After breakfast at the hotel with my fellow jazz-musician buddy, Mike, I set out on foot early in the morning in search of a music store where I could buy an acoustic guitar. We were in San Jose, Costa Rica on one of our annual visits.
Even though we’d been to Costa Rica many times I was not familiar with where things are in San Jose, so I knew it would be an all day search. This was in the early 2000’s when GPS on cell phones wasn’t as widely developed as it is nowadays, at least not in Costa Rica. Like many cities in Latin America, San Jose Costa Rica is difficult to navigate. Street names and street signs are not always posted clearly if at all. The traffic is chaotic and confusing. Often street names will change with no signage, so it’s easy to get lost.
But for me and my pal Mike this is all part of the fun. Because we’re both jazz musicians we love to improvise, not just in music, but in the way we travel. It’s like this; In playing jazz, a tune has a melody and some chords and it is written on a piece of paper. This is like a map but for a piece of music. Once you kind of understand these basic elements, the map, you have total freedom to improvise, to wander, over that structure. You can throw away the map and go wherever you feel like going. Playing this way is how jazz musicians find unexpected, interesting and beautiful expressions of music that you never would have discovered if you were sticking strictly to reading the exact notes written on a piece of sheet music. Sometimes if the the gig is with an orchestra or larger ensemble it requires that you to play exactly what is written on the sheet music. Jazz musicians call this “playing the ink.”
We travel the way we play jazz. We don’t play the ink. We understand the basic map of where we’re traveling to and we have a general plan for the basics; arrival and departure. Everything in between is improvised. This would be the equivalent of understanding the melody and chords of a tune. We generally know where we are. We’ll wake up in the morning, walk out front of the hotel, look right, look left and on a whim will decide which way to walk. We enjoy wandering aimlessly and getting lost. We’ve always have the most wonderful unexpected, serendipitous and often beautiful adventures this way. This is a story of one of those improvised adventures.
Because the main airport is located here, for us, San Jose was always just a brief stop over for a day or two on our way in to and out of the country before we would head to the west coast.
Sharing the same father, Mike has a half brother, George, who owned a remote ranch several miles inland from the beach town of Quepos. We would visit him every year. For Mike it was an attempt to connect the dots of his dis-jointed family history and identity. He did not grow up with George who is twenty years older. By making these yearly visits Mike was getting to know his half brother and learning things from him about his father, who he didn’t know that well either. Mike always asked me to come along with him because he considered my Spanish language skills to be better than his and it’s safer than traveling alone. Besides, we always have a blast hanging out together. Mike is a terrific musician and sharing the bandstand with him is always a joy. No one can make me laugh more than Mike.
My idea was to buy a locally made guitar as a gift for George. And this way, too, I’d have an instrument to play whenever we’d come back on future visits. Mike decided he was going to find the local history museum, ( we’re both history buffs), while I went on my guitar quest. We planned to meet up later that night at the hotel bar for dinner.
Sometime after eight o’clock that evening I got back to the hotel with my new guitar. Mike was at a table on the street-side café in front ofthe hotel. He was kind of sprawled out, having a cup of coffee. I noticed right away he had an odd, shit eating grin on his face. There was a strange aura about him. I could almost see little sparks and stars floating over his head like someone who has just had a “spiritual” experience, or like someone on LSD.
“Hola, hermano,” I greeted, “check out this guitar I bought!” For no apparent reason Mike burst into a 30-second silly laughing jag. He tried to hold it in but as soon as he seemed to get control he’d spurt out more uncontrollable laughter.
Curious and amused I asked, “What’s up with you, man, what’s so fuckin’ funny?” He looked at me for a moment trying to hold it in but in a few seconds totally lost it again. It was contagious. Now I started laughing just because he was. I reached over the table and grasped his forearm. Doing my best, bad William Shatner impression I dramatically blurted out, “Control your emotions! Remember you’re half Vulcan!” - which of course, only made him laugh harder. He gradually regained his composure. In the lull I asked him, “Hey, bro, are you okay? What…are you high on something?” He had a couple of little after shock giggle spasms but suddenly like flipping a light switch he became as serious as a gunshot wound.
