I lived in the lovely country of Costa Rica for two years after retirement. I lived on the west side of the capital San José near La Sabana and the national stadium built by the Red Chinese in exchange for Costa Rica’s silence on recognition of Taiwan. My neighbor was a former President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Óscar Arias. I spent my days riding buses and walking the streets of San José, a pleasant capital city though with more filth and rough edges than you would expect in a country famous for pristine national parks.

I knew my way around the city very well, and knew its good and bad spots. I had self imposed curfews: downtown by 10pm, Sabana by 12m, Escalante by 11pm, a place called Lomas del Rio never. Also, it was a good idea to avoid Coca Cola altogether after 9pm. Not the drink, but a section of San José called Coca Cola near the public San Juan de Dios hospital. The area so called consisted of a market, a large bus terminal, vendors of stolen cellphones, drunks, misery in every doorway, and the smell of rotting fish and flesh. Coca Cola is statistically the most dangerous neighborhood of Costa Rica although I truly doubt that because there are far worse neighborhoods with shootings and what not (see: Lomas del Rio above), they just don’t keep statistics there. But if you want to get your purse snatched, an iPhone filched, or a crackhead holding a knife to you, Coca Cola is where it’s at.

One beautiful, tropical evening I was enjoying myself at my favorite downtown restaurant La Esquina de Buenos Aires. I often held court at the bar gossiping with the bartenders and enjoying the classy ambience of the place (classy for San José standards) . La Esquina was and still is the nexus for intellectuals, politicians, journalists. In sum, a gathering spot for the tico intelligentsia with great food and very large pours of wine and cocktails. The entertainment consisted of watching nicely dressed prostitutes gobbling filet mignons and washing them down with sangrias while their gringo expat dates, dressed like they were going to a Florida State tailgate party, looked on lasciviously.

That evening I left La Esquina and rather than take a taxi I decided to walk half way home and get the bus to my house. The walk was about a mile. Bad, bad judgement.

It was a nice walk in the clean air after two or three days of steady rain that sent rivulets down Avenida Central the pedestrian street I took to the bus terminal. As I was arriving at the half way point, the Coca Cola bus terminal, IT happened.

I stepped on a manhole cover not knowing it was slightly off its hinges and nearly floating because of the massive amount of water running beneath. My weight flipped the cover like a coin and I fell up to my left elbow in aguas negras, effluvia, human waste, caca, shit. I must have done a cartoon leap out of the hole onto the pedestrian street. I was covered up to both knees in whatever you might imagine: feces, toilet paper, condoms, tampons, gum wrappers, and cigarette butts.

There was a business there and they kindly brought me a bucket of water which I used to rinse off. I smelled like a bus station toilet on Monday morning. “Well I can’t get on a bus like this,” I said to no one in particular so I decided to tough it out and walk. As I began walking, I was aggressively approached by a crackhead (see above) “selling” candy and staring me down with far away eyes. In a proud moment I stared him down and snapped “no jodas mae, estoy empapado de mierda.”*

It was then I also realized I would never make the two miles home from there. Jeans soaked in sewer water are very, very heavy. Who knew? Also there is something called capillary action that makes liquids actually spread on cotton fabrics. I hailed a cab, normally not a healthy thing to do in Coca Cola. I got in the back and told the cab driver the situation. Together we cranked down all the windows and he drove that four cylinder Korean rattrap like it was the Millennium Falcon going through hyperspace. Pulling up to my apartment in a miasmic cloud with a screech loud enough to wake Óscar Arias (see above). I gave him twice the fare and rushed in.

Three, yes three showers were required. Two should have been enough but when I sat down with a glass of wine to decompress I smelt something fecal in my fingernails for God’s sake. Thus the third shower. Also ran the clothes washer thrice. The words of Hyman Roth in Godfather Part II came back to me: “This is the life we’ve chosen!” Another day in paradise.

But, but, but when I finally did decompress I thought about how lucky I was. I didn’t break a bone, I had no abrasions that could have attracted a fatal staph infection, I didn’t lose anything, I wasn’t robbed, nothing really bad had happened.

And I have this story.

*Don’t mess with me man, I’m soaking in shit.