The worldwide melt down had made it down to Costa Rica and tourists were becoming as rare as over poached toucans. To combat this down turn in Costa Rican tourism the White House Hotel Restaurant Casino & Spa “by executive order of the Commander in Chief” decreed that their rates be reduced by 50% to provide a “recession busting, economic stimulus package”.

I decided to do my patriotic duty and booked a room at the White House overlooking the central valley for my last night in Costa Rica. To increase the stimulus effect I invited two lovely Ladies to join a few of my misfit friends for a “bachelors party”. After all, with the exception of Ricardo the Gringo, we were all committed bachelors.

The White House is a refuge on the top of a mountain for hard drinking, gambling, meat eating, Harley riding Gringos. It even has an “Age Management Institute & Medical Spa” where aging Gringos can have testosterone pellets embedded in their bellies to reverse the effects drinking, whoring and gambling. It was the place for a stimulus producing last night bachelor party.

Although the helicopter pad seems a bit over the top, another thing I like about the White House is that each guest room is named after a President and G.W. Bush’s name is on the door that leads into a storage room. How appropriate for a hotel trying to stimulate its way out of George’s economic meltdown.

I’m sitting at my office on the beach as another day drifts off beyond the palm trees beyond the beach and melts into the setting sun. Horses go up the beach taking their riders on a sunset stroll, including the two gorgeous Latin women from Chile I spoke with earlier in the day. In the warm light of the setting sun, they look like glorious golden warrior princesses.

Thank God they had no interest in me. I might have been too weak to resist such a powerful distraction from my writing. I’ve come to this beach town called Samara to shut out the world and simply breath the clean WiFi air and write.

I have thousands of photos and dozens of stories I want write and post to the Great American Road Trip. I was too busy living the road trip to do all the writing. But now I’m a stranger in a quiet place striving to obtain the solitude to write.

During the past two days I’ve gone into my computer portal and back to the where the maiden voyage of the road trip began in Texas, New Orleans, Mississippi, Mobile Alabama and the Redneck Riviera of Florida. I recollected these places again and wrote about  New Orleans, a live crucifixion, grown men playing with tanks, the fattest people in the world and the deep heart of Texas – Austin - where I found my Destiny and the road trip began.

I’m on a roll. I hope that for the next ten days nothing happens other than continual writing with only occasional breaks to sleep, eat, and take a stroll on the beach and perhaps a swim.

Since the start of the Great American Road Trip I’ve taken over 20,000 photos. As I review these photos I’m struck by how beautiful North America is – from the Florida Keys on one end to the San Juan Islands on the other. I’ve met an endless stream of fascinating people. Some even hopped on board and shared part of the road trip as “Fellow Travelers“. To see all these places and faces flash by in thousands of photos reminds me that our lives can be a fantastic movie that we write, direct, cast, star in and produce. Do you like the movie you’re producing? If not, consider rewriting the script or recasting the characters.

Samara is a perfect place to drop out, slow down and write. I’ve always loved Costa Rica, even its dark dysfunctional side. Like a migratory bird, I’ve been coming back here on and off for years. It’s a land of extreme contrasts ranging from the gorgeous to the horrendous. I love the drama of it all.

Those who know it only superficially as tourists and from marketing propaganda, imagine colorful coffee carts pulled by donkeys, lush green mountains and valleys and warm beaches. Such places do exist. But those who have lived here know the Costa Rica the tourism authorities would prefer you not see – with its parasitic crime, grungy shacks and three legged dogs. Costa Rica is Yin and it’s yang.

The Costa Ricans call themselves Ticos. They are typically very placid and non violent. They take great pride in having no army. The Ticos watch the tourists come and go, while they remain – largely unchanged. Very few Ticos leave Costa Rica. They are as content as the average American on a massive amount of Valium.

Costa Rica attracts dreamers. Some dream of finding paradise lost – free from the “rat race”, fluorescent lights, taxes and traffic jams.   Some bald men with potbellies dream of hot Latin women who will worship them, cook for them and rub their feet at night. Some come looking for unspoiled natural beauty.

Some find what they are seeking. But most find that the dream was more illusion than reality. Some become disillusioned after they discover that corruption and insane traffic are even worse and that the women don’t really want to rub their feet after all.

The Ticos have a saying that the gringos who come to live in Costa Rica are either “Wanted” or unwanted. Perhaps to the content Ticos these seekers may seem desperate. These refuges may be chasing a dream or running from the law. But both are valid reasons to move to Costa Rica.

