It was sunrise in the village of Hojancha when Tommy Castillo and I mounted a pair of bikes and whizzed downhill from his pink wooden house into the steamy Costa Rica morning.
Our route took us by the town clinic, past a mechanic where the rhythm of local cowboy music blared into the street from tinny speakers. With truants’ delight, we swooped down another hill past the village school, and from there, the houses thinned out. On one side of the road, buildings gave way to a wall of jungle. The road dipped to where the pavement bridged a creek and continued up a steep incline. Tommy, wearing a white-toothed grin and a Yankees baseball cap, stood up hard on his pedals and pulled ahead of me. I was breathing heavily. Sweat trickled down my back.
Off the main road, our wheels traced parallel ruts past a horse barn and a vegetable garden. The track ended in a clearing with a raised chicken coop, a tin-roofed wooden house, and a woodshed stacked high with split logs. Out front, a woman wearing a bright pink dress, hoop earrings, and carnival beads vigorously swept the jungle floor, sending up a dust cloud. Behind her, a few long golden pencils of light angled through the trees.
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