Picking Up Hitchhikers in Nosara.

In just over a week after Cyndi, her father, and I arrived in San Jose from Baltimore and drove five-and-a-half hours to our rental house in Nosara, we were back on the road in our 4×4 SUV, this time to Tamarindo (2 hrs.), via Ostional, San Juanillo, Marbella, and Junquillal, on the scenic, hilly, unpaved, coastal road with river crossings.

We had to drop off a computadora frita (fried) at an Apple computer store to be shipped to San Jose for repairs. Memo to travelers: carry a light-weight surge protector in your luggage, because outages are common, sometimes followed by surges fatal to your laptop. We didn’t, we paid.

We took the paved way back, which we won’t do again. The winding highway is well-traveled and slow, three hours to get back from what had taken only two. You do get glimpses of Costa Rican town life on the busy streets of Santa Cruz and Nicoya, but the Pacific coast and its hills and palms are probably why you came to Guanacaste.

Dusk had begun when we turned off the pavement onto the road toward Guiones and Nosara. We saw a young woman hitchhiking. A young woman. She was thumbing into the night to get to Guiones, thirty minutes north, where she works as a photojournalist with Voz de Nosara. We can’t remember the last time we picked up hitchhikers of any age and gender in South Bend or Atlanta or Baltimore. In the U.S., we assume they’re escaped convicts or serial killers. Here, they just need a ride.

Many people here, Ticos, as well as travelers, live on their feet and on the kindness of people with cars. All day and into the evening, people walk, usually with a backpack or plastic grocery bags or a machete-the iconic agricultural tool of Central America and the Caribbean. I haven’t yet seen a man with a machete hitchhiking, but I’m sure his friends wouldn’t hesitate to give him a ride.

Our photojournalist comes from Turkey, via graduate school at the University of Missouri and an assignment in Guatemala. Articulate, engaging, upbeat about her life. Someone you’d like to have as a friend. She gave us her business card and her blog address.

A kilometer later in darkness, we stopped to pick up a young woman and her six-year-old son and drove them to Santa Marta, about 300 meters from our house. She told us that she comes from Uruguay, where work is scarce, via Mexico, and she has a job now in Nosara. After work, she was walking a very dusty road in the darkness with a small boy, and she was as vigorous and charming as a talk-show host. She wished us a Happy Valentine’s Day-in Spanish.

The next evening, we gave a ride to an Israeli man bound for Pacha Mama, a spiritual community near Ostional. He had grown up on a kibbutz in the Negev desert, and he had stayed at Pacha Mama many times. Here hitchhikers aren’t traveling under duress; they could as well be waiting for a bus. Another ride is on the way.

Late on the following afternoon, we gave a ride to another Israeli, also from a kibbutz in Northern Israel, and also bound for Pacha Mama. We only took him a few kilometers, apologizing, but he replied as he got out, hoisting his backpack, “This is already better.”

The next day, we drove to Super Nosara, the main grocery store in the area, with a second floor for shoes, pots, pans, dishes, and small electrical appliances. The produce department has two categories-“Weigh” and “No weigh.” We picked up a young Costa Rican man heading for night school. His English was very good, refined by a year of middle school in New Jersey. He was finishing high school to try to move into an office job. Early for class, he got out near the Super Nosara to walk with friends. Traveling on your feet in Costa Rica, you leave early, maybe arrive late; time bends.

Then this morning Ed and I walked past two young American women heading for Pacha Mama, waiting for a ride. One of them was searching her duffle bag; it yawned open with enough clothes for five years. When we walked by that corner again ten minutes later, they were gone.

The unpaved roads in Guanacaste swirl with dust during the dry season, and in the late afternoon when the breezes die, travelers breathe a tan haze. Some of the motorcyclists wear bandana filters. Turn on your headlights.

There are riders and walkers without lights, and we’re all on the road together.

Costa Rica, like America, is not without crime and drug and alcohol problems. You still may not want to try picking up hitchhikers in the U.S.A., or some of the cities of Costa Rica, but in the heat of the day or the dark of the evening, it is good to give rides in Nosara.

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Written by VIP Member Tom Vander Ven who is Emeritus Professor of English, Indiana University South Bend. He and his wife Cyndi, also a teacher of English, have a home in Baltimore, but, after a month in Nosara, they now live 30 minutes north in San Juanillo, where through August they’re writing and loving the mellow climate of Guanacaste.

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.