Wiping the laugh-tears from his eyes he looked me dead on, “Oh jeez! Cain, I swear to god you’re not gonna believe what happened to me today.” Then he proceeded to tell me his story.
While I was off on my guitar shopping quest Mike set out on foot to find the history museum. Realizing he was lost he took a seat on a bench near a park. While taking a rest and enjoying the ambience, a dusty old bus with an unusually colorful paint job pulled up in front of him. Evidently the bench he was sitting on was a bus stop. The bus door opened and the driver looked at Mike with an inviting smile and said, “Vamanos amigo!” ( Let’s go, buddy!) On a whim, not playing the ink, Mike abandoned his museum visit and impulsively hopped on to the bus. This was completely in line with our random wandering style of travel that I mentioned earlier.
“Pura vida!” said the driver happily. “Pura vida!” Mike said back to the driver as he handed him a few colones for the fare. Mike figured he’d ride the mostly empty bus around town as a random sightseeing adventure. He could get off whenever he felt like it and take a cab back to the hotel. He saw that the back seat was unoccupied so, stretching his legs out on the empty seat he made himself comfortable. After 15 or 20 minutes Mike fell asleep on the bus.
He woke up, and looking out the window saw that they were in a rural area. He quickly scampered to the front of the bus and asked the driver if he could let him off at the next stop. “Si señor, la proxima parada es, ah…cuarenta minutos, mas or menos.” ( Yes sir, the next stop is in forty minutes, give or take. ) Mike was gob smacked. How could this be happening? He checked his wristwatch and figured he had slept for a little over an hour. He asked the driver, “Donde estamos ahorita?” ( Where are we right now? ) “Estamos hasta Siquirres” was the answer. His mind reeling, Mike asked, “A donde vamos?” ( Where are we going? ) The driver happily chirped, “Vamos a Puerto Limón!” ( We’re going to Puerto Limón! ) They were in the middle of nowhere, almost to the tiny town of Siquirres, halfway between San Jose and the Caribbean coast.
Fuck. Mike had no choice but to resign himself to the situation. He and the bus driver exchanged “Pura vidas” and Mike schlepped back to his seat. Being a jazz musician, Mike is used to improvising and going with the flow. He began formulating a game plan in his mind as to how he would get back to San Jose.
Eventually the bus pulled over at a little covered shed with a bench by an unpaved crossroad in the Costa Rican jungle. The bus driver instructed Mike to wait there for the return bus which would arrive in about four hours, mas o menos. “No te preocupes, caballero, todo estará bién.” the bus driver told him. ( Don’t worry, sir. Everything will be okay. ) “Hasta luego, pura vida!”
Alone now, sitting on the bench in the middle of nowhere, Mike noticed the stunning beauty of the place. It was peaceful and silent except for the gentle wind in the leaves of the tropical forest and the occasional cawing of exotic sounding birds. Turning his ear towards the dirt crossroad he heard faint music floating in the air. Down the dirt road a bit he spotted a Marlborough and Coca Cola sign nailed to a power pole. This usually indicates that there is likely a nearby soda ( the Tico term for a small convenience store ). With time to kill he opted to walk down the road a bit to see if he could find it and maybe get a bottle of water. Surely enough, not too far down the road he found the soda nestled among the lush tropical trees. About 16 x 12 feet in size, it was a small typical Tico-styled cement block shed with a corrugated aluminum roof. It had a rather large attached front porch covered with dry palm fronds.
There he saw a skinny black man in a Panama hat sitting in a home made rocking chair with a dog at his feet. He was barefoot, the soles of his feet thick and cracked like old shoe leather. The man cradled a fat guitar on his lap. Of indeterminate age, he could have been an old hombre in great shape or a young joven in bad shape. On the floor next to the rocking chair was an unusually shaped long-necked bottle covered in some kind of spotted animal hide. The hide was light brown, golden and white with some dark spots kind of like a leopard. It was hand-stitched together on two sides with thin leather strips. The old dog at his feet was a large mixed breed—maybe some golden lab, shepherd, a dash of beagle and whatever else. He had a big ol’ dog nose with well-worn scars all over his muzzle.
