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Way back in 1977--one of those dark years when double-knit bell-bottoms were the uniform of the day--my travel partner Marilyn and I were homeward bound to Costa Rica after a wonderful road trip to Guatemala. The "Tica Bus" was our means of transport.
Tica buses, in those days, were old Greyhound Scenicruisers, the double-deck tour buses retired to Central America to ply the Pan-American Highway. Perhaps they were retired from the Yankee fleet because they were so top-heavy. They swayed unnervingly, especially on curves, and there are a lot of curves on the Pan American Highway. But after you got used to the feeling that the bus was going to tip over, the miles flew by.
Central America is gorgeous, throughout, and when the road flattened and the miles ticked by routinely, likeable young Ticos broke out their guitars and serenaded us all.
At one of the border crossings, an American guy in line in front of us was speaking excellent Spanish, with a distinct Southern drawl. It was fascinating to hear. I joined the conversation, and by the time we left the check point, Marilyn was on the bus and I was in the guy's car.
There was no room for Marilyn in his little compact, nor did she object to the change of scenery. It had taken only a few minutes of conversation to determine that Steve was a fascinating guy, and so Marilyn and I invited him to stay with us in Costa Rica while he planned his upcoming adventure--a walk through the Darien Gap.
Steve was a lean, bearded Texan, about thirty years old, who spoke in the slow, deliberate manner of many Southerners I've known. He told me he'd bought his car for six hundred dollars in Galveston and was road-testing it on the InterAmerican Highway, of all places. He figured if he lost it to either the road or to bandidos, it would be little skin off his nose.
Costa Rica was his immediate destination but his ultimate goal was a strip of low, wild land at the bottom end of Panama called the Darien Gap. The Gap is that untamed area of jungle, rivers, and marsh connecting Central and South America. It is so wet and impassable that it marks the only stretch of uncompleted highway between the Canadian border and Tierra del Fuego. Fans of the InterAmerican Highway, and of the promise of the long-distance travel it represents, are fairly pissed about the interruption.
There is a well-worn footpath traversing the Gap, and that's where Steve was headed. He planned to hike from Panama to Colombia, through the jungle. How's that for an adventure? Inveterate world beaters know of this footpath; it's considered to be one of the finest adventures left in the Western Hemisphere.
Once back in San Jose, we installed Steve at our house (across the street from Ojo de Agua) while he prepared for the trip: storage for the car, necessary visas, etc. Marilyn, by the way, taught English at an American school, the Costa Rica Academy.
From his voluminous kitbag of surprises, Steve produced remarkable evidence of the four years he'd spent teaching English in Japan. For instance: One night, after enjoying a first class seviche at a unique Japanese/Peruvian restaurant in San Jose, Steve leaned over to the next table where the Japanese owner sat conversing with Japanese friends and, in his lazy Texas manner, politely interrupted and addressed them in fluent Japanese. Time hung suspended, as their jaws hit the table.
I was as surprised as they were. It hadn't occurred to me that he spoke Japanese fluently. And anyone who recognizes the unlikelihood of a young, bearded American guy in Costa Rica speaking fluent Japanese with a Texas accent realizes the effect it had on the restaurant's owners. The Japanese, it is said, find it near impossible to believe that any Anglo can fluently speak their language...much less this hippy-looking guy with the broad Texas drawl.
Next surprise. One day, Steve produced from his baggage a bamboo flute. Resembling a large recorder with a bole (swelling) at the bottom end, Steve said the flute had been handmade in Japan by a renowned master-builder of that instrument. He then produced a photograph showing a dozen players of this traditional instrument seated in a neat row on the stage of a community center in Japan. Each member of the ensemble was dressed in a traditional kimono--including Steve. There he sat, at the right end of the line, the only Anglo onstage. What's the likelihood of that? Anyone familiar with the ethnocentricity of the Japanese knows the odds. This Steve was one impressive guy.
We had a week to play with, so we decided to give Steve a look at Costa Rica's prettiest beach. The dusty trip down the mountains to Playa Manuel Antonio beach had Steve sweating the effect the rough road was having on his car, but we made it in about five scenic hours. After a dive in the ocean to wash off the dust, we went for a supper of fresh fish at the Mar y Sombra.
There, we met up with a cordial German guy about Steve's age who was hauling a fifty-five pound backpack around the world. Pieter was another likeable, interesting world traveler, and he was more than curious about Steve's upcoming stroll through the Darien Gap. And so, after a couple of days at the beach, Pieter returned home with us to San Jose. Within the week, he and Steve set off on their mighty fine adventure.
I was invited to go with them but at the time I was in negotiations with a San Jose radio station to do an English language radio show. The show never happened, so I've always regretted not doing that Gap trip. To be honest, though, I don't think I was up to it physically.
The house seemed empty without those two bearded vagabundos around. Neither did we know if we'd hear from either of them again. But life is more of an ongoing event in Costa Rica. One afternoon, a couple of weeks later, Marilyn answered a knock at the door. It was Steve. He was the last person we expected to see, and he was as stunned to be seen as we were to see him.
