…and then you are dropped off at San Jose’s ‘Coca Cola’ bus station, or as it is more politely known as ‘pickpocketer's heaven’. This is truly the most evil place you are likely to encounter on Planet Earth. The scum and thievery that abounds here is enough to satisfy the most demanding of masochistic misanthropes. There is nothing like a great introduction to Costa Rica then the feeling of terror and hopelessness that overcome you when you step off the bus, take one look around the bus station and hear yourself say: “I’m fucked”
For you are truly fucked indeed. There are different degrees of being fucked. There’s fucked as in the traditional sense of “well it’s not too bad, but I’ll just say fuck to get some attention fucked”, there’s also “Ahh this should be interesting fucked” and finally there’s the fucked that I was feeling that day in San Jose; “I’m never going to see my mum again fucked” – for it is true what they say; that when faced with a potentially lethal situation your mum does come to mind. Well my mum was staring at me that day. A huge billboard mum, looking at me, shaking her head and wagging her fingers with a ‘I told you so’ look on her face.
Why the fit of fear you may wonder? Could it be something to do with the rough looking unsavoury characters staring at you, eyeing you up from the corner of their eyes as if you're going to to be their next meal ticket? Or perhaps the blindingly obvious fact that you are the only 'Non-Tico' within a radius of 3 miles? Or maybe even the fact that with your camera equipment, you look like a one man BBC documentary crew hell bent on some serious hardcore voyeurism in the name of artistic license. Voyeurism is good. But this. This is foolishness. This is just plain nuts...
