In Costa Rica I felt safe until a Tico/Nico picked up my friend Cat and I and gave us a beer, and then stopped to buy more beer, and then stopped at a bar where we sat down for a beer, also on him, and then stopped at another store to buy beer and liquor, and then in the night we arrived in Quepos and we drove down a dark dirt lane. He told us to be quiet and got out to go inside a house, returning with a wicked grin and 3 small bags of “puro”… cocaine!
I still felt safe enough until we arrived at the beach and did the cocaine and drank the liquor, and two unsteady men approached us and seemed to be offering to sell us drugs, and TicoNico said, “Wait here,” and he walked back up to the car and returned with a stout metal pipe and gripped it, and then, soon, as he conversed with the man trying to sell us cocaine in exchange for sex with me (you read that correctly), TicoNico banged the crowbar down into the log upon which we sat, said something more aggressively and a menacing vibe took hold. Una mala onda.
We left the beach fucked up. TicoNico asked me to drive. He also kept asking me to hold the last bag of cocaine, and then asked me where was the last bag of cocaine. “I have it,” I would say. His eyes would roll as he would sway to the side and snap up, looking up at me. “¿Donde está la bolsa?” he asked. I literally just fucking told you doooood.
This guy was fucked up. But Cat and I can’t drive stick. So TicoNico prepped himself to drive. He swerved us back towards his Quepos apartment, weaving around the mountain turns inhaling deeply and opening his eyes wide, trying valiantly (and probably with prior practice) to keep his eyes on the road. We stopped and gave TicoNico another hit of cocaine. His breaths slowed a bit, his eyes drooping, and his driving was much improved as we descended the mountain to Quepos.
[By the way, TicoNico only spoke Spanish and Cat only English, so I was translating some very weird stuff back and forth all night.]
We drove past the casino first, but Cat and I were pretty adamant about going home. He drove us to his apartment and I soon went to bed. He stayed up with Cat (she assured me she was fine), and I slept scared and lightly in the windowless flophouse room as Cat and and TicoNico whispered, laughed, and argued through the walls, and through thenight..
I awoke in the morning, and TicoNico served us sandwiches. He was acting oddly happy and tranquilo. Mm. Good.
As I would later hear from Cat, the two of them had stayed up all night, drinking beers and doing lines, and TicoNico had put the moves on her, but she had resisted, and TicoNico and gone back to his car and driven back to the casino to return with more beer, and they had continued to stay up all night. But this morning, as I emerged, they both seemed in good spirits, and strangely not too tired. TicoNico was drinking a beer; Cat water.
TicoNico even gave us a ride to the local intersection of the PanAmerican Highway. We bought more food in the grocery store. When we emerged to the parking lot, we saw TicoNico sitting in his car, drinking a beer, smiling at us.
***
Part of this story appeared in my other story, which is part of my ongoing project to hitchhike north from Panama City, Panama to Alaska. Or California by May 12 at least.
Disclaimer: Featured photo at top is from California, I think. I don’t have any photos of Costa Rica because I am living without a phone right now.
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