Smiling with bloodshot watery eyes the man looked kindly at Mike and said, “Pura vida,” and Mike said “Pura vida” back to him. Mike explained what had happened to him and that he was waiting for the bus back to San Jose. He asked, “Aquí se vende agua?” ( Do you sell water here? ) With a friendly chuckle and a smile the old man said, “Tienes sed, mi hermano? Tome eso, por favor. Pura vida!” ( Are you thirsty my brother? Here, please drink some of this. Pura vida! ) He handed Mike the beautiful animal hide-covered bottle. “Que es esto?” asked Mike. The man answered, “Ron! Lo hice yo.” It was moonshine rum that he had made himself.
Sensing that Mike was apprehensive he said, “Mira, está bién.” ( Look, it’s okay. ) And the old hombre took the bottle and quaffed a big chug, or chugged a big quaff. ( whatever. ) With the bottle in his hand he slowly wiped his mouth with his sleeve and let out a raspy and satisfying, “Ay! Pura vida!” He reached down and poured some into a bowl for his dog who voraciously lapped it up. He handed Mike the bottle. Resigning himself to the spirit of this adventure, (not playing the ink), Mike accepted the bottle and took a swig. Because of the unique shape of the bottle more rum came out than Mike had expected. It was a big gulp. Though this was the smoothest rum he’d ever tasted the alcohol content took his breath away. “Wow!” In a whispering voice he agreed with the old hombre, Pura vida! Phew!”
This rum was smoky, light and sweet with a soft aftertaste like crisp bacon. Mike thought to himself, “Good god, this is really good. I gotta take another swig. I don’t give a shit!” Now, better understanding the physics of the shape of the bottle, he took a more controlled swig. As the flavor lingered on his palate he astonished at the complexity of the flavor. It had hints of Italian truffle and Spanish Manchego cheese on thin toasted dark bread with homemade bing cherry preserves and a soupçant of maracuyá, (passion fruit,) maybe a touch of vanilla. It was absolutely heavenly!
Feeling a little loosened up from just two swigs of the moonshine rum Mike felt amiable with a sense of euphoria. He introduced himself. “Me llamo Miguel,” and acknowledging the guitar said, “Yo también soy músico.” ( My name is Mike. I’m also a musician. )The moonshine rum seemed to make him speak Spanish more fluently.
The old hombre extended his hand to shake with Mike,“Mucho gusto, Miquel, me llamo don Arsenio,” ( With pleasure, Mike, my name is Arsenio, ) and nodding to the dog he said, “Quisierra presentarle a mi muy amigo, Carlitos.” ( I’d like to introduce you to my best friend, Charley. ) With his big soulful brown eyes Carlitos looked up at Mike and seemed to nod “hello.” Mike, being a total dog person, immediately bonded with Carlitos. He reached down and gently pet Carlitos on his head and said, “Mucho gusto, Carlitos,” and gave him a friendly pat on his shoulders. Carlitos, it seemed, looked up at Mike and smiled.
Mike asked if there was a bathroom, “Hay un baño que puedo usar?” Don Arsenio indicated there was an outhouse around the back of the soda. Mike also wanted some cigarettes and a bottle of water for the ride back to San Jose and asked if he could buy some. Don Arsenio told him to help himself, just leave some dinero in the cigar box on the counter.
While Mike was taking a piss he heard don Arsenio strumming the guitar. Then he heard singing—one of the most beautiful voices he had ever heard in his life—pure and golden, clear and strong with a wild and primordial quality to it. It sounded like he was singing in Spanish but the accent was peculiar. Finishing his business, Mike grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of water from inside the soda. Still listening to the beautiful singing he lit up a cig.
When he came back from around the corner of the soda to the porch the cigarette dropped from his mouth. It was not don Arsenio singing. It was Carlitos, the dog! And Carlitos was not merely singing; he was evidently interpreting the song, pouring raw emotion into his rendition and cleverly choosing his notes and phrasing like an experienced jazz musician.
Mike was astonished as don Arsenio played “Solamente Una Vez” by Agustin Lara while Carlitos sang emotionally and rhythmically, easily hitting the high note on the last “…el corazón,” holding it out for an impressive length of time.
