It's Never Too Late

View from El Avion

First a few updates before the main story.  Arco Iris in Quepos really is where the locals go when they want to go out at night.  El Avion is a really cool restaurant built around a plane, that also has good food and a great view.  Manuel Antonio is a small enough place that we have run into these two guys three times (so far): on a trail in the park, at a restaurant in Quepos, and on the beach.  Sloths really do move slowly.  Monkeys are cute, but from a story I heard last night, they know how to work zippers on backpacks and pull out your bag of chips.

However, the main story I want to record here today as I listen to the rain is from an old man on the beach.  He was actually on the same bus I took from San Jose to Manuel Antonio, and then he happened to be on the beach right by my friend and I today and we ended up talking a bit.  He had overheard me talking about how cold the ocean is in SF (especially compared to how amazingly warm it is here) and mentioned that he lived in Berkeley for a bit.  After that, we ended up talking and I told him I was studying here for 3 months, but was vacationing a bit first, and then I asked why he was here.  He told me that he is doing TOEFL (learning to teach English as a foreign language).  Since that is something that I am interested in doing one day, I asked him if he could tell me more about it.  Thinking he was probably telling me a lot more than I wanted to know, he proceeded to tell me what I consider to be a very uplifting story.

First of all, I would guess that he is around 70 years old.  He said he took an early retirement a few years ago, but his father in law is 93 and has this and that (a long list of ailments that I can't even begin to remember).  His wife wants to be able to take care of her parents when the time comes, so they need to make a bit more money.  He mentioned that he had always wanted to do the TOEFL thing, but never got around to it.  She told him to do it.  He kept asking about who would take care of things, to which she simply replied, "I will."  So now he is here in Costa Rica, finally learning how to teach English, and will be teaching for about a year while she stays with her parents.  I find it so inspiring to hear about this man who is finally living a dream he probably thought he had missed out on.  I guess it really is never too late...

Sunset on the beach