650 colonies buys a ticket south from Cahuita to the more well known, tourist town of Puerto Viejo. Along the way, as our bus pulls into intermediate villages, the second day of Independence celebrations are appearent as small precessions of children march up and down the streets with drumsticks in hand beating out festive rhythms. This is the way of the Ticos; good living, pure life, pura vida.

The rain waits until we are five minutes from our destination, then it begins, hard and fast. In the time it takes Jess and I to exit the coach, grab our backpacks from its under-trunk, and make it to a tin-roofed awning two meters away, we are completely soaked. Across the road, through the onslaught of torrential downpour, I can see a sign which reads, “The Rocking J. 600 meters”, a place the guide book dubs “the backpackers’ mecca”. I heave off my pack for Jess to watch, throw on my over priced poncho from Monteverde, and take off in the direction of the sign’s south pointing arrow.

It’s a muddy road, with as many pot holes as there are souvenir shops bordering its edge. The rain comes down as if I am being followed by a perpetual bucket of pouring water. It is here that I realize my American view of the “meter” is slightly diminutive. I am let down each time I inquire at one of the roadside gift shops as to how close the Rocking J is from my current position; the answers always seem to be in “hundreds” of meters.

Finally, I round a bend in the liquidy road and see the brightly colored welcome sign hanging over the Rocking J’s front entrance. I walk straight in, over-priced poncho cascading neat water trails all the way up to the front desk. $6 rents a two-man dome tent in the crowded, tin roofed middle of the property. I pay the tab, hail a cab, and ride back to the small bus shelter where I had left Jess. We return to our tent and set up home for the night. It is dingy and damp, and not wanting to be inside any longer than we have to, we head over to the hammock hut to write in our journals and take a nap.

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The entire compound, though not comfortable by any means, is at least aesthetically interesting. Colorful broken tiles and fragments of shattered mirror are plastered in psychedelic arraignments from floor to ceiling throughout the hostel. Where these decorations are unable to be fixed to the surface, paint has been substituted in a plethora of hue and design. Plaster, statuesque forms leap out from every nook and cranny of the tin and wood structure and various colored lights are hanging from the rafters.

The hostel is full of people from around the world who have come to Puerto Viejo in search of good times, strong drinks, and cheap pot. From my hammock the air is full of a scramble of conversing languages and dialects, all chatting in rhythm while Peter Tosh sings out “Legalize It” from a distant, monophonic tape deck. I drift off in my hammock, a slight Atlantic breeze rocking me gently through the humid, salty Caribbean air.

I wake to a familiar voice. Nick, with whom I had shared a few Bavaria Negras at Coco’s in Cahuita, is now swinging in the hammock to my left, laughing at some unknown, funny story with a Flemish couple. Nick had rented a dirt bike in San Jose a few months back and had since been cruising down as many Costa Rican back roads as possible before he had to return to his native Alaska in three days.

Nick has a great sense of humor, a monstrous laugh, and an appetite for sushi. We make plans to have dinner at a place just down the road that boasts the best all-you-can-eat raw fish in town. Dinner is a collection of nationalities; besides the Flemish couple who decide to join us, there are representatives from Holland, England, The States, and Denmark, all munching on an assortment from the sea and washing it down with round after round of warm sake.

Our multi-cultural assembly staggers back up the road to the Rocking J, buzzed from the sake and impersonating each others accents. We find a vacant space in the commons area and, under a sign which reads “Quiet after 10 pm” in colorful retro detail, spend the rest of the evening passing around a cheap bottle of two-year-old rum while comparing our various cultural differences. As I become progressively sentimental from the alcohol’s effects I start to understand, with astonishing clarity, just how important it is for one to travel. These are the lessons which no university history, geography, or foreign language class could possibly begin to give their students. These are the lessons which must be learned for one’s self, out there, on the road - preferably one covered in potholes.

The next morning, having never really fallen asleep in the damp dome tent, we pack up early, say “Hasta Luego” to the Rocking J, and head back into the center of Puerto Viejo for breakfast and day of the tourist bit. The cook asks us if we need a place to stay. Deciding to give another night Puerto Viejo a chance we agree to rent his cabin behind the kitchen. The dry bed inside is paradise compared to the moist mat from the tent and Jess lays down to catch the Z’s she missed the night before.

I grab my camera and head out to see what yesterday’s rain had kept away. It is Saturday and the town is jumping in the post-storm daylight. Up and down the main road venders are selling their wares. Men with waist length dreadlocks offer to off-load and carry the bags of hourly arriving tourists from nearby Panama. There is a man weaving baskets and hats from fresh, green maiz leafs and on the beach a couple of men huddle over an upside-down ice chest which they are currently using as a chopping block to fillet a freshly caught hammerhead.

Bikes are the main means of transportation throughout the Caribbean, and Puerto Viejo is no exception. All over the town streets are filled with Rastas, Gringos, Europeans, and every other creed and nationality all balanced atop two wheels, many with multi-colored tassels flowing horizontally as they peddle down the rocky boulevards.

I meander down to a beach behind a market area and join in what appears to be a favorite swimming spot with the locals. In a town full of tourists, I seem to be the only outsider at this common social function – this is exactly what I had been looking for all over town. The water is rocky, a far cry from the crystal clear lagoons in Cahuita National Park, but it is nice to sit in and soak up the tropical, solar rays. As I sit basking, and trying not to stand out too much, I am amused by a group of young children who have turned an unaware fishing charter’s boat into a diving platform. Before long, however, the man comes to shoo them away, and I too am off, back to the room.

The next morning, after a second sleepless night in the town which never stops partying, we find the bus stop with red eyes, give the ticket man a few thousand colonies, and farewell to the Caribe. Two weeks has past since our adventure had began and now it is about time to take Jess back to San Jose for her flight home, and for me to begin the second chapter of my journey down on the sea turtle nesting beaches near Jaco.