Leiniegan Versus the Ants

As a child, I watched a TV Sunday matinee, I think on channel 11. I saw "Amazon" with Chalton Heston. He is a fearless colonizing man who, when he learns a horde of army ants are coming to devour his cacao plantation deep in the Brazilian rainforest, he will not yield. All the other planters flee but he believes man's knowledge will outwit the ants! He will build moats! Fire breaks, all sorts of other clever Charlton Heston kind of "Home Alone" gadgets but much more macho and sweaty. 

These ants, are actually a real thing and terrify many species and humans in Centro America. The scene where the careless drunk guard wakes up to find himself being devoured by ants scares me to this day (it's pretty gruesome - good special effects for the time)

A few days ago at dusk I  sat happily at a table adjacent to the pool and jungle when my feet caught fire. All my toes were being bitten. Out of nowhere army ants had invaded the area. While not as bad as soldier ants these things turned the entire surface of the patios black with ant massings. I have never seen anything like it. Trails of the ants marched 5 by 5 swarming the place, coming from every direction in multiple groups.

Apparently they are blind and only march following scent and raid and kill all other insects or small mammals in their path. The Ticos call them 'limpiores' (likely improper spelling) which means 'cleaners' as they rid houses of everything from mice to cockroaches entirely.

I ran to the front office trying to avoid any of the massing of ants and eventually the German owner showed up with a few cans of insecticide sort of rolling his eyes. He said 'it's the season, they just come for food'

'I don't know' I said, 'I understand ants but these are a helluva a lot of ants.'

He walked up and then began to shake his head repeating : 'ooff! offfoo! oofff!' as if he couldn't believe it. 'See' I said, 'that is a lot of ants'.

Many spray cans later paired with multiple hoses only one very large mass of ants were left marching down the pathway to some other destination.

They were gone the next day but the Tico staff had to spend a lot of time sweeping away ant remains.

And by the way, in "Amazon" Heston's moat was useless. The ants figured out how to use leaves as boats and invaded the plantation nonetheless. Heston covered himself in petrol and blew up some dam somwhere. The plantation was saved. 

But not Heston the actor. So the story goes he didn't want to cover himself in gross thick oil filming in the deep tropical jungle so they decided instead to cover him in molasses which looks like oil.  

Guess how that turned out.

Samara Again

 We came here about 17 years ago. A small somewhat remote coast town reported by guide books (before real internet) to have great seas and a calm beach. It had one small surf school and a newly minted ATM way down from our treehouse lodge guarded by soldatos. Walking there felt like an indescribible trek in the heat.

Today it has expanded to 8 times its size though in small patches. Gringos here gringos there, gringos, gringos, gringos everywhere. The properties are being bought up fast for a piece in paradise. 

C says, "you know you are a gringo too?" "Of course I do. Do you think I would think otherwise?"

You still hear the howlers at night though they seem farther away than when we were here so long ago. 

The Tico wait staff in town grow increasingly irritated by the hordes of very young gringos taking non-stop selfies: bikinis, posing, pouting, more pouting and then their food plate.

Retired hippie gringos are here too, but interestingly more quiet and respectful than I would have expected. This older generation I believe remember what it was like before hotels: when you pitched a tent.

It's still a small town nonetheless.  You know everyone, see everyone you've seen before and run into everyone you saw earlier that day. The sun is a hammer and the ocean, a repetitive light crest sound onto the strand. The town dogs wander and a gorgeous grey horse walks lazy like down a large street. 'Where is she going? For a walk?'

We met Greg and his wife here. From Maine originally they have been all over the world. They planned to retire in Samara and buy, but Greg said after his usual two months here he begins to think more and more: "Everyone is buying here, building and I keep thinking more land gone, more howlers pushed away by more houses. More jungle gone."

One of the best dramas I have seen was "Tsunami: the Aftermath" a BBC and HBO production done some four years after the actual events - there are many great actors in it: Chiwetel Ejiofer, Toni Collette and Samrit Michaelson. Michaelson's character plays a Thai waiter whose fishing village is destroyed by the wave. Thai hotel chains plan for new development in the wake of this destructive opportunity. 

His character sits on the ruined beach saying: "This place is ours always, I see beauty, I see it but others see it too".

Tonight while the usual beach band at a restaurant played old Beatles staples and a sampling of grunge we paid our bill and got ready to leave. Then the power in town went out. 

