Beer and Women

San José, Costa Rica

A couple months into my travels I received a text from a work friend. He said he hoped I was drinking beer and meeting women.

If I had to throw numbers at it, I'd say my traveling lifestyle boils down down to 35% seeing cool shit, 25% sitting on couches and writing, 25% drinking beers, and 15% meeting women. So probably a little more on the sightseeing and couch sitting side of things, but plenty of beer and women too.

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My first day in San José I met a gorgeous woman named Dyan who was working the reception at my hostel. It was a football Sunday for me, so I was set up in the common area on a couch watching football all day. Around halftime I sprang for pizza and invited Dyan to join me in eating it. Which turned out to be one of my better all-time pickup lines. Other notable winners being "Hi I'm Mike" and "So who are you?" I don't really have any pickup lines.

When the nighttime receptionist arrived I asked Dyan if she had any plans and would perhaps like to get a tea. Much to my surprise, she did. We went out to her favorite café - Entre Nous - and drank teas. Then to a random fancy restaurant where I drank cheap beers and she had a mojito.

This our first date ended farcically at a bus stop with me trying to convince her via rhetorical debate that we should lock lips. I've really never had much game. Getting to first base is always the challenge. From there I'm a talented baserunner, but alas Dyan on this night resisted my charmlessness and we parted ways without smooches.

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The next day I was taking a rickety train out to Heredia where I met her for crepes and coffee. Her English was pretty good - her grandmother spoke English as a first language and her mother's family was from the Caribbean coast where more English is spoken. So we had little in the way of communication barriers and had long talks on simple topics.

She repeatedly told me that if she were a vegan she could give up meat and cheese but she could never give up ice cream and chocolate. She had a simple sense of humor like that. She liked cats and was an avid contributor to a Facebook group call GaTicos, a play on gatito meaning "kitten" and Tico meaning "person from Costa Rica."

After dinner we went back to her apartment where she showed me cat videos and we compared designer sunglasses. We rubbed up against each other a bunch but she still had reservations about making out. Her stated reason being that I was just passing through Costa Rica and probably going to leave soon, so she didn't want to get attached to me.

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The next day in my journal I wrote that I should probably leave Dyan alone and focus on writing more while I was in Costa Rica. She was sexy and sweet, but she was probably too simple for me and also she was right and I was almost definitely going to leave eventually.

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A couple days later I was back in Dyan's apartment post-Colombian food and beers, making out with her on a couch. And a couple days later I was fleeing a hangover in an Uber to her apartment where we spent the day having sex and watching cartoons. Son Pinky, son Pinky y Cereb-ro-ro-ro...

Before I left the states I'd been doing spur the moment weekend trips for years, and I'd always fantasized about bringing a sexy date with me. Dyan had never traveled outside of Costa Rica, so I suggested we take a weekend and fly somewhere. Dyan asked for time off at her two jobs, and before I knew what had happened I had booked flights and lodgings for 4 nights in Guatemala.

So much for leaving Dyan alone. A few beers and a beautiful woman apparently makes me pretty dumb. And happy.