Lair Davis (Our Man in Costa Rica)

Remember Lair Davis? He was the founding editor of several queer newspapers including the San Diego Gayzette (1982), Gay Times (1988) and Gay/Lesbian Nation (1990). Lair moved on to other community challenges in San Diego before moving to Santa Cruz. In June 2004, the award-winning “Lair About Town” columnist retired to the tropics of Costa Rica. HillQuest is tickled and proud to return Lair to San Diego every week to share his views and ideas. Feel free to email him.

April 1, 2005

The City

San José, the capital city of Costa Rica, is really the only “city” in the country. Oh sure, there is Alajuela, with perhaps 100,000 folks living in its center and its suburbs, but this provincial capital itself is in the metropolitan area of San José — only 18 kilometers northwest as the macaw flies.

Another provincial capital, Heredia, is only 11 kilometers north of San José. It is a college town of about 50,000 residents. The provincial capital of Cartago, population around 70,000, is a mere 22 kilometers to the south.

One-third of all the people in Costa Rica live in the San José metropolitan area. Once you travel a bit more than 25 kilometers from San José, you are in the country. Indeed, some tiny pieces of “country” are quite evident within the metropolitan region itself.

You cannot think in United States terms when you speak of a “metropolitan area” here. There is a quiet, little country town called Santo Domingo that seems a hundred miles from “civilization.” Yet, it is within five kilometers of the center of San José. To get there, however, you must travel a winding, mountainous road, crossing a deep canyon and its river.

You can live in the “country” here, have lunch in the city with little effort, and then return to the tranquility of home within a short time. I did that yesterday.

Traveling from my small city to San José takes about an hour on the bus. I enjoy going to the “big city” (and it IS big: population 1.5 million at least) for a taste of what big cities throughout the world have to offer. It really makes one appreciate the “tranquilo” life even more.

Yesterday, I went to Café del Mundo for lunch. It is a classy but understated restaurant serving marvelous nouvelle cuisine. The restaurant is in an old turn-of-the-century mansion in a slightly Bohemia section of the city. An upper middle class gay ambiance floats about the place. There is a very nice bar attached. If I were “on the make” in Costa Rica (Who? Moi?), Café del Mundo would top my list.

When I first visited Costa Rica some 15 years ago, I picked a hotel out of a guidebook. It turned out to be between two working-class gay bars. And you wondered how I came to fall in love with this country! Well, now you know!

I walked over to that neighborhood yesterday, and sure enough, both bars are still there — and are still gay. I couldn’t resist popping into one.

A gringo of a certain age on the premises still is not too common an occurrence. Neither of these bars is included on any list of gay places in Costa Rica that I have seen. Why, I wonder. I suppose the neighborhood is considered scary. The guidebooks will tell you it is. It isn’t really if you have wits about you. It certainly is not during daylight hours.

I do not kid myself into thinking that all these beautiful young men who flock about me when I visit a place like this are doing so because they find me irresistably attractive. They do find me interesting, however, because I have lived a life they have not known, just as I find them interesting for the same reason.

They enjoy practicing their English, which they find few opportunities to do, these working class guys. They do not share the youth-obsessiveness of gay men in the States. Many really do find older men attractive, I am convinced. If that older man should happen to lay a few gifts on them at some point in the relationship, so much the better. I have found the need for an exchange of money and/or gifts seldom to be a “deal-breaker,” however.

Men come to Costa Rica from foreign places and spend freely here. They are on vacation, after all, when disposing of income is what it’s all about. We arrive on expensive flights, stay in nice hotels, visit fancy restaurants, go to sites and events that the average Costa Rican can only dream of visiting. A Tico friend said to me, “We grow up seeing all these foreigners come here, do things and spend money so easily that we think, ‘Gee, they just have so much money that they don’t know what to do with it all.’ Is it any wonder we think you are all rich?”

We ARE rich, my friends. Most of us. The average income of a Costa Rican is less than US$400 a month after working ten hours a day, six days a week. All those “toys” everyone covets (autos, electronic gadgets, nice clothes, etc.) cost even more here than they do in the States because they are imported, most of them.

I cannot be offended when a young man who is interested in me, treats me with respect, appears proud of our friendship, and yet never would dream of actually asking, casually mentions that “tomorrow is my birthday.”

Hey, I am probably going to buy him a new shirt for that “birthday.” And wish us both many more!

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Interested in your own trip to Costa Rica? Get off the “tourist trail” while $aving time/money with your own travel consultant. Lair would love to help you plan your holiday of a lifetime. He’ll even be your guide in his tropical paradise! Email him to discuss your trip.