you can't run from death

There is an ancient proverb that tells of a man who is shopping in the markets of a city named Habaz, along the River Euphrates Among the stalls he comes upon Death who is walking the market as well. He stops in his tracks and the man swears that Death is staring at him from under his sinister hood where nothing but a pitch black abyss stands in the place where his face should be. Death pulls out his scroll, looks at it then returns his gaze to the frightened man. Death tilts his head in disbelief and repeats the process of looking at his scroll and back at the man. The man is sure that Death is upon him and he turns to run in fear. He looks over his shoulder again and again until he is certain that he has lost Death in the back streets. He gets home and tells his wife the story and they decide that he cannot leave this world yet and he must run away to her sisters house in Samara (suh-MAR-uh) and hide until Death is gone from the town. The man leaves without packing a thing, hops on a camal and reaches Samara by evening in a speed that was nearly impossible. During his journey the wife decides to go to the market to get the few things she had earlier in the day asked her husband to fetch. She comes upon Death and asks him, "Why were you stalking my husband. He is a good man and has a wife and children to support. Leave us alone!"
Death replied that he was not in the market looking for the womans husband. The woman then asked Death, "Then why were you staring at my husband and looking at your scroll?"
Death replied, "I was not looking for your husband in the markets of Habaz. I was simply shocked to see him here, because I have him on my list for tonight... in Samara."
Of course I just butchered that little dity but it reminds me of my next town which is called Samara (SAM-uh-ruh).

My Samara is on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica and is filled with surfers while the other Samara was in the Middle East and was full of camels and money changers in the temples and such. Wait... once again i'm getting a little ahead of myself. first, other than the same name, the proverb and my post really have nothing in common, this is just random babble. Let me tell you how I found my way here and get you caught up on whats been going on.
So, the dental nightmare turned out to be not as big of a deal as I first thought. That is to say that once the novicaine set in, I just sat there with my mouth opened as wide as possible with strangers fingers and their high powered drills jammed inside my mouth. Most everything was taken care of with minimal pain and incredibly capable and kind doctors and assistants. I say most everything because I have to go back in for more work next week. Hopefully that will be the lot of it, but so far, I have to say that I am extremely impressed by the staff, their professinalism, kindness and willingness to come in at early hours to fix me up in my short time frame. Extremely kind people that's for sure! So my last appointment was on Friday at 8am. A dentist and an assistant both came in an hour early to take care of me. They all knew my situation and were willing to help me out, to get me out of the city and to the beaches where I needed to discover the true Costa Rica, or at least that's what they told me. I got the feeling that they desperately wanted me to have a good impression of their country and they were doing their part to help me out. So when I got done with my appointment, around 9:30 in the morning, I made my way to the bus station and got the first bus that was going to a beach. To be honest, I already knew that there were only 2 buses that were leaving near that time, one to a good place (Samara), one to a dump (Jaco). The first bus leaving lead to a beach that was a drug infested town with nothing but hookers, hustlers and drug pushers and the other beach was the dump. I got lucky and got on the bus to the first town. Of course I am kidding, I made my way to the sleepy surf/fishing village called Samara. Samara is a sleepy little town that has boomed in the past 10 years but still only has less than 1000 full time residents.

The water is clear and clean, the half moon shaped beach is protected by a reef on its' outer edges which allows for very calm waves on the shore, and the residents have figured out that they can make a lot of money off tourists if they put in a little effort. All in all the town is incredibly easy going and free spirited with most ammenities that a gringo, like myself, would appreciate. It is slightly overpriced, in my opinion, but it does have an incredibly easy feel that is impossible to ignore. I have been here for over 4 days now, and have been incredibly content to sit in the shade, listen to the small waves crash and catch up on some reading. Lazy days, indeed. I look back on the past few days and I am really not sure how my time was spent. Fantastic! Lazyness followed by more lazyness followed by afternoon naps. At night there is not tons of things going on, so i've been going to bed rather early and getting up aroun 6 or in the AM. Crazy, I know, but a lot more to do in the daylight hours down here than nighttime. I did run into a friend quite unexpectedly down here, which was kinda strange. There is a girl named Tracy who works at a restaurant (The Walnut Brewery) that is about one block from where I used to work that I ran into here. I got up in the morning and got some breakfast and at the table across from me was Tracy and her boyfriend Sage. She had told me about her trip, but I was not planning on being down here until almost April so I quickly forgot about her plans. All three of us were very suprised to see each other and we each had bewildered looks on our faces but couldn't help laughing. We caught up on what was going on, where we had been traveling and so on. Then we met for drinks the next night and enjoyed hanging out drinking beers on the beach under a full moon. Not a bad way to spend a night and a very pleasant suprise seeing that i'm traveling alone. After we finished the beers I took a stroll along the beach and returned home. I was laughing at the sheer coincidence (which I don't believe in) of running into a friend on a small beach in a country many miles from my home, even staying in the same hotel.

I suppose my tie in to the ancient proverb is that you can't run away from death... actually you can't runaway from life or yourself either. One way or another they're gonna catch up with you. I have been adopting more of a surfer outlook on life recently. When a good wave comes, grab it or it's lost forever. If the surf is flat, enjoy the down time. And if death comes looking for you, whether it be in a big black cape or big bad shark.... well, it was a good ride while it lasted. 'Cheers' to that!