Savior for Sale
Jonathan Vanderweit
My feet glided over smooth stones on a road like a paved riverbed. After nearly four months in the forests of Costa Rica, they had gotten used to the uneven footing and had even come to relish it. Following a semester studying tropical ecology, five of us decided to travel together for a few weeks before returning home. From San José it was a twelve-hour bus ride to a Granada wrapped tightly in a cloak of night, where men sat smoking on porches and fluorescent light dripped out from behind ornate iron bars. In the shadows dogs trailed us, and children laughed while we asked in broken Spanish where we could find the Bearded Monkey. Fingers pointed down cobblestone streets and we followed unquestioningly, dancing with the current of the road. In short time we found the Bearded Monkey, our hostel, on a street named after the fourteenth of September. From a small doorway, a hallway of fliers channeled us into the central courtyard where hammocks circled an open garden. In all directions doors opened into bunks, and a bar stood along the wall to our left. The bunks were all full, so we rented hammocks, three dollars a night, and a beer each. Before long we were dozing under Nicaraguan stars. I awoke nine hours later to the sounds of breakfast. Sunlight spilled into the courtyard like bathwater onto the palm trees between the hammocks. It splashed to the walls, which answered in a chorus of orange and peach adobe. In the morning light, the hostel was new. Many people from the night before had already left, others still slept. At the bar were only plates of eggs and tortillas, the bottles and glasses long since swept away. Pressed in white linen the staff yelled names and carried orders, and hands shot up from tables and maps to get their breakfasts. Already awake, my friends sat sipping coffee and eating gallo pinto with eggs. Eric still wore his glasses and his hair was matted to the left. Megan and Emily were huddled over a map, outlining a plan for the day. John was out for a run, they explained, and I ordered my own plate of rice and beans and a cup of coffee. Where the tap water was less than reputable, we managed to find other ways to quench our thirst. In the morning there was always the fresh, rich coffee for which Central America is famous, and in the evenings we swilled cheap beer and rum. During the day, we procured gallons of filtered water to pass around between mangoes and sandwich bags of sweet juice. We decided to start the day at the central plaza a few blocks from the hostel. When we got there, the congregation was filing out of the cathedral on the other side of the park, and as usual, we were sorely underdressed. While the people around us were clad in muted shades of wool and leather, we had stained t-shirts and shorts, sweaty bandanas and beards that hadn’t been shaved in four months. We set our sights on getting into the one place everyone else was leaving. Like salmon swimming for our own salvation, we pressed against the current of the already saved toward the massive wooden doors of the cathedral. Children craned their necks to watch us pass, shaggy and colorful foreigners so blatantly late for church. The Catedral de Granada, like others around the world, is designed around the idea of a cross. Climbing the toes and passing the ankles, we stopped on the shins. Before us stood about thirty rows of pews, a few scattered patrons still lost in prayer. Silence filled the huge hall like a thousand stilled guitar strings. We moved along the vastness of the room, and every cough and mumble exemplified its presence. Past glaring and glowing saints, we moved in hushed reverence. Agnostic though we were, the atmosphere of holiness was overwhelming and I bit my tongue, afraid to break the stillness with a bad joke about St. Peter, the Pope and a bunch of bananas..........continued in print edition.
