WALKING TO ZANCUDO

Zancudo is only an hour by boat across the gulf from the Osa peninsula to the mainland Pacific coast of Costa Rica, but it took us twenty hours to make that trip. First, you need a boat. Then you need water. Gene and I discovered that neither of these were always available.
There were three private boats in the little port town of Jimenez. The entire fleet was out. We settled down at a palapa restaurant overlooking the gulf, ordered papas fritas and Pilsens, our favorite Costa Rican beer, and hoped one of the boats would return early enough to take us across.
Finally, a boat came in, but the captain wanted $100 to make the trip. That didn't compare too favorably to the $3 each for the daily 6:00 am ferry we missed earlier. It crossed the gulf to the town of Golfito where, for another $15, a motorboat would take one to Zancudo. The difference between twenty-one dollars and a hundred was quite a bit more than the little extra we were prepared to spend. Our friend Shelia was in Zancudo recently and told us to go there and where to stay. The three of us shared an attraction to beautiful, undiscovered beaches and out of the way places. She drove a four-wheel drive vehicle over dirt roads on the mainland to reach Zancudo, so she didn’t know anything about boating in. Gene and I have traveled together enough to know that getting from one place to another frequently involves the unexpected. This wasn’t an occasion that left either of us frightened, nervous, or angry.
We got a cheap motel room for the night, only a few steps from the ferry pier and decided to take a swim, but the water that had been lapping gently against the rocks along the roadside was on its way somewhere else, leaving behind an ever expanding mud flat. Instead of wading in, we squished in. Gene and I marched onward, determined to have our swim. The tide was out so far, I thought we might get to Zancudo on foot before we reached water deep enough for swimming. We sat down in the water to cool off and then returned to shore.
It was hard to imagine a ferryboat making it to the pier, but when I looked out the window the next morning, I saw a beautiful sunrise and a ferryboat. The ferry left promptly at 6:00 a.m. and arrived in Golfito at 7:15. At a small open-air cafe beside the Golfito pier, we had our morning coffee. They served it in glasses rather than cups. While I had a second coffee, Gene found a man with a small boat to take us the final distance to Zancudo, another forty minutes. His name was Hector. His boat was green. The water was calm and the ride smooth for the first thirty minutes. Then we noticed that the water was so shallow, we could see the bottom. Hector saw it too. The tide was going out again. Hector turned the engine off and got out of the boat. Water came only up to his knees. He began to push the boat. After five minutes, he was breathing hard. I felt guilty that he was working so strenuously while I sat in the boat like a princess. I reminded myself that we hadn't hired him to push us to Zancudo. As if he read my mind, he stopped pushing and waded away from the boat. He seemed to be looking for something. I thought he was looking for a deeper channel, but when he returned to us, Hector confessed he'd lost his boat key in the water. Maybe we really would end up walking to Zancudo.
Luckily, Hector knew how to hot-wire an engine. He managed to get the boat running without a key and did find a deeper channel. Finally, he deposited us at a dilapidated pier. We proceeded carefully, stepping over spots where slats were missing, and came out on a dirt road. There was no cafe at this pier, no other boats, no people, no telephone. Gene flagged down a pick up truck.
“I’m Mauricio,” said the driver. “What can I do for you?”
Gene said, “Can you tell me where the nearest phone is?”
Mauricio laughed. The three children in the back of the pick up laughed. Mauricio said, “There's only one telephone in town, and it's nowhere near the pier.”
Gene said, “I need a taxi.”
Mauricio and the children laughed again. “There are no taxis in Zancudo.
Where do you want to go?”
Gene said, “A friend of ours told us Reiner’s is a good place to stay.”
Mauricio nodded agreement. “Mi amigo,” he said. “Throw your bags in back with my kids and climb in. I’ll take you there.”

Zancudo is not a village so much as it is a narrow spit of land with a road running down its middle. Scattered along that road are houses, a couple of shops, a few cabins for rent. Everyone in town knows where everything is because there's only the one road. You can't stray too far off that road because close on one side is the Pacific Ocean and close on the other is a mangrove lagoon. People keep their boats in the lagoon, and that’s where what’s left of the pier is located.
Reiner's is at the end of the bumpy dirt road. It‘s small: six rooms divided between three cabins. Someone had left that morning. Gene said, “I’ll stay here with our baggage. You take a look at the room.”
