A few years ago, my wife, baby son, and I were prompted to move from one coastal town in Guanacaste to another when my wife took a new job heading a small non-profit. Our first rental was a small house on a small lot which had been scooped out of the side of a mountain on the edge of town.
After a strong storm prompted a mudslide down the mountain and into our kitchen, my then pregnant wife informed me that mudslide houses are not good houses for pregnant ladies and babies, and it was time to move. The only available rental in the area anywhere near our price range was on a little dirt road in the center of town. Sure, we were hemmed in on all sides by neighbors, but it was a sleepy little town so how bad could it be?
The answer was it wasn’t bad at all. We welcomed our second son into the world in that home and always felt safe there. The one sticking point was that the quiet little town turned out to be anything but quiet. Between the townsfolk and door to door salesmen, it seemed as though something loud was always happening.
We were completely surrounded by neighbors. The folks to the left had a guaro loving grandpa who also enjoyed having difficult to understand conversation about how he used to own large portions of the entire town. On the right there was a middle-aged bachelor who enjoyed loud music and having yelling conversations with his many cats. His little house had a covered back porch that acted as a perfect signal amplifier so his cat-chats could be heard word for word in our living room. Our favorite cat to hear about was Chickateen or Chicky depending on our neighbor’s mood.
Chickateen was often late to dinner and needed to be called continually before he sauntered in, where he would then be questioned repeatedly about what he had been up to. I’ve never gotten to know a cat so well without ever actually having seen it. The huge family across the street was packed into a little wooden house. The main characters there were the happiest lady in the world, whose belly laughs and cackles could be heard throughout our house several times a day and the little nephew who never had pants on that liked to mischievously kick his soccer ball against our gate prompting our dog to completely lose her mind.
Layered onto the neighbor-noise was the constant sound of someone trying to sell you something. The sound came in the form of a loudspeaker mounted on a truck or someone yelling the word Upe! which means ‘Hey! I’m calling you out here!’. The range of items that could be purchased from the front porch was pretty incredible. You could buy outdoor furniture, mattresses, and an enormous variety of pots and pans.
There was also a variety of food items to be had, all announced loudly and repeatedly. Among them were the fruit and vegetable truck, the cake lady, and the chicken truck. I once purchased a tres leches cake from the cake lady and accidentally started a relationship where I was buying some sort of cake once a week. The chicken truck was my favorite because it came with the option of purchasing either a plucked, ready to go chicken from a freezer or a flapping, you have to off it yourself chicken from a cage.
We ended up spending three eventful years in that house. When we finally bought a patch of land on a forested road close to the beach and built a little house, the change in noise level was dramatic. Instead of the laughing lady and the chicken truck, we heard monkeys and parrots. While it was a welcome change, I do find myself wondering what Chickateen is up to.
About the Author
Vincent Losasso, founder of Guanacaste Wildlife Monitoring, is a biologist who works with camera traps throughout Costa Rica. Learn more about his projects on facebook or instagram. You can also email him at: vincent@guanacastewildlifemonitoring.com