Mike stood there speechless. Don Arsenio chuckled knowingly, poured some more rum into Carlitos’s bowl and handed Mike the bottle. Dumbfounded, Mike took a huge chug of the moonshine rum then offered don Arsenio a cigarette. With a slightly shaky hand Mike lit the cigarette for him. Don Arsenio took a drag and then put it in Carlitos’ mouth. The dog puffed away contentedly.
Puffing away on the cigarette, Carlitos glanced up at Mike then looked over to don Arsenio with his big brown eyes and blinked slowly. Don Arsenio nodded back at Carlitos and smiling at Mike said, “Carlitos would like to invite you to sit with us for awhile.” So, Mike sat cross-legged on the porch, drank moonshine rum, smoked cigarettes and sang songs with don Arsenio and Carlitos, the singing dog.
Mike told me that this entire event was so surreal and crazy that he laughed until he cried, and Carlitos’ voice was so beautiful, so soulful, that he cried until he laughed. “I must be going crazy,” he thought, “or, there’s some kind of hallucinogenic in this rum.”
Don Arsenio seemed to understand Mike’s confusion. He gave Mike one of those looks that let’s you know “I get it, too. I’m blown away just like you are.” “I know, I know,” he said as his eyes watered with joy. “Don’t be afraid. It’s alright, my friend. But, isn’t this strange and wonderful?”
Mike asked where Carlitos had learned to sing. “He’s never had a lesson,” he declared. “Here’s all I know.” And he told Mike the story of how he had come to know Carlitos the singing dog.
“Very early one morning, about seven years ago I heard a terrible commotion, a fight, out back of my house. I ran out to see what was happening. I saw a much younger and more macho Carlitos tangling with a manigordo that had been raiding my chicken coop." ( A manigordo is a small wild feline with big paws native to Costa Rica, cousin to the ocelot. )
Don Arsenio’s expression took on a far away look. His inner eyes were seeing a painful memory as he continued. “It was a hard thing to see. Any fighting and violence is disturbing to me and I truly love the manigordos. They are very beautiful and wonderful beings. It could have gone either way. It would have been impossible for me to have intervened without getting wounded or killed myself. The manigordo was fierce and he inflicted many dangerous blows on Carlitos. The scars on his nose you see there are from that fight.” Pointing to the bottle he said, “The hide on the covering of my bottle of ron is from that manigordo.”
Mike was enthralled by his story. “Have you had Carlitos since he was a pup? Did you raise him?” he asked. “Oh no,” answered don Arsenio, “He was a full grown dog-man when we met that day of the fight. I don’t know where Carlitos came from. He just showed up one day. I doctored his wounds and nursed him back to health. I guess he just decided to stay with me.”
Don Arsenio’s mood shifted to a happier subject. “A few nights later I was sitting here strumming my guitar on the veranda with Carlitos while he was still healing from his wounds. I spilled my bottle of rum on the floor in front of him. To my surprise Carlitos lapped it right up! I poured some into his bowl just to see if he would drink it, and he did. He drank it all down! After a couple of bowls of rum he just started singing!”
Mike splashed a little of his bottled water on his face, blinked vigorously and rubbed his eyes to see if he was maybe dreaming all of this. Don Arsenio went on, “No hay que creer, ni dejar de creer,” ( You don’t have to believe or disbelieve. ) “Believe me, hermano, it scared the shit out of me! I was frightened just as you are now. I thought maybe some brujo (sorcerer) had tainted my rum with hongos. (mushrooms). But Carlitos looked me in the eyes with such love that I knew he was truly an angel. This was a milagro sent from diós to ease my crushed heart and loneliness. You see, my wife had died a year before and I had lost my will to live. Carlitos saved my life.”
The more rum Mike drank the more it all made sense to him. Don Arsenio cautioned Mike, “You should understand, we have many agüizotes around here.” Agüizotes are the folk beliefs, superstitions and brujería (witchcraft) of Costa Rican culture. Mike supposed that perhaps away from the cacophony of modern city life where native rural people live, the normal rules of reality that we accept without question are often not applicable. The mysterious forces of nature are not camouflaged by the cacophony of modern civilization and can express themselves in ways that modern science still cannot explain. It doesn’t mean that they are necessarily supernatural, but rather, just as yet unexplained.
