was high enough in altitude for the clouds to drift between the trees and keep everything dank.

Apparently, dew clings to the fuzzy, green moss that envelops every tree trunk and vine hanging in the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve. Droplets hanging perilously from the fuzz refract the morning light before dropping to the forest floor, wet with fallen leaves.

There are few places on earth that so eloquently illuminate the power and beauty of nature than underneath the canopy in the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve where eight miles of trails weave through the 765 acres of vast, immersive cloud forest.

After an initial wrong turn, we backtracked and discovered that we should have forked left at the Pension Flor Mar. Our trainers were already wet and muddy when we reached the reserve, so Declan was reluctant to venture into the humid forest, especially as he had no waterproof to keep out the occasional wind-blown drizzle.

At the office at the entrance to the reserve, we paid ₡ CRC 200 each for a photocopied map and a recommended route. We then set off through the woodland following a muddy track which was occasionally fortified with sections of log and crude plank walkways. This was the Sendero Nuboso Trail.

Declan soon took off his shoes in despair and trudged barefoot through the sludge. We made it to the windswept “Ventana”, where on a clear day it is alleged that you can see both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans. Today we only saw high-velocity clouds zipping through the saddle between two heavily forested hills.

We trudged onwards along the muddy Sendero Pantanosa Trail, up and down between the dripping green tree trunks. We saw no sign of wildlife, only the odd tweet or chirrup from unseen birds, and soon we began not to care.

We ended up concentrating fully on where we were treading in the slippery brown slime, slipping, sliding and cursing. By the time we got back to the Administration Centre we were covered in shit, and we had seen enough “rain forest” to last a lifetime.

Indeed, on the muddy Sendero Rio it was a constant battle to avoid slipping down the steep bank into the river, and an effort not to grab hold of the thorn-protected trees for support when sliding out of control.

There was a sidetrack to a cascada, but I thought bollocks to the waterfall, and continued to the car park where we hosed the mud off our trainers and trousers.

We stopped off at the Cheese Factory for some Monteverde Cheddar on the way back and made some huge wholemeal cheese and tomato sandwiches back at the hotel.

Santa Elena is a bit of a two-bit town in the middle of nowhere and only exists as a drop off point for the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. We crashed out on our beds after our six hours of continuous walking. We had a siesta to recover our strength and then went for a Sunday afternoon beer.

We found a bar in what looked like a converted shed. Four old locals sat in a line watching the rodeo on television. We had a couple of bottles of Imperial, which only cost ₡ CRC 30, and played pool in an adjacent room.

We then watched television for a while, watching youths battling to stay on the back of bucking kicking bulls in an amateur-looking production. We got bored and returned to our room at 16:30 hrs. Our room, number 9, has only just enough room for two single beds and just enough extra space for the door to open halfway.

We ate in the pension in the family dining room with one of the two Buddy Holly lookalike American brothers and two gangly youths who favoured running gear. A miniscule amount of meat was served with the usual vegetables, rice and beans.

We popped out to the small General Store and bought some Coca Cola. Declan also bought a selection of sweets, sold individually. It was one of these toffees that tugged out my gradually crumbling filling from one of my teeth to expose a huge hole.

There was nothing happening in the town, so we went to sleep for an early night.

Santa Elena

Above: On the Puntarenas to Paquera Ferry.

Saturday 13th February 1988

We awoke and packed our gear at 05:25 hrs. Typically, because we were already awake and up, the alarm clock whined happily at half past five. The taxi, a red Toyota Landcruiser, picked us up promptly at 06:00 hrs. just after a splendid sunrise.

We bobbed around in the back of the jeep while Gary joked with the young driver in Spanish. The road was a dry hilly track, and the jeep threw up a huge tailing dust cloud. The road was empty and in the fields we saw only cattle with attendant white birds and the odd squirrel.

The first sightings of Cattle Egrets in Costa Rica was in 1954. Originally from Africa the gregarious birds have become permanent residents and the most common egret species in Costa Rica. Egrets are herons but are normally smaller with a mostly white body and decorative plumage. While most heron species are solitary birds, egrets are gregarious and live in colonies.

As we drove down the last rise to the ferry terminal we saw our first howler monkeys, about six of them up in the trees. We waited at the dock while Gary carved up a pineapple and handed out dripping chunks to us.

The bus and a heavily crowded truck pulled up with more passengers for the lancha (boat). A likeable Dutch American Jewish bloke, who also shared our taxi (which cost us ₡ CRC 400 per person) sold a dodgy pineapple to the refresco (soft drink) lady and some good-humoured banter ensued.

We paid our ₡ CRC 75 at a wooden hut and jumped aboard the ferry. We sat around a heap of melons on the top deck in the glaring sun. When we arrived at Puntarenas we had breakfast in a café and bid farewell to Chris and Gary and then set off to kill the four hours until the bus to Santa Elena left at 14:15 hrs. Our next destination was the gateway to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve.

We sat amongst colourful inflatable plastic toys on the beach front and sipped coffee for a while. Next, we went shopping for T-shirts and toiletries. From 13:00 hrs. until the bus left, we sat at the bus shelter brushing off the hustlers and the beggars.

We paid our ₡ CRC 95 fare on the bus. Once on the road the first hour was on “normal” roads and quite smooth, but we then turned on to a dusty rubble-strewn cart track which wove up into the mountains. We stopped a couple of times to tow an overladen green Daihatsu pick-up truck up the steeper inclines.

As we got higher, we got great views of the mountains, the setting sun, a huge lake, and a very solid-looking semi-circular rainbow. Adversely the cloud became greyer and thicker, the temperature dropped and the wind blew fine rain, to mix with the dust, through the windows of the bus.

We bumped into the town of Santa Elena just after 18:00 hrs. and ran around the corner in the wind and the rain to the Pension Santa Elena. This cost us ₡ CRC 350 for a double room. A young girl led us to a small wooden cubicle and provided us with a tiny padlock for the door.

We ate at the pension and nipped out to buy some Coca Cola and crisps from the local store. As we came back into the pension a girl was taking the local bobby (policeman) into the bar to break up a fight. We retired to our room for an early night.