I followed Reiner down a boardwalk a few inches above the sand. He was about six feet one, with a strong, athletic body and a fast, confident stride. When we reached the last room in the last cabin, he turned to me, his weathered face neither handsome nor ugly. "I put up a clean hammock for you," he said. He spoke with a German accent. We stood on the front porch. I looked through the palm trees at the deserted beach. It was a perfect beach: good swimming, boogie boarding, and surfing, and so few of us to share it. "I have the room cleaned immediately," he said. I listened to waves breaking gently on shore. “You can have it for $20 a night.”
"We'll take it," I told him.
Gene and I waited in the common room built on stilts above the sand. There was a kitchen with an honor system bar, tables, chairs, sofas, hammocks, a television, a tape deck, driftwood art. A trim, nice looking man with receding gray hair introduced himself as Barry. “Have you made it to Drake’s Bay?” He asked.
“No. Maybe next time we’re in Costa Rica.”
Barry said, “That’s too bad. It’s beautiful there. I own a fabulous place at Drake's Bay.”
Another man with shoulder length gray hair, some of which was in free braids with beads at the end, was named Bob. A third gray one was called Mikey. He had hair all over the place – mustache, beard, bushy eyebrows, head, arms, legs, nostrils. The woman who'd brought him to Zancudo had deserted him there. Fran was a young surfer with sun-bleached hair and a deep tan. He said surfers usually go to Pavones, a little further south. Pavones is “ranked” and has the longest left breaking wave in the world, but Fran liked having the waves all to himself in Zancudo. The last of Reiner's residents was a thin woman from Golfito. She only appeared when it was time for her soap opera.
When our room was ready, we found the beds made up with sheets and pillowcases embroidered with peacocks. Peacocks were carved in the headboards of the beds, a motif that was unexpectedly elegant for a place where there were no private baths, only shared, and a ceiling fan that didn't work. "No problem," said Reiner. "I have a fan. I put it up for you." The other residents were impressed with what they called the VIP treatment we were getting. The man who'd just vacated our room had stayed there for a month without a fan, a new hammock, or embroidered sheets. What he did get and what all the other guys were getting was a substantial discount for staying so long. Reiner probably hoped that we would also settle in for a lengthy stay, but we only had a few days.
We stayed at the end of the road the remainder of that first day and night, eating lunch and dinner across the way at María's. María is one of Reiner's many ex-wives. Maria’s is the only place to eat nearby, and everyone from Reiner’s moved over there for both meals that day. It felt like boarding school, complete with an irritating individual who bragged and talked too much. That was Barry. At lunch he said, “This is about the size of the restaurant I own in Sausalito. Of course, my place is considerably more up market.”
“Of course,” I said. “Pass the hot sauce and shut up.” I didn’t really say shut up, but I thought it. Barry was quiet for the rest of the meal.
Between meals, Gene and I swam, used the boogie boards, took turns in our clean hammock, and enjoyed an entire sky of burnt orange at day’s end.
We were up early the next morning to bird watch while walking the road. The Zancudo peninsula isn't pristine rain forest. There are no high rises and very few people, but also very few birds. Blue Gray Tanagers and Great Kiskadees were breakfasting along the road, but we'd already seen hundreds of those lovely birds in other parts of Costa Rica. About forty-five minutes up the road, we interrupted our walk to have coffee at the open-air restaurant of Sol y Mar Cabins, and there we saw a new bird, the Green Crowned Brilliant, a large, glittering green, hummingbird with a forked tail. Then we went a little further to Zancudo Boat Tours and arranged to take a ride that afternoon through the mangrove lagoons and up the Rio Coto Colorado. We walked back to Reiner's along the beach. Though we hadn't quite made it to the end of the peninsula, we felt we'd pretty much seen Zancudo. It was muy tranquilo.
Lunch at Maria’s was a fresh tropical fruit plate, no choice. Barry said, “I could never get away with that at my restaurant in Mill Valley.”
Gene said, “I thought your restaurant was in Sausalito.”
“Don’t get him started,” I said, this time out loud. Everyone, including Barry, was quiet for the rest of the meal. Reiner offered us a lift back up the road for our boat outing. Bob took Gene aside and warned him that Reiner was a madman behind the wheel, but we found his driving perfectly acceptable. Maybe he was still giving us the VIP treatment?
