The Lazy Way

I never mastered (never even attempted) the truly lazy turista vacation where you sit on a beach for a number of days relaxing and reading a shitty novel.  For me, a luxury vacation is when I´m sleeping in hotels instead of pitching a tent in grizzly country or swinging a hammock between two trees. 

And that is the kind of vacation I´m on this minute!  And I´m liking it.  Sitting in my nice-ish hotel room in San Jose Costa Rica, clicking between Premier League and Seria A football matches or alternately gazing out my three arched windows at the ring of mountains around the city, I congratulate myself on being good and lazy. 

Of course, some activity has to be woven into the program.  The model for a Lazy Vacation is the trips I took to Argentina, which involved a small amount of camping, but often just involved a long hard day of wading and hiking, and then a long sweet evening of pigging out alone in a hotel room watching soccer on TV.  Maybe you think that is boring -- but what can I say?  This is how I´m made, this is what I like. 

For a time, I contemplated "popping into Nicaragua" in the middle of this eight-day trip.  Why the parentheses?  Because I "popped" in there last Christmas, and came away with two types of memories: 1, the bliss of paddling and fishing on Lake Nicaragua; and 2, strong memories of waiting in long, hostile lines at the border, sweating profusely, hauling around my kayak bag with no help from dour locals . . . bad memories.  The kind of stuff I´ll do in order to win the reward of a couple of weeks of good fishing.

But for three or four days?  Not sure about that.  In fact, I doubt it enough to have reserved four days at a relatively schwanky hotel on Cano Negro, the lake source of the Rio Frio -- all on the Costa Rican side of the border.  I have a bad feeling the fishing won´t be much, largely due to emails from a local guide who happened to be honest (rare in guides) about conditions in November (turbid, cold, and bad). 

But at least I´ll get out into the bird-loud, croc-lurking jungle waterways and give it a try.  The lake can be paddled, and one can put together a roughly twenty mile day paddling down the Rio Frio and bussing back, which I hope very much to accomplish.  In my perfect dreams, I´m dragging a popper across a shallow side lagoon on the Frio, and it gets HAMMERED by a tarpon!  Then a snook for dinner.  Then a gar for the novelty.  But, in fact, I´m expecting skunk.  That or a sudden panicked tweak that sees me running into Nicaragua for 36 hours.

My current sweet love of laziness may render that unlikely.  I have to hike across the city right now to gather my rental car, and that will be work.  Driving in Costa Rica -- that is work, amigos!  And I´ll paddle around, fishily or not.  In my current mood, it may be plenty.  Vamos a ver :)