Hunched over a cup of Costa Rican coffee, we heard this remarkable story: As planned, he and Pieter had indeed walked the infamous Darien Gap, using a hired guide and small tents for nighttime shelter. Needless to say, it was the real thing from top to bottom, forever unforgettable. But if we thought we'd heard all the small world stories there are to tell--and there are many in such places as Costa Rica--Steve laid this topper on us:
In the middle of the jungle, at a point where the footpath touches a wild, remote river, a canoe floated 'round the bend, paddled not by some native or by some rough and tumble fortune hunter, but by a former biology teacher at the Costa Rica Academy!
A year earlier, Keith Leber had taken a position with the Colombian government as an ornithologist, and, as fate would have it, chose that particular day to have himself a paddle up the river--just as Steve and Pieter were strolling by that very spot, fresh from our house in Costa Rica--a house that Keith had visited numerous times.
So..friends..if you think you have a small world story to tell, you'd best hold it until you're sure Steve, Pieter, or Keith aren't on the premises. They can top yours or anyone else's, hands down.
There's more. Steve and Pieter successfully completed their walk through the Darien Gap and parted company when they reached Cali, Colombia--Pieter to continue his around the world trek, Steve to see what he could see of Colombia before returning to Costa Rica for his car, which he'd then drive back to Texas, where a certain young Japanese woman awaited him.
Cali was, and still is, a city with a bad reputation for drugs, but Steve wasn't the sort of fellow to worry about such things. Drugs were no part of his life.
He should have worried. On his first night there--it was a Friday--he went out for supper and a liesurely stroll. Returning to his hotel, heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway behind him as he opened the door to his room. Startled, he turned to see two uniformed cops. Pushing Steve inside the room, they pointed to a plastic bag of marijuana laying smack in the middle of the bed.
Of course it had been planted by Cali's men-in-blue, with the sole object of taking the bearded Yankee for every cent he had. And they did just that. Threatening him with jail, they took Steve's last penny, leaving him flat broke, humiliated, and frightened. Quite the Colombian welcoming committee. And since the banks were closed until Monday, Steve went hungry for the entire weekend.
He told us he couldn't bring himself to ask anyone for money or food. And his trust in Colombia and Colombians had been dealt a death blow. The nasty reputation of Cali was suddenly quite real and something to fear. So, he remained in the room, hungry, all weekend.
Finally, after a two day involuntary fast, Monday morning arrived and Steve got himself to a bank. As soon as possible he boarded a plane and left Colombia. Unaccustomed to such an uncivilized atmosphere, the oasis of Costa Rica seemed to him the right place to be at that point in time.
As I saw it, Steve was a goal oriented person endowed with a courageous, open mind, though perhaps a bit naive--at least until then. He loved traveling into other cultures and had had wonderful success doing so in various parts of the world. But nothing like that had ever happened to him. He was deeply offended by it. It was a crude violation of his well-tended space and of his notion of the world. That's my take on it, anyway.
It took a couple of days for Steve to cool down, during which time he revealed yet another talent to me, something he did to sharpen his body, mind, and spirit. The martial art, Ai Ki Do, was his passion. One day he pulled from his car two inch-diameter poles, with which he and I were supposed to square off and fight one another. I wasn't convinced!
Before we began, he demonstrated an exercise that all students of Ai Ki Do learn, an exercise for which the Art is known, and that never fails to astound us Westerners. Holding his arm out straight and stiff, Steve invited me to try to bend it. It was as rigid as steel. It didn't feel quite human. Mind power had transformed his arm into a steel-hard thing that could test your belief system..or knock you silly, I imagine.
We were then supposed to square off in mock battle with those sticks. I reluctantly positioned mine as Steve had directed. "Now hit me anywhere you want to. Don't worry, you can't possibly touch me." To which I replied, "No way!" I wasn't about to swing that thing at him. He was 100% confident that he could detect in my bearing the area of his body I planned to strike. Again, I wasn't convinced. On the logical grounds that he might fail to read me correctly, producing blood, pain, and injury, I declined.
I sensed--and was surprised by it--that Steve lost some respect for me at that moment. He read me as chicken! I suppose he was born with some measure of a macho Texas disposition. Of course I was chicken, but that isn't why I wouldn't swing the stick. I didn't want to risk hurting him. It's not in my bones. I knew (or thought) that I could fool him and strike him at will. So, I declined. At the least, Steve was disappointed that I wouldn't be a practice partner for him. Those Texans, you know; you gotta whack 'em with a stick when they want you to!
Steve's ongoing plans would continue in Galveston, where he was to buy a boat and fish for shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico, at least for a few years. He knew the business, and he said he expected to clear seventy thousand dollars a year doing it. Big bucks in '77. My guess is that he did just fine.
Steve's Authentic Adventure, by definition, was life itself. He was an individualist, as authentic as I've ever known. A few years ago, PBS produced a documentary about the InterAmerican Highway. The road was followed all the way to its Panamanian terminus at the bottom of a small dirt street lined with working-class houses. There, a footpath bore off into the forest. I can't tell you what a gass it was to see on my television screen the very spot where Steve and Pieter had begun their once-in-a-lifetime adventure, those twenty-five years ago.
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