After grabbing some lunch on the Norwegian Jade and regrouping for a bit, we went ashore in search of the tour broker, Super Mario. By now, it was about 12:00 and we still had five hours left to explore Puerto Limon, Costa Rica. We found Super Mario holding court outside the rundown terminal with some of his tour guide buddies and he seemed pleasantly surprised that we had returned as promised. We agreed upon a very reasonable price of $30 per person for a 3-hour tour, and off we went.
Mario was a short fireplug of a guy in his early fifties with greasy black hair and an infectious smile. He wore long black nylon pants, a dark blue polo shirt, flashy blue and yellow running shoes, and a faded black baseball cap that he kept nervously taking off and putting back on his head. Mario jabbered non-stop and was a live wire.
But as we suspected, he was not to be our guide. He led us to a red taxi and started giving instructions to a solemn guide who nodded.
“We need a guide who speaks English,” I said firmly, leaving no room for debate.
When he asked the guide if he spoke English, he said he didn’t.
“No problem,” grinned Mario and he then led us across the street to a large white van that was loading up a feeble bunch of boat people. The driver spoke English.
“We’re not going in that crowded van,” I insited. “No way.”
“No problem,” smiled Mario, at which point two young men suddenly appeared like obedient puppies in search of a handout and Mario eyed them impatiently. Most of Mario’s drivers were already leading tours and he was running out of options.
He asked the smaller fellow who had a very large head and was clearly handicapped, “Do you speak English?”
The earnest young man straightened his shoulders, stood at attention, and said, “Yes!”
Mario looked dubious. “Tell them what you will show them,” he said with a smile.
The young man tried, with little success, to say, “I will show you important things.”
I felt sorry for the poor lad but we weren’t running a charity and an excursion with the boy would have been a disaster.
“I’m sorry, Mario, but this kid does not speak English.”
Super Mario had hit the wall. He looked at the other young man and asked, “Where is your taxi?”
The young man, whose name was Rafael Francisco, pointed across the street at a red Toyota Corolla.
“Super Mario will guide you! Let’s go.”
And so began the tour of a lifetime. The guy was the unofficial Mayor of Puerto Limon and knew everybody and everything. He never stopped excitedly pointing out things of interest and waving greetings to everyone we passed. And while Rafael may have owned the car and been driving, Super Mario was running the show. And Rafael seemed utterly amazed that the legendary tour boss Super Mario was leading our little expedition.
Super Mario gave us a stream of consciousness lesson in all things Costa Rican as we careened around the crowded streets of town, heading north into the jungle.
The facts and figures coming out of Super Mario’s mouth were like watching Latin Jeopardy!
“Costa Rica produces the third most bananas in the world and is second for coffee.”
“Wild bananas have seeds and are not eaten, except by the monkeys. They give you the shits.”
“That’s my girlfriend. But she doesn’t know it yet, “ he said pointing and waving to a young woman walking along the street.
The west side of Costa Rica is dry. I don’t like it because it’s not green and wet like the rain forest. But famous movie stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger have homes there. They don’t know any better.”
“That’s a yellow bamboo. It’s great for building. And that’s some green bamboo. It’s not as reliable. Bamboo grows an inch a day.”
“Every guide pays $4,000 just to operate a public service car and then they have to pay what the meter installed by the government in the car says they owe each day.”
“Many in Costa Rica have a gun for protection. I own several.”
“Costa Rica is a natural paradise. The rain forest is our mother.”
Super Mario was a fountain of disjointed information.
After a fifteen minute drive through the back streets of Puerto Limon, we turned down a dirt road that ended in the dense jungle at the bubbling, coffee-colored Tortuquero Canal where some of Super Mario’s friends operated a tour boat operation. They greeted him like their long lost brother and were obviously surprised to see him leading a tour. Super Mario introduced us around as he hugged everyone in sight, especially the children who clung to his legs. It was clear that if we were Mario’s friend, then we were family.
It was raining softly as we boarded a little white motorboat with a roof and headed up the canal for an hour-long tour. Super Mario stayed ashore while a deadlocked guide named Jose took over for awhile.
We were traveling on a murky brown ribbon of water through the jungle against a surprisingly strong current as Jose searched for wildlife in the trees and along the banks.
The wildlife was abundant, though according to Jose, the rain was limiting what we saw. But there were two toed and three-toed sloths, moving in slow motion, munching leaves as they held their babies; howler monkeys cavorted in the treetops; huge languid iguanas lounged in the top branches of the tallest trees like Mayan statues; little cayman (mini-crocs) dozed along the banks; small groups of brown bats nuzzled under the cover of the palm tree fronds; and heron and egrets fished the sandbanks like they owned the place.
Near the upper end of the trip we came to a small oil refinery in the middle of the jungle. There were no humans in sight and seemed abandoned. It was yet another Costa Rican mystery.
And then came the phantom Coast Guard station where there was no coast to guard. It looked like the last outpost in “Apocalypse Now”. A sleepy, but armed, sentry in a blue uniform stood atop a tower, guarding nothing. Confiscated drug boats from Jamaica sat beached atop the jungle bank while mangy dogs chewed on truck tires. It was a weird and slightly creepy place.
Jose waved at the guard and then turned the boat around and we retraced our ride down the murky canal.
Back at the dock, Super Mario said adios to his friendly compadres and we headed for the rain forest.
According to Super Mario, all the tours go to the same rain forest, but he had other plans for us. He took us to an isolated stretch of rain forest along the ocean called Parque Icoder. The jungle park was completely empty.
We got out of the car by some orange-colored cement posts and Super Mario started bounding through the jungle, pointing out each plant and telling us what they were and what they were used for. He was like a little man child.
The strangest plant he showed us was called Time to Sleep. It looked like a baby fern and slowly folded up when we touched them. Super Mario said it was a “sensible plant.”
There were blue land crabs nesting in the roots of giant Indian Mahogany trees.
Super Mario bent down and gently held a ground plant with tiny black and white berries. “We call this one St. Peter’s Tears,” he said as he comically placed several on his cheeks under his eyes. “People use them as beads in jewelry. See. They are very hard.”
Donkey Face vines draped like nets from the trees where families of howler monkeys played in the top branches.
Termite nests covered some of the trees in large black mounds that looked like dung hills.
Super Mario bolted over to a tree and returned proudly with a one-foot-long, cone-shaped, dried-brown-grass hanging nest that had been used by a Yellowtail group of birds that nest communally. This wasn’t nesting season so the nest was no longer in use.
Super Mario told Rafael to standby at the car and then he led us on an invigorating hike through a maze of steep trails up through the rain forest.
He pointed excitedly at the ground, “Look! A blue and black poison tree frog!”
We were like, “Holy crap!”
We came to a large Bird of Paradise and broke off a flower, showing us how it held water inside its interior. He shook it back and forth rhythmically like a red and yellow maraca as he danced a little jig.
He showed us almonds that had fallen to the ground next to a nasty-looking golden spider whose giant web stretched between two large, orange-leafed almond trees where legions of fire ants were marching up and down in a long column like a conveyor belt of relentless purpose.
After about a mile of wondrous hiking, we started hearing the ocean. It sounded like thunder as the waves crashed against the rocks below. But we couldn’t actually see it through the impenetrable jungle.
A red and black butterfly that looked like a little biplane flitted from bush to bush.
“The rain forest, she is home to hundreds and hundreds of butterflies. Maybe a thousand even,” gushed Super Mario with glee.
The trail ended at the beach where ten-feet waves were rolling in like watery thunder clouds. Surfers were riding waves off in the distance. A vacant, grey concrete casino sat at the edge of the forest like an A-frame pagoda bomb shelter.
There were only a few people on the beach, but they were the first people we had seen since we began our little hike.
