Saturday, Nov. 1, return to Nosara

Saturday, Nov. 1

My cats Leo and Isis are waiting for me after a long day and a long absence.

Jose picked me up at 9am to take me to my rental car, a compact 4 by 4 Hundai which costs about $85 for the one way trip, a bargain compared to a $180 taxi fare. My departure from San Jose proceeds smoothly until I’m close to Puntarenas and fall into a speed trap, big time. I had been stuck behind trucks in the mountains, which is normal, but finding myself with a lapse of slow traffic after I had stopped at a roadside stand, I hit around 80 kph, which is the normal open highway speed, maybe a little over 60 mph. The officer said it was a 40 kph zone, and in his weak English and my weak Spanish he said it was a $100 ticket and had to be paid at the bank in Puntarenas on Monday, because it was closed today. With some additional discussion I pointed out that it would be muy dificil for me return to Puntarenas, about a three hour drive one-way from Nosara.

He went inside his station house, which was directly across the road, and when he returned he indicated that he wasn’t going to give me a ticket, and marked lines across his ticket pad. Not exactly sure of the customs in such circumstances, but having a general idea, I pulled out a 10,000 colones bill, around $20, and said I wanted to make a contribution to the local policia. He looked a little uncomfortable, while I wondered if I had done the right thing. Then he pointed out that the ticket was for a hundred dollars, so I said un poco mas? and handed him another 10,000 note. He was happy and made sure that I had good directions to Nosara.

Agnes told me that I shouldn’t pay these bribes, and take the ticket instead, after I got stopped once on the way to the airport in Liberia, and paid 10,000. She pointed out the tickets are normally only about $5. I figured I didn’t have any choice on this occasion, and it was just a contribution to the local economy. I did wonder why he said the ticket would be $100, an extremely high price, quoted in dollars rather than colones.

I received a call from Jose enroute with the news that the gas stations had been closed in Nosara, because apparently the two places had been operating without the proper permits. This is disturbing, because the closest station is on the paved road near Samara, a 15 mild drive on bad unpaved road. I pick up a five gallon can in Nicoya and fill it before turning off the paved road. The roads are dry but the sky is overcast, with random light sprinkles.

I pondered what was going on with the bomba, the gas station. I had been working on a story for VON about the new, modern bomba that has stood without gas since it was built a couple of years ago, due to lawsuits based on its proximity to a creek and wetlands.

Rather than digress further, I’ll paste the uncompleted, last version of the article here, which you can skip past it if you prefer:

La Bomba, the gas station that has no gas, sits invitingly on the road between Playa Pelada and Nosara, on a wetland that has no water.

Both conditions are subject to change, and that is the issue behind a long-running legal battle between the Nosara Civic Association and the gas station owner, Roberto Villalobos.

The NCA contends that the station was illegally constructed in a wetland area subject to flooding, next to the Sube y Baja, a stream that could bring pollution to the Nosara River and nearby beaches and turtle nesting grounds.

In the most recent development, the owner has won a declaration from a government agency that the land is not a wetland, which could allow the necessary permits to pump gas.

The dispute goes back at least to 2002, when a construction permit was first obtained and was later revoked. The NCA reviewed the situation in a legal brief filed in 2007, which pointed to ample evidence that the station sits in an area designated as a wetland. The petition was filed with the government’s environmental agency, MINAE, which reviews the laws which restrict construction in wetland areas. It also points to previous agency actions that appear to confirm the illegality of the construction, and seeks enforcement of the law.

There is a story there without an ending, a story that pits a Tico businessman against gringos and other local citizens who insist that the laws be obeyed, which would mean that the bomba be torn down.

The gas station was built on wetland, next to a stream that flows into the Nosara River, with a history of flooding. Wetlands serve an environmentally important function, to hold water and filter it and ease flooding, which is why they are protected. The prospect that flooding could bring gas and oil into the river and on the beaches motivated the Nosara Civic Association (NCA) to fight the construction of the gas station at that location, according to NCA officers.

In 2002, landowner and businessman Roberto Villalobos obtained a construction permit for the property, after receiving the necessary approval from SETENA, a secretariat of MINAE, the government agency with authority to protect the environment.

This alarmed some local residents and officers of the NCA, who had seen the area underwater in a previous flood, and who attempted to convince MINAE that the area should be protected as a wetland.

Villalobos, who also owns the gas station and adjacent hardware store in Samara, dug into the hill at the back of the property to move earth and raise the level of the ground.

