OLD MEN CAN'T WAIT

hers and his, little and big


QUEPES, COSTA RICA: JANUARY 27
Quepes by day is OK. I load the bike, visit the ATM machine, eat breakfast. 8:30 AM and my fellow biker remains in bed. She joined me for dinner last night. She is from Denver, Colorado, and deals in eco power such as commercial wind farms. She is a sportswoman and suffers from too many falls on mountain bikes and skis and whatever. She and my mountainboarder son, Jed, could compare scars. Probably her knee played up in the night and she didn't sleep. What ever, I can't wait. Sad. I want to wish her well. I hope to learn whether she took the Limon/Almirante road out of Costa Rica into Panama. If so, how did she find the United Fruit rail bridges?

BIKERESS OR TIGERESS?

hers and his

QUEPES, COSTA RICA: JANUARY 26
Dusk as I enter Quepes. My eyes are bunged up with dust. I can´t see much. I do spot a small hotel with a courtyard protected by iron gates. The receptionist resembles a late middle-age frog in a straw hat. He hails from the US. He supplies information while entering my details in the guest book. Gringos frequent the bar one block to the left on the sea front: the working girls are safe. Best fish is across the bridge and a further two blocks. The fish interests me.
My room is clean. Towels are big. The shower has hot water. I rinse off sufficient dirt to construct a beach in the shower tray.
Down in the courtyard a woman dismounts from a 650 KTM trail bike. She is fair, late thirties, my height, green eyes, long hair. The KTM dwarfs the Honda. It has aluminium side panniers and a proper biker bag on top of the gas tank. The woman has a proper helmet. She is dressed in a proper biker suit, proper boots (though not Alpinestars).
I feel somewhat inadequate.
"Hi," I say.
She says, "Hi..." A real biker conversation.
She took a fall yesterday and limps a little.
She declines my offer of help in carrying her bag.
Maybe she will catch me later at the fish restaurant two blocks up from the bridge. Or maybe not...