Don Arsenio said that Carlitos understands Spanish but cannot speak it. He can only sing. Mike noticed some flaws in Carlitos’ pronunciation, mostly consonants, D-s, T-s and especially F-s; difficult sounds to produce through dog-shaped lips and palate. “Carlitos speaks to me with his eyes and thoughts,” explained don Arsenio.
At one point during their jam session Mike asked if Carlitos knew the song Volver, Volver, a Mexican ranchera standard made famous by Vicente Fernández. Don Arsenio shot Mike a cautionary side glance as if he hade broached a touchy subject. Although they knew the song, Carlitos refused to sing it because he said it made him sad. Evidently it brought up painful memories from his past that he didn’t want to think about. “We always strive to be happy,” explained don Arsenio. “Life brings enough sadness on its own so we don’t like to sing sad songs.”
While don Arsenio strummed the guitar Mike sang another old Mexican song instead, La Barca, and as if it weren’t already fantastic enough that a dog could sing, Carlitos joined in with Mike on the refrain singing in perfect harmony. Carlitos and don Arsenio knew a lot of calypso tunes that were in patois and pigeon English and many songs that Mike had never heard before. At one point they did a clever rendition of “You Are My Sunshine” in a calypso beat. ( Mike joined in singing harmony. ) “Carlitos really likes that song,” don Arsenio told Mike. “It’s the only song he knows in English.”
Time disappeared and Mike lost all anxiety over being stranded in the middle of nowhere in Costa Rica. They finally polished off the bottle of rum and smoked the entire pack of cigarettes. At which point Mike looked at his wristwatch and remembered he had to get back to the bus stop. “Don’t worry, hermano,” said don Arsenio, “the bus is always late. You’ll be fine. Pura vida!” Mike excused himself to go use the bathroom. “You know where it it is, out back of the soda.” Said don Arsenio, adding humorously, “Watch out for the manigordos! They’ll claw your balls off!”
Feeling a little dizzy and very high Mike was stumbling around trying to relieve himself in the outhouse. He heard don Arsenio call out in the distance, “Adios, hermano! Carlitos dice que es placer conocerte! ” (So long. brother, Carlitos says it was pleasure to meet you!) When Mike came back from the outhouse don Arsenio and Carlitos were nowhere to be seen. Only the rocking chair and the guitar were left on the porch. Not a soul was in sight and all he could hear was the sound of the wind in the palm trees. He called out, “Hola, hola?” But no one answered.
Mike shrugged and headed back down the dirt road to the crossroad where the bus stop was. Curiously, almost as soon as he approached the bench he saw coming down the road what appeared to be the same dusty old, oddly-painted bus that had dropped him off hours earlier. It pulled over and offered Mike a ride. Mike made sure to ask the driver, a different guy than before, if he were heading back to San Jose. And so it was.
Mike made his way to the empty backseat and stretched out, again falling into a deep sleep. This time it was a rum-soaked slumber. The only other passengers were two native women with a three year old girl and a baby, a brazero with two big gunny sacks full of mangos and three teenage guys wearing T-shirts with American product logos, levis and hip sunglasses.
Mike awoke at the edge of town. Before long they arrived at the park where he had initially boarded earlier that morning. He flagged a taxi which took him back to the hotel. Mike felt amazingly rested and happy as he took a seat at the street side cafe and sipped a cup of coffee. That’s when I showed up.
Mike is not a boaster, or a bullshitter, nor a drunkard nor a doper. He is one of the most rational, sane persons I’ve ever known. He had no reason to fabricate this tall tale. I believed him wholeheartedly then, and I do to this day.
On subsequent trips to Costa Rica we made several attempts to find that place. We could never seem to find a bus similar to the one Mike had described. We couldn’t find the park or the bench where he had boarded. We rode a bus once all the way to Puerto Limón and back but Mike didn’t recognize anything. But we did rent a car once and drove out the same road towards Puerto Limón. Along the way we stopped at a few places and unpaved crossroads that Mike thought he recognized but they were not the place we hoped to find. We were never able to find don Arsenio and Carlitos. All I can tell you is what don Arsenio said, “No hay que creer, ni dejar de creer.”
Here’s a song I wrote for Costa Rica. It’s called “Pura Vida”