Most Excellent Adventure Begins

The first thing I did when I moved to Costa Rica was buy some raw land with the intent to clear it and grow black pepper. The Costa Ricans (Ticos) are known for their laid-back lifestyle, but I was a little bit surprised that I could not find one—not one—guy to help me clear the land. The problem, as it turned out, was that my little piece of paradise was busting at the seams with two of the nastiest snakes in the world, the fer-de-lance and his evil sidekick the bushmaster. The bushmaster is so deadly that the Ticos call it the mata buey (ox killer). The bad news is that the fer-de-lance is even more deadly than the bushmaster. Maybe that’s why I got a pretty good deal on the land considering the gringo surcharge added to the price of the farm.

Lacking any help, I started to clear the land by myself. At first I was killing, on average, one or more bushmasters and one fer-de-lance every day. Some were over 6 feet long after I had removed the head from the body. My technique was a type of Texas two-step but conducted at the speed of a snake strike. Step one was to try to hit the serpent with the broadside of my machete to stun it and step two was to cut its head off with the sharp edge of the blade. Because my land was so far out in the jungle, it might have been possible‒just‒to survive the bushmaster strike with only the loss of a limb, but the fer-de-lance bite would have almost certainly put me in the grave. The snakes on the ground were scary enough, but the ones that made me jump out of my skin materialized out of nowhere in the bushes or tree branches at eye level. But never fear‒it was not all work. The Ticas were intoxicating, the rum flowed in the evenings, and I learned a new sport‒white water kayaking. None of these recreational pursuits seemed very dangerous after a week in the bush.

Eventually, I got a knock on my door one evening and a couple of Nicaraguans (Nicas) were waiting there to ask me if I needed help clearing the land. I hired them on the spot, and the next day we went out together, slinging our machetes. I was glad to have company. After work I would sometimes take them to a local watering hole where we got to know each other as we downed a few beers, although they were legally underage. But for some reason, they were never carded. The boys ranged in age from 15 to 21 and three of them had wives, two already had children, and the 17-year-old and his wife, who was only 15 at the time, were expecting their first child. They were all considered to be undocumented workers in Costa Rica and none of them had a passport. My problems with the Costa Rican authorities were about to begin.