Uncle Sid
Hola Amigos,
I wanted to write about my trip from Manuel Antonio to San José, CR. I have been meaning to, but I have forgotten until now.
I was leaving Manuel Antonio for the city to get ready to head to Panama. This was just before I got my backpack stolen in Juko’s house. It was a hot day and there was no air-conditioning in the bus. Luckily or not, I was at the very back of the bus. Typically you get more room and don’t have to be bothered with a lot of people coming and going.
Well on this particular day, there was an old man sitting next to me. I would guess him to be in his early sixties, white hair on the sides of his head and bald on top. He was wearing a brown Canada hot, white shirt that said Vancouver, Canada on it, brown shorts and tennis shoes. Nothing to unusual I thought, just a guy who wants everyone to think he is Canadian.
We started our conversation like any other. You know, the usual greetings of, “Where are you from? What are you doing here? How long have you been here?” Sid as it turns out has been coming to Costa Rica for the last 10 years. Luckily for Sid, he gets to spend about six months in each place, here and Canada. Although after talking to him, I am not so sure he was all that happy about it.
One of the conversations (which typically happens) lead to us talking about if anything “bad” happened to us. Sid mentioned that there was an American guy that he was talking to earlier that day, that lives near Quepos who had a Costa Rican guy living with him that was helping take care of the house and the gardens. Apparently this Tico ended up stealing from him and when the guy confronted him and kicked him out of the house the guy came back and beat up this American.
Sid said, “I wish I would have known about this sooner because I could have ‘taken’ care of the guy. You have to know how to ‘take care’ problems here. I know people.”
Well, I didn’t quite know what to think of Sid. Maybe he knows the police or belongs to some sort of “block watch” group that some of the neighborhoods have to help reduce crime in the area? I found out quickly enough.
Sid was well known in town to get condoms from, give advice, and even come to for help if you found yourself in jail. “One guy,” boasted Sid, “said that he would give me a ‘special’ favor if I gave him money to post bail. I thought about it.” Sid would go into detail about his run-ins with the young locals and how they have sex at young ages and what not.
This was Sid’s lighter side because then he went back into telling me about the troubled kids that he would pay to have taken care of. “You would be surprised at what $50 dollars will get you,” Sid proudly stated. “There was this one time I found a guy stealing from the family that I was staying with. You just don’t let people get away with that. So for $50 dollars I had this guy take a baseball bat to his head. Well needless to say, we didn’t see him anymore.”
Sid continued in this fashion. Talking about his life with great pride, making sure to state that you can’t let people take advantage of you or else. I never did figure our what the ‘else’ was, but I imagined it to be pretty bad. I mean why else would you go to all the trouble to “take care” of people. He told me about his backpacking through Europe, sky diving, and doing all the things you want to in order to stay “young.”
“Wow, what an adventurous life. Is there anything thing that you haven’t done that you really want to?” I asked innocently.
“Well, I haven’t killed anyone,” Sid said with a smile on his face that said he wasn’t kidding. After more questioning on my part, he assured me he wasn’t.
I wanted to write about my trip from Manuel Antonio to San José, CR. I have been meaning to, but I have forgotten until now.
I was leaving Manuel Antonio for the city to get ready to head to Panama. This was just before I got my backpack stolen in Juko’s house. It was a hot day and there was no air-conditioning in the bus. Luckily or not, I was at the very back of the bus. Typically you get more room and don’t have to be bothered with a lot of people coming and going.
Well on this particular day, there was an old man sitting next to me. I would guess him to be in his early sixties, white hair on the sides of his head and bald on top. He was wearing a brown Canada hot, white shirt that said Vancouver, Canada on it, brown shorts and tennis shoes. Nothing to unusual I thought, just a guy who wants everyone to think he is Canadian.
We started our conversation like any other. You know, the usual greetings of, “Where are you from? What are you doing here? How long have you been here?” Sid as it turns out has been coming to Costa Rica for the last 10 years. Luckily for Sid, he gets to spend about six months in each place, here and Canada. Although after talking to him, I am not so sure he was all that happy about it.
One of the conversations (which typically happens) lead to us talking about if anything “bad” happened to us. Sid mentioned that there was an American guy that he was talking to earlier that day, that lives near Quepos who had a Costa Rican guy living with him that was helping take care of the house and the gardens. Apparently this Tico ended up stealing from him and when the guy confronted him and kicked him out of the house the guy came back and beat up this American.
Sid said, “I wish I would have known about this sooner because I could have ‘taken’ care of the guy. You have to know how to ‘take care’ problems here. I know people.”
Well, I didn’t quite know what to think of Sid. Maybe he knows the police or belongs to some sort of “block watch” group that some of the neighborhoods have to help reduce crime in the area? I found out quickly enough.
Sid was well known in town to get condoms from, give advice, and even come to for help if you found yourself in jail. “One guy,” boasted Sid, “said that he would give me a ‘special’ favor if I gave him money to post bail. I thought about it.” Sid would go into detail about his run-ins with the young locals and how they have sex at young ages and what not.
This was Sid’s lighter side because then he went back into telling me about the troubled kids that he would pay to have taken care of. “You would be surprised at what $50 dollars will get you,” Sid proudly stated. “There was this one time I found a guy stealing from the family that I was staying with. You just don’t let people get away with that. So for $50 dollars I had this guy take a baseball bat to his head. Well needless to say, we didn’t see him anymore.”
Sid continued in this fashion. Talking about his life with great pride, making sure to state that you can’t let people take advantage of you or else. I never did figure our what the ‘else’ was, but I imagined it to be pretty bad. I mean why else would you go to all the trouble to “take care” of people. He told me about his backpacking through Europe, sky diving, and doing all the things you want to in order to stay “young.”
“Wow, what an adventurous life. Is there anything thing that you haven’t done that you really want to?” I asked innocently.
“Well, I haven’t killed anyone,” Sid said with a smile on his face that said he wasn’t kidding. After more questioning on my part, he assured me he wasn’t.
posted by Unknown at 4:20 PM
2 Comments:
Hi,
My name is danail and I make a travel magazine named "Passport" in Sofia, Bulgaria.
I will be happy if you want to publish something of your texts in our magazine.
I like them werry and i hope we can establish some kind of profetional contact. i work all the time with this type of free lanse reporters like, i sure you can be.
For future information: danailissimo@yahoo.com
Regards!
Dani
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