Efforts to protest the construction plans led to a lawsuit filed by NCA and a stop-work order was issued by the court in July, 2004. Construction of the gas station, already underway, continued in spite of the order.

The legal status of the ground as a protected wetland was not confirmed until 2006, and while the gas station was finished by then, the pumps remain under wraps as a consequence of the NCA’s legal efforts. However, an auto parts store is open and vehicles are being serviced.

In October, 2007, a new lawsuit was filed by the NCA, against the Municipality of Nicoya, MINAE and SETENA, in a further effort to achieve enforcement. NCA President Marcel Schaerer says there is not a dispute about the law itself, which he says is clear. What is lacking is enforcement.

“The municipality has to enforce this and to come with a Caterpillar and take the thing away,” he says.

While the national government has proclaimed a commitment to protecting the environment, and has indeed sent bulldozers to selected areas, it is an open question on the fate of ‘la bomba’.

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I wonder if the lawsuits initiated by the NCA are responsible for the shutdown, leaving Nosara without gas? This is the law of unforeseen consequences at work, and I am not happy about the prospect of the long trip for gas.

I finally pull up to my house and Leo and Isis are there to greet me, with Isis, my girl, showing some initial shyness. Sandy and Rourke greet me from next door and I spend some time hanging out and catching up on what little news there has been. Except for the occasional bad storm, there hasn’t been that much rain, although I had heard in San Jose that the year has had a record amount. The mudslide behind their house has been neatly repaired, involving about a weeks worth of dirt moving and a bill for $650.

Rourke said he has been proceeding with plans for his coffee shop, scouting sites and doing some preliminary work toward obtaining the necessary permits, including finding out what standards are required in selling food, such as baked items. I find that muy interesante, and tell him that I’ll eventually need similar permits but am not in a big hurry because I don’t plan selling from a regular commercial space, at least not anytime soon.

Jorgelina has left a sign for me on my deck that says ‘BBQ by Fritz’ with a blazing yellow fire. She left out the smoke, though, so I’ll need her to do a little more work. Latinos don’t seem to appreciate the humo, the smoke. For lunch on the road I stopped at the Tres Hermanos barbecue restaurant that features a statue of a giant madras bull at the turnoff from Hiway 1, the Pan-American Hiway. Equipped my new linguistic skills and still seeking genuine barbecue after the failed attempt the previous evening, I discuss the menu with the mesero, who may also be the cocinera, asking ?much humo?’ and receiving assurance they used a lot of smoke They are doing the real thing here, it appears, and I spot an interestingly-engineered barbecue pit near the back. I order the costillo de cerdo, pork ribs, my own specialty, although I am curious about the res, the beef that in Nosara is too tough for barbecue. I also ask, ‘?Que tipo de arbol,?’ and am rewarded with the name of a wood for smoking that I haven’t heard of, and he writes down the name for me, zenisaro.

I was served a generous plate of very tender ribs, perfectly cooked so they almost melt in your mouth and come easily off the bone. The sides were lentils, and shredded carrots in a sweet sauce. There was a framed newspaper article on the wall, and I could make out enough to tell me that the Tico pitmaster had studied barbecue in the US, perhaps at a one-day seminar such as I had attended. I couldn’t really taste the smoke flavor and found the sauce they were smothered in to be rather bland. The Ticos are not big on a lot of spice or flavor, I had learned during my homestay in San Pedro. The plate, which I struggled to finish because it was a lot of meat, cost about 7,000 colones.

I settle in that evening with a nice bottle of Trapiche Argentine merlot.

Visions are pouring into my head, the Nosara magic back at work. I take out the recipe for corn bread that I received at the school from one of the teachers, Zaidy, and visualize making test batches, while Jane and I take them around to friends and customers as samples to build momentum for the business. I visualize Jane and myself in harmony, ensuring the success of my barbecue. If she wants me to branch out into raw foods, I will happily oblige, but make it clear that bbq is primero, and raw foods are segundo for the negocio, business.

I start singing, ‘Take a load off Fritz, take a load, he’s free, after Rouke and Sandy have left for the new ‘movie night’ at Marlin Bill’s, and there is probably no one else, save possibly some nearby construction workers, in earshot. I take out the guitar I had brought down with me from the US, and warm up with an exercise that Juan had shown me, my fingers flying in a coordinated speed at a level higher than I had previously reached. I visualized becoming good enough to play publicly some day with Juan or Andres, and then beat out a rhythm on my djembe for good measure.

Later, I visualized that this journal would be published some day. Certainly, at least self-published on the internet.