Our boat captain was Junior, and he was still young enough that the name seemed appropriate. We were his only passengers. He kept the boat slow and quiet, so we could watch for birds. Bare Throated Tiger Heron and Anhinga in the lower canal. Junior had a copy of the Cornell University GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF COSTA RICA, and he knew his birds.
We saw a Green Backed Heron wading in shallow water on long, skinny legs. A Wood Stork sat in the top of a tree. Green Kingfishers skimmed the waters surface. A Whimbrel poked in the mud near shore with his decurved bill. Further up the Rio Coto Colorado, we saw Blue Headed Parrots, spidery white water lilies, and crocodiles. Many crocodiles. Silly me - I’d worn my bathing suit in case I wanted to take a dip to cool off. I doubt I'll ever get hot enough to want to swim with crocodiles.
To make it into dock before dark we had to zoom into the sunset. The surface of the water was radiant gold with islands of fuchsia, mirroring, exactly, the sky. Instead of merely gazing at a display, we were in the sunset, moving through the color. It was above us, behind us, below us. We were surrounded by sunset. As the now speeding boat broke through the fuchsia and gold, we saw trees along the banks covered with white blossoms that fluttered off their branches as we approached. The trees were abloom with birds - Snowy Egrets and White Ibis.
Then it was dark, as suddenly as if someone had pulled a switch. Junior slowed the boat and poked back into the mangroves we'd left four hours earlier.
We returned to Sol y Mar for dinner. Neither of us wanted to share another meal with Barry. Somewhere along the line, he’d also told us about his ranch in Fresno and his hotel in Redding. “If we were with the guys and mentioned our boat trip, I suppose we’d find out that Barry owns a boat,” I said.
“Or two or three,” said Gene.
When Gene was paying our bill, our waiter asked, “How much longer will you folks be here?”
“We’ve got a ride to Golfito tomorrow with Reiner.”
He frowned. “I have to tell you, Reiner is a certified maniac behind the wheel.”
A look between Gene and me acknowledged that this was our second warning. I was tempted to ask for the gory details, but I didn’t.
We walked home along the beach again, but it was different in the dark. There were no lights near shoreline and few inland. Would we be able to tell when to stop? We had a flashlight, a watch, and knowledge of approximately how long the walk would be, so I was able to suspend concern and enjoy the romantic starlight stroll. At the appropriate time, we started shining our flashlight inland. Soon, we saw Reiner's coast- side mirador, a lookout platform on stilts six feet above the sand.
“We've walked over two hours today,” I said. “I’m tired.”
Gene said, “Aren’t you glad we don't have to get up to catch the 6 a.m. ferry tomorrow?”
“After two warnings about Reiner’s driving, I have mixed feelings.”
“It’ll be an adventure. We’ll see what the overland route is like,” said Gene.
Before we could discuss it further, Fran, Mikey, and Bob stopped by our cabin to say good-bye. Fran said, “I wish you guys were staying and Barry was leaving.”
M any mornings of bird watching and early ferries and plane flights had us awake unnecessarily at 5:00 a.m. We got dressed and started packing up. It's a good thing we did because Reiner came by at five minutes before 6:00 to tell us he wasn't going to Golfito after all. He'd try to get us to the 6:00 ferry. I rode in front with him. Gene rode in the back of the pick-up. Reiner drove directly onto the beach, which is somewhat smoother than the road. Then began what we used to call an E ticket ride and what we still call a mad dash. The beach no longer seemed smooth as we caught air flying off the top of one small rise after another. Once we landed in the ocean, and salt water splashed up all around us. Gene screamed, and I looked back, in alarm. I was afraid he had bounced out, and I’d see an empty pick up bed. But he was still there. Instead of the terrified face I expected to see, he was smiling. How could I forget that he was a high speed, down hill, thrills and chills kind of guy? Gene was having fun, and I might as well too. Better to die happy than frightened.
His reputation intact, Reiner got us to the pier in time. Gene shoved some money into his hand. There was no time for accounting. We ran for the ferryboat, this time leaping across the holes in the pier. It was certainly our fastest and most casual checkout.