I live in a cabina by the water. The cabina is run by a lady named Rosi,
who also lives at the cabina with her family: husband, two daughters and one or two sons. Unlike the outhouse where I
stayed my first night, this cabina is sweet. I have my own clean bathroom,
fresh towels, two beds, a TV, and there's a small restaurant outside my
door with awesome cheap food and coffee (and, truth be told,
free Spanish lessons every morning with said coffee).The cabina is roughly $8-a-night.
However, the internet cafe here, one of very few signs here that we're into
the 21st century, was eating up all the money I was saving on room, food and board.
Then I noticed that Rosie has a small office in the back with a computer.
The computer is used, for a half-an-hour of the day, to keep track of the guests.
The rest of the day, the little kids play solitare on the computer. So, I
pay Rosie $2 extra a day, and I have my own office here in Puerto Jimenez.
Thus, I have been very productive. Gringos come here looking for rooms
and the first thing they see is me at the computer and they all ask me
how much it costs to stay here. Between those intteruptions, I work
about 6 hours a day on writing while Rosi's little kids swarm around me
in the office laughing at me and asking me question I don't understand.
They're adorable. Yesterday, the little seven-year-old daughter set up
a nice fan in the office for me.
Now that I've set it up, this is the structure of my typical day here:
8am: After 10 hours of sleep, I wake up.
8:15: Cough and stare at the huge ceiling fan while trying to get out of bed.
8:30: Cold shower.
9:10 Order breakfast (eggs, beans, rice, tortillas, coffee: $2).
9:15: Read and drink coffee and try to talk in Spanish while waiting for food.
9:30: Eat.
10: Jacked on Costa Rican coffee (the first days I was here I was sick with a
head and chest cold. I ran out of Sudafed, but found that the coffee here is as much
an antihistemine as anything at Walgreens) work on the story, hopefully accomplishing
1,500 words before...
NOON: Take a break from writing, walk to the corner store and buy a Rum & Coke in a can
(less than $1).
12:10pm: Walk to the beach.
12:20: Loll in the water for exactly as long as it takes to drink down the can of Rum & Coke.
Though I may stop this practice as some girl told me yesterday that the village sewer is dumped into
the water at the beach. It's so nice and clear, you'd never know. Maybe the girl was full
of shit.
12:45: Smoke pot and count iguanas while walking back to my office at the cabina.
1: The heat and sun will kill you here. Especially if you don't drink enough water, which
I never do.So when I return from the beach I order a huge glass of blended fruit and milk ($1)
and it really brings me back to life.
1:15: Write, hopefully 1,500 more words.
4: Go to Pescaderia and read and eat a huge fish sandwich and two beers ($4). Yesterday
a chicken hopped up on my table while I was eating and no one shooed it off. The owner lady
was busy haggling with a guy who walked in off the street wanting to sell her a watermelon he
was carrying. Me and the chicken watched as they tried to agree on a price for the melon.
Eventually their conversation grew tense. I could tell they were arguing. Before it got ugly,
the policia arived. One of them had a traditional nightstick, but the other policeman carried
a long, flathead screwdriver as a weapon. After the watermelon guy and the police took off, the
owner looked past the big black chicken on my table and into my eyes and said, "That guy just
wanted too much money for that watermelon."
4:45: Come back to the cabina feeling like a swollen toad.
5: Try to walk off the food and beer while smoking a bit more pot.
5:15: Come back and edit what I've written that day, and also hopefully add another 1,500 words.
6:30: Go to internet cafe, check mail (don't have enough money to answer all the nice letters
I receive, but they make me feel good) and post new writing on COMMONPLACE.
7: Read, lay in bed, pass in and out of consciousness.
8:15: Go to a bar, drink two Heinekens ($1.50).
9:30: Everyone is wasted here by 10. 9:30pm here is like 1am in Tampa. At 9:30 I leave the bar
sober.
9:45: Cold shower.
10pm: Sleep.