This one might offend the parents

Strolling Boquete's streets in the brisk evening chill -- hoodies up, each with one hand stuffed in a pocket, the stiff, exposed five fingers wrapped around another in a series of Ron Abuelo, ginger and Cokes -- our conversation took a sharp mountain turn toward the hypothetical: "Alright, so the first person to put it in her butt gets $20 from the other two." (Take a deep breath. Count to 10. Do you really think we're turning anal-intrusion into a competition?)

After a moment of contemplation I continued, "But no lies. You can't claim butt-breaching if it didn't happen, OK?"

Calvin, midstride, lowered his glass, "Pat, of course. I mean, we're all gentlemen."

A handful of plodding steps reverberated in the lifeless street as we considered the claim before laughter plenty raucous to scatter circling ghosts and lurking mice swallowed the calm.

There. That moment is an accurate encapsulation of how Calvin, Jackson, and I have passed the days since reuniting in San Jose: laughing to the point of tears, enjoying ridiculous circumstances or inventing nonsense -- usually in the form of streetshouted R&B or (predominantly) inappropriate catchphrases coined and then converted to website form, i.e. Justlookinforahole.com, Tryintogetmybeanon.com, etc. -- around bottles of rum.

Another source of amusement: According to a Boquete-dwelling expat who may or may not be on the lam from US law enforcement and, regardless, fulfills every requirement for "dirty old man" (On marriage: "Two twenty-year-old bitches are better than one forty-year-old"; On hobbies: "If you wanna freebase coke once a year, that's no problem. Just don't start smoking crack."), our central park-fronting hostel is a constantly surveilled front for a drug-dealing operation. That Pancho, our hyper-agitated, speedspeaking host, is a surefire crackhead, and that his wife is a listless downer of downers who townspeople call "The Zombie". All of which supports the suspicions Jackson raised immediately after our first encounter, a manic Boquete everything-you-could-possibly-ever-want-to-do-around-here session in which Pancho decimated with pen swoops and swipes and illegible writing, in the excited spazzy manner of a kindergartner fueled by Pixy Sticks (or, hell, just crack cocaine), an initially unmarked map that emerged appearing poorly executed abstract art.

And last night, when a scattered-looking Pancho burst into the kitchen crowded with dining travelers and asked me if I could go ahead and pay for the day. "Por supuesto," I replied, handing him a $10 bill. "Te voy a trear tu cambio en veinte minutos," sputtered Pancho, who summarily scurried out the door and down the street, either seeking change somewhere that didn't include any of the many open businesses within feet of our hostel or going to score $8.50 worth of straight rock.

Chronicles of the sandmen

Costa