To glimpse the lives of two of my friends who also lived in Costa Rica visit “The Mayor of Gringo Gultch” and “Ricardo the Gringo“.

But do know, that since Eve got Adam to eat the apple, the perfect paradise has been lost – even in Costa Rica. It can’t be found in any one place any more than the fountain of youth. Once again and forever, we must find our paradise within no matter where we go or stay.

To learn more about the illusion of Costa Rica, visit their official Website.

To see the real Costa Rica, enjoy the below photos taken during my many past visits:

I first met Allen on the steps of a whorehouse bar in Costa Rica called the “Blue Marlin”. Like so many North American sexual refuges, Allen had gone to Costa Rica fishing for a place where even fat gringos would be loved, fucked and adored.

But of course, there is no Heaven on earth. The love and the party lasted only as long as his money. But it was one Hell of a run and even imitation love was better than none, especially in large quantities. But about a year after Allen arrived in Costa Rica he spent his last dime on either a drink, a whore or cocaine.

But he stubbornly refused to return to the brutal reality of hard work and no sex in America. So he took his deep dark knowledge of the gutter and traded it with the fresh fish who stumbled into the Blue Marlin on their first “fishing expedition”. That was about the time I stumbled into him.

Allen had become the unofficial “Mayor of Gringo Gulch” – a several block strip of bars, dance clubs, casinos, whorehouses and heart attack producing restaurants. Allen was the mayor not just for the powers that be – the casino and saloon owners – but for the street beggars, the whores, the hustlers, the Johns, and the old men with dead peckers who could only drink and whine.

But I digress. To tell the story of Allen’s adventures and misadventures in Costa Rica would be a massive project, which I will some day under take.

But for now, my point is that despite every effort to hang on, Allen reluctantly succumbed to “life” in America. When I caught up with him recently he was living in an upscale neighborhood North of Phoenix and eking out a living flipping burgers. He was a long way from partying in the gulch and on the beaches. But to me he was still “the Mayor”, just as X Presidents are still addressed as “Mr. President”.

It was always his outlook and good humor that I enjoyed most and that was the same anywhere. We headed out into the desert and camped by lake Jackson in the middle of nowhere and howled at the moon and reminisced about the obscenely good times in Costa Rica.

Coming some day – a link to all the insanity and crazy wild life in Costa Rica.

But for now, click here, to view the “Mayor’s Rules for Living“.

Next Stop – Panama Jimmy and the Desert Vortex

Rules for living from the “Mayor of Gringo Gulch”:

1. Don’t worry.

2. Be fat, happy, and let it all hang out.

3. Listen to people’s problems and they will pay your tab.

4. When you are sick, sterilize the body with heavy drinking.

5. Expect very little and be happy when even you don’t get it.

6. Pick the not so pretty whore for the really good blow job.

7. Reject hard work. It’s rarely worth the effort.

8. Never pay more than $20, including dinner and drinks, to get laid.

9. Be kind to those in the gutter. You may some day need their help.

10. If you’re not getting laid after the fourth time out you’re just feeding someone.

To learn more about the “Mayor”, click here.

I doubt that any high school career counselor ever suggested a career in “Kidnap Recovery”.   But that’s the career my friend Tom chose.

His work has taken him throughout the world, where his clients have sent him to recover their children. Still confused?   Then imagine you’re married to a Brazilian woman who slipped out of the country one night to return home to her native country with your child. The US government isn’t going to chase across the globe to get your kid back. But Tom will.

I’d love to see Tom explain his work to a bunch of kids during “career day”. He’d tell them about the high-speed car chases, occasional gun battles, surveillance and counter-surveillance techniques and other assorted international intrigue. I expect he’d inspire a few young people to pursue a truly exciting career in “Kidnap Recovery”.

I guess you could say Tom is pro family. So much so that he’ll arrange a covert rescue for a child just to keep the family together.

I met Tom in Costa Rica several years ago. He was married to a Costa Rican woman and they were raising two beautiful daughters. Now Tom lives in Naples, Florida with his Columbian girl friend. But that’s just pare for the course when you work in “Kidnap Recovery”.

I caught up with Tom in Naples. We talked about civil unrest, the current ammunition shortage and over population – amongst other related topics.

So now you know who to call if your spouse goes missing with your kid(s). Tom’s not in the phone book and he doesn’t accept American Express. But I can pass along any valid inquiries.

Next Stop – Fort Lauderdale for the Official Launch of the Great American Road Trip