It is getting late and my camera is running out of battery. I am in the valley of dark orange clay mountainsides in Costa Rica. And on the road, as dusk hits, I come across a stall by the roadside. It sells various bric-a-brac, luggage, assorted stuff piled up on old white bookshelves. And on the top shelf, I see a row of secondhand cameras.
“Do you sell batteries?” I ask the shopkeeper.
He says he does, and I pull out my old SLR and show him, pulling out the battery from its encasement. It is one of the old-fashioned brick ION batteries. Sure enough, he pulls out a battery from under his counter that matches.
“That’s great! I should get a battery for the other one too.”
Only I cannot remember the type of battery my other camera takes. I will have to get back to the hostel to pick it up. But then he pulls out a mini DV battery.
“Is it this one?”, he asks, but I cannot be sure.
“No, I’ll have to get back and get it. Then I can pay for both.”
“You sure?” He says again.
And so he tells me how to get back to the hostel and it seems quite close by. I need to stay on the base of the valley, he says, but once I set off, somehow I take a turn that rises up into the hills.
I am on a winding deserted road that overlooks the valley and now I am crying, like I should have bought the battery there and then.
The road is a dusty brown path that curves up to a large house with a tall brick wall that fences it off. I see a black sports car through the gate and it belongs to the shopkeeper’s rival so I don’t want to go there.
And next to the house is a post office which is still open.
It has an old man who can perhaps help me. In broken Spanish, I ask him for the phone number of the shopkeeper with the camera and luggage stall, and he writes the number on a piece of paper torn from a yellow legal pad.
“You can go in there to make a call,” and he points to a narrow side room with big windows that front the roadside.
My dad is sitting there shuffling through some papers, like an accountant.
He’s sitting in profile, wearing his big dark green cardigan. He has his familiar look, balding, and his thin grey hair is combed back as usual, but he does not notice me so I quickly dial the number on an old rotary phone.
“Yes, I am up in the hills next to the red house,” I whisper.
“I’ll come and get you,” the shopkeeper replies quickly, to my relief.
Photo by zmachacek via Deposit Photos
