Costa Rica: Domesticating The Jungle
By Timothy Smith

I took the abandoned pair of flip-flops on the front porch to be an omen.  Whether good or bad, I had not yet decided.  They lay there before the wide open, warmly welcoming front door of what would serve as my residence for the next week, begging the question of proper etiquette.

Given the drive I had just endured, the final stretch of which occurred on the surfing town of Mal Pais’ lone highway: a narrow band of rock strewn, unpaved earth, traveled ad nauseam by every manner of mechanical transport known to man, as well as the odd horse, I could not imagine a single surface anywhere in this town being without a thick film of grey dust.  The owner was being overly hopeful if he thought removing his shoes might keep the floors clean.  Even with the van’s windows closed, the dust churned up by the bustling traffic covered my clothes, my skin, and my teeth. 

Perhaps the shoes lying in front of the door were not imploring me to behave myself, but welcoming me to unburden myself similarly.  I was still wearing the same long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and sneakers I had arrived at the airport in hours earlier, and with the heat continuously rising, I would have liked nothing more than to drop them all right there on the doorstep and run madly and nakedly into the surf I could hear crashing a short distance away.  I peeked across the threshold at the immaculately clean concrete floors and decided to err on the side of caution and modesty for the moment, at least until I had settled in a bit more. 

My knock on the door was immediately answered by the owner of the house; and whether he had read my mind or he was just intimately familiar with the conditions of the town’s one road, he produced a tall glass of cold water.  I accepted his firm hand shake with my right hand and the beverage with my left; the drips of condensed water on the outside of the glass leaving refreshing trails on my dust-coated skin.  I hesitated at the threshold for a moment still uncertain whether to proceed with or without my Chuck Taylor’s.  I gave a nod to the flip-flops without saying a word.  Jan, my benevolent benefactor dismissed my concerns with an indifferent shrug.  “Do what’cha like, mate.  It’s your house now,” he said.

 I would soon find out how incorrect that statement was. 

The whirlwind tour began the moment my bag hit the floor.  Jan was a traveler’s traveler; he’d been down this road himself many times; and he knew the small capacity my brain had for processing new information at the moment.  A glass of cold water, the keys, and a quick rundown of anything out of the ordinary, these were the things I could handle right now; and Jan delivered.  As he swept me across the sprawling grounds pointing out this and that, he gave me a brief history of the house and his provenance here in Mal Pais, Costa Rica. 

Originally an investment home for the British ex-pat, the “March House” gradually made the transition from home away from home for him to home.  His regular trips back to London became more and more infrequent until they ceased altogether, and one could easily see why.  Jan shook my hand one last time; and as quickly as it had begun, the tour ended. 

I was left standing in the center of the cavernous living room, listening as Jan’s Range Rover clawed to a dusty start in the gravel driveway.  The truck sped off, the sound of its grinding tires gradually growing more and more faint until I was left with the deafening din of solitude.  Only the crashing waves and a gentle breeze rustling through the palms could be heard. 

I was completely alone, or so I thought.

As the remainder of my party would not arrive until the following day, I had my choice of the five bedroom house; but even more important, it was my duty to explore the grounds, to learn the house’s small eccentricities, and to provide my friends with the same comfort and insight into their surroundings that Jan provided me upon my arrival. 

Standing there in the center of the living room, as the sun caused the neutral, monochromatic walls and floors to glow warmly, and as a gentle breeze made its way from the sea through the floor-to-ceiling louvered, wooden shutters, which opened like concert doors exposing the entire western face of the main house to the elements, I realized that I had no desire to explore at the moment.  In fact, I had little desire to do anything at all.  I drifted lazily across the imaginary boundaries created by a massive wooden dining table into the openness of the kitchen area.  I dragged my hand along the surfaces, the warm wood of the dining table, the smooth finish of the concrete countertops, ultimately coming to rest on the deliciously cool handle of the stainless steel refrigerator.  I whispered a slight prayer before pulling open the double doors, but I should have known better than to doubt Jan.  After his clairvoyance with the water earlier, I should have expected no less than my heart’s desire.  Jan, my savior, had stocked the fridge with everything and anything I could have possibly wanted, including a case of ice-cold beer.  I pulled a blazing yellow can of Imperial lager off of its plastic ring, getting a shiver of delight when my parched hand met the frosty metal can; and retired to the doublewide chaise lounges on the back porch.

The back porch wasn’t so much a porch as it was an extension of the floor.  With the shutters open there was no separation between indoor space and outdoor space, and the floor seamlessly flowed into the back garden.  My shirt was off before I even crossed the invisible threshold onto the back porch, and my shoes and socks soon followed.  I stepped down onto the thick carpet of green grass and worked my bare toes in and out of its fat, cool blades feeling the tension from my long plane, van, and ferry trip slowly melting away. 

My jeans had to go, but modesty forced me to pull on a pair of shorts in their stead.  I was only several hours removed from my workaday world; it would take some time, or at least a few more Imperials, to abandon my inhibitions altogether.  I lay back on the plush cushion of the chaise lounge, thankful that the sun had descended below the foliage of the thin strip of jungle directly ahead of me and I could now enjoy the relative comfort of the shade.  The trunks of the palms were far less dense than the canopy they created above them; and with the sun quickly making its descent, I was afforded a glimpse of the shimmering waters of the Pacific Ocean a short distance beyond the trees.  The water was very close; but I had a week to enjoy it; so I drained my can of beer and started to drift off into a very contented sleep. 

That’s when I met my first neighbor.

I had seen iguanas before in pet shop windows or the odd college dorm room, but never quite this large and never quite this wild.  It didn’t seem to mean me any harm, but it certainly did regard me with interest.  I suppose I was as much a curiosity to the iguana as it was to me.  A friend once advised me to give names to creatures that made me uncomfortable, that somehow it would endear them to me or at least take the fright out of encountering them.  So I dubbed my new lizard friend “Russell”; and, as if he had been waiting for me to give him a name, he quickly scurried off toward the trees. 

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