Super Mario led us to a large, open-air blue cement restaurant/bar overlooking the beach. Everyone in the place greeted him warmly and he introduced us around.
I offered to buy him a beer which he gladly accepted.
“The best beer in Costa Rica is Imperial,” he said and everyone agreed, raising their brown bottles in the air. “It’s five percent alcohol. Three beers and all the women love you,” he exclaimed with a leering grin.
And Super Mario was right. It was one of the best beers I have ever tasted.
After a couple of rounds, we walked back to the car where Rafael was patiently waiting.
“Now I show you where I live.”
And off we went.
As we were leaving the park, Super Mario leaned out of the car window and yelled at an old lady dressed in a long red dress standing next to a small push cart, selling homemade food by the side of road. She came over to the car, flashing a big smile, and gave us a big spoonful of something brown and white.
“She is my old friend. I look out for her,” explained Super Mario as he reached his dirty hand back to the Inna and I, sitting in the back seat with our mouths agape. “Try some. It’s good!” Inna slightly recoiled as he handed me two local delicacies: crunchy brown pork rinds and a gooey glob of white cassava root.
I was going native.
We proceeded up into the hills above Puerto Limon where the houses covered the lush hillsides like a bright, but badly frayed, jacket. They were an odd mix of shacks and colorful bungalows. The views of the ocean were amazing, but it was the street life that caught our fancy. It was all just incredibly amusing. And Super Mario was waving and yelling at people non-stop. We were traveling with The Man.
He showed us the free government housing and bemoaned the fact that people didn’t take better care of their homes. And he said that everyone just throws their trash into the streets because the trash collection is spotty. People put their small bags of trash in raised square metal cages in front of their homes, but the cages are the size of a small barbecue and can only hold a few bags. So most people just dumped their trash along the sides of the street, or in big piles on vacant lots. It ain’t pretty.
We pulled up to an orange building. “This is my sister’s fruit store,” said Super Mario proudly as he shook hands from his car seat with several customers who came to the door to greet us. The whole scene was truly comical.
We descended down a steep hill through a neighborhood of dilapidated houses and tiny stores and Super Mario pointed to a potholed dirt road where some modest homes were perched along a jungle hill. It reminded me of my days back on the Hopi reservation in Arizona, if Hopi was on a jungle mountain, rather than a sandstone mesa.
“That’s where I live,” said Super Mario. “I love it!”
And after spending the afternoon I could see why. Home is the place where you are loved, and Super Mario was loved by all. He was a very lucky man indeed.
A few minutes later we passed a huge cemetery filled with a strange assortment of white tombstones and black-stained mausoleums, and then rolled back into a now chaotic downtown Puerto Limon. The Norwegian Jade suddenly loomed into view. It was five o’clock and we only had a few minutes before we had to board the ship. We couldn’t believe that Mario had spent almost five hours showing us his hometown.
Needless to say, we tipped him graciously and when I handed him a $100 bill he clapped his hands together, hugged me tight, and kissed me on the cheek. Everyone was happy.
I put my arms around Super Mario and Francisco while Inna snapped a final photo.
“Super Mario, you are the best! And I think you should run for Mayor.”
“Mayor?” said Mario with a sly, sidelong glance.
“I ran a political consulting business for many years back in Annapolis, Maryland. And if you ever decide you want to run for political office, just let me know.”
That produced another big hug and a kiss. And as Inna and I were walking away, I looked back and noticed that Super Mario was wiping a tear from his cheek. I almost lost it too.
“What?” asked Inna as we made our way through the cruise terminal.
I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “I just love traveling with you,” I said and then we strolled hand-in-hand back to the ship.
So, if you want a great tour in Puerto Limon you can contact Super Mario. Tell him Big Steve sent you.
https://m.facebook.com/rafgon12/
I will let Super Mario sum up our amazing day in Puerto Limon.
“Whatever you want to do, you can do it in Costa Rica.”