We had to touch the walls to find the way out onto the street but there I saw the best stars I've seen since the Sault. A retired American woman was using her phone to light the street to find where to go. As I was shouting to C ahead: "Look at the stars!" the American said the same thing to her husband. People stood in amazement looking at the sky. At some bar many yards away we heard cheering then motorcycles started driving all around the town some blinking flashlights and a few with fire crackers.

I kept staring into the sky. A young Italian was standing by his girlfriend in front of a hotel bar, they both had a glass of wine looking straight up. "Excuse me." he says, " I heard you earlier talking about the moon and stars and you know about this. This sky doesn't look real, can you tell me what this is?' 

"This is what the sky really looks like, if you don't have all the lights on." 

He asked me to tell him what the star patterns were and I pointed out Orion, other constellations,  low down, but now rising and then we looked up at the Milky Way. He asked why star positions looked different in different places on earth and I talked about the rotation of the planet and our trek around the sun. 

"Thank you, now I must buy a book!".  We saluted, I went on my way, the power returned a few minutes later. 

Samara works its magic for all worried hearts. 

The Cheese Shop

On Saturday we walked all around Samara, which is a very small town, looking for an ATM that had cash. We needed cash (which I prefer) as many places don't take credit cards. In this case I had really screwed up my left leg snorkelling and was having trouble walking. I thus booked a cash only massage for my leg.

The temperature here mid-day is posted as 95 degrees, it may be hotter. In that heat my cognition feels as impaired as it did way up on a volcano in Colombia where I was mountain sick and barely able to figure out what was going on (for more on mountain sickness, just read Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air".

I went to one ATM to wait 20 minutes in a line in the sun. The Ticos in line were equally as annoyed, frustrated and hot as the minutes ticked by. Here no one goes out in mid-day. 

A woman finally emerged using colourful language to explain to all that the machina had no dollores or colones and kept asking her to try again. She told us the only other ATM in town was at the supermercado. I then sat down on a local corner bar to get either a soda water or a wine - they had neither, while trying to figure out how far away the supermercado was. I can't emphasise how hot it was and my leg was killing me and no massage in the cards without cash.

Catherine looking for a pedicure, found out that the mercado was just around a corner. We trudged there, me almost at my limit. She was close to hers but her leg wasn't in spasm so she would carry on. 

She then suggested I should sit somewhere and she would try the Scotiabank at the mercado. I saw a large scarlet red sign next to the market that said: "Rosa. Resto - Bar - Lounge" and it looked reasonably lounge like. 

I walked in and collapsed at the nearest table in the shade, the next table occupied by a sole young American who was face timing on her computer. I was dripping with sweat, soaked through my tank top and kept gasping for breath given the heat. She giggled sympathetically. I asked for the wifi password and signed in to "Rosa Bar"

A punkish-hippie waitress in her late 20s walked up and asked what I would like. 

"Ola. Por favore una agua con gas con hielo e' limon". (club soda with ice and lime) "Oh...I don't think we have agua con gas, let me check" I think she was German and thus fluent in English. But she did know her Spanish. She wandered away and came back a minute later. "Sorry we have no agua con gas just tap water."

Dying in the withering temperature puzzled, I turned to white wine. "Do you have any cold white wine and if so what kind?" i hated this awful italian and spanish plonk they sell in all the bars and restaurants. I couldn't understand why they didn't just stock solid Chilean wines.

"Umm i don't think so...maybe we have a glass of red somewhere but I will check" She wandered away and a few minutes later came back. "Sorry, we have no wine'. "No wine? Really?" She brightened up. "We have shots!!!" "No, I don't want shots." The heat was unbelievable. "What about beer? A cold beer?" "I will check, I think we have maybe one beer that starts with an "S""

"Stella Artois?" I was hopeful. She went away again and came back. "No, I am sorry, no beer".

By this time I was astounded. I burst out laughing and smiling, "what kind of bar are you really??? It says 'Bar, Lounge. Restaurant' and you have nothing! it's like the cheese shop". She looked at me:"Maybe you go there to that bar, there behind". 

"What do you mean, aren't you the Rosa?" "No, we are the ice cream stand"...I crooked my neck around the corner to see a stand with a small Baskin Robbins set up with maybe six windows of possible gelato. All the front tables were smushed together between the gelato stand and the bar. 

I asked the waitress as I stumbled into the Rosa Bar to get a cold soda water: "Have you seen Monty Python the cheese shop?" She wheeled around laughing: "Yes , I have!"

I am still puzzled about the shots, but then again this is Costa Rica: Pura Vida!