A Costa Rican Hippy

It was 1965 when a seventeen-year-old Costa Rican boy found himself in New York city for the first time. Not knowing what to do or where to go, he wandered through town, his footsteps coming to a halt before a dance club where pretty girls writhed and gyrated in large windows facing out towards the street. One of these girls became enamoured of the handsome Tico, and helped him find his way in what was, for him, a new and strange country. He found work quickly, and was soon ensconced in an apartment in the Bronx in a time when his rent was $140 a month, and a packet of Marlboro cigarettes cost him just 30¢. He’d never have more than a few dollars in his pocket, but over the course of the next thirty years, he would travel the length and breadth of the United States of America, meeting celebrities, stealing cars, and evading immigration.

I first met Alberto–a self-professed Costa Rican hippy with a faded peace symbol tattooed on the center of his chest–on my first visit to Tamarindo in 2007. I was laid up with feet burnt from walking on the hot pavement and sand between Cabinas Rodamar and the beach one scorching afternoon, and would hobble out to sit on the bench in front of my room. Alberto lived across from me, and, once he’d learned what happened, went out of his way to bring me surf magazines and an old Sandra Brown novel he’d dug out of his belongings. As my tender feet began to heal, he even told me to borrow his bike whenever I wanted to go into town or explore the area without having to walk. I remembered those days fondly, and over the next few years I would often look back on our long talks of his adventures in America, his insights into Tico life, or his immense respect for Fidel Castro.

Almost three years later I have returned to Tamarindo and Cabinas Rodamar, only this time without the crippling blisters plaguing the soles of my feet. The hotel has changed, and the layout of the rooms is not what it was in 2007, but the owners remain the same, and Alberto still lives here in exchange for casual help. He looks a little older than I remember him, his brow lined with more wrinkles, and his long black hair showing streaks of gray, but the mischievous sparkle in his eyes is as bright as ever when he puts the pieces together and finally remembered the silly Canadian with the burned feet. Again I find myself lounging on a bench chatting through the intense heat of the day, amazed at the stories this man had collected. He tells me about shaking hands with Paul Newman in Indianapolis, where he’d gone for the horse races; of being taught to dress inconspicuously and to tell the immigration in LA that he was Puerto Rican to avoid deportation; and of the days when you could just walk into a government office and ask for a Social Security card, which he then used to get a New York State driver’s license.

One of my favourite tales is from the time he’d wanted to see Mohammed Ali fight in New York city. Arriving with only a handful of dollars in his pocket–as many of Alberto’s stories begin–he quickly realized he’d never be able to afford a ticket. The cheap seats were $60, with the better ones running over $100. Standing around and wondering if he should just leave, he watched a man buy three tickets and stick them into his suit pocket before returning to the beautiful woman accompanying him. Seeing his moment, Alberto edged closer in the crowd and tugged at the white ticket corner sticking out of the man’s pocket, surprised when the other two attached tickets came right along with it. Melting back into the crowd, Alberto used one of the tickets to get into the fight, throwing the other two in a garbage inside the arena. With that light in his eye shining brightly during the retelling, he looks off in the distance and says in his thick accent, “man, that was some good seats right up close. I had a great time that night.”

After nearly five years, and just a few weeks before his sixty-second birthday, Alberto got into a quarrel with one of the desk staff at the hotel that ultimately led to the owner terminating his employment, thus ending his his rent-free arrangement. He has to be out tomorrow, and with what I’ve come to love as typical Alberto style, still has no idea where he’s going to go.

His answer to what he’ll do when tomorrow rolls around?

He smiles and looks me in the eye. “I find sum’ting. This just life, you know? I just try to get by, and I don’ need much,” and I have no qualms that Alberto will figure something out, and will be firmly settled in a new hotel making friends and telling stories by the end of the week.