Flightster

Mistaken Identity, Bus Schedules and the Pura Vida Spirit

• by Srinivas Rao
• on June 20th, 2011
• 3 Comments

One of the the interesting things about being an Indian guy who is living or traveling in Central or Latin America is that I’m constantly mistaken for a local.  Most gringos who see me start conversations with me in Spanish. A few days ago a girl in the water who has been living here in Costa Rica for 3 years turns to me and tells me in Spanish that the waves were closing out fast. I agreed in Spanish assuming she was a local. A few minutes later I heard her talking in an American accent and realized that she had mistaken for me a local because of my dark skin.  This wasn’t the first instance in which a gringo assumed I was a local. In fact anytime a gringo sees me they start the conversation in Spanish because they figure I must speak Spanish.  It’s always amusing to see the look on their face when I say “hey, what’s up?”  When I lived in Brazil for 6 months, even though I was hanging out with 5 other foreigners, the Brazilians all assumed I was Brazilian, which is funny considering anybody could pass for Brazilian given the melting pot that Brazil is. In fact I met somebody who told me the Brazilian passport is the world’s most sought after passport because you could put any picture on it, and it would pass.

The Advantages of a Mistaken Identity

While my mistaken identity can be frustrating from time to time, it has its advantages. The major advantage is that I don’t fall prey to many tourist scams that blond blue eyed gringos find themselves the victim of when they travel throughout central America.  In Brazil I had, I had a blond blue eyed friend who stood out like a sore thumb. If he was negotiating our prices it was guaranteed that we were going to get ripped off.  That was one of the advantages of blending in. Another advantage of blending in is that I’m a less likely target for being the victim of any sort of crime. If I mumble a few words in broken Spanish people have a tendency to leave me alone.  A mistaken identity seems to come with some unusual advantages. While it can be frustrating from time to time, I can’t really complain since my mistaken identity has been able to keep me problem free throughout most of my travels.

Bus Schedules

If you travel in a foreign country it’s almost guaranteed that you will have some sort of transportation fiasco, especially if involves a bus. Our very own Colin Wright thought he was going to die on a 72 hour bus ride. We should question his sanity for  attempting that in the first place, but that’s a whole other story.  In Costa Rica, I’ve come to realize that the bus schedule is a matter of opinion rather than fact. To add to that nobody seems to have the same opinion. In fact in the town of Tamarindo where I live, the workers at restaurants a block away from each other have different opinions on when the bus is going to show up. For a while I thought this was just due to the fact that my Spanish was not that great. But it turns out even a person fluent in Spanish has the same issues with the bus. On my recent trip back from the Dominical, in the southern part of Costa Rica,  I had to transfer to a second bus. I heard three different explanations for how to catch the second bus. Needless to say I was quite frustrated.  A few nights ago I was having drinks with a friend who is a local and I asked him “what’s up with the bus schedule? Why is it nobody knows when the bus is coming? You’re a local. Explain it to me.” He said  “when people ask me I just tell them it’s coming any minute now. HEHE.” That was the most honest answer I’ve heard.

The Pura Vida Spirit

After 4 months here I’d like to think  that I have some understanding of what Pura Vida spirit really is. I think at the root of it is absolutely no sense of urgency. Any gringo who lives here knows that what you can accomplish in 24 hours in any US city would take a week here in Costa Rica.  But that’s actually part of it’s charm. Nobody seems to be in a hurry to get anything done, and nobody seems worried about time. Time seems to stand still and weekends and weekdays all just blend together into a haze of surf, sun, and fun. All I can say is Pura Vida.

Srinivas Rao

Srinivas is an avid surfer and personal development blogger at The Skool of Life. He's also the host and co-founder of BlogcastFM, a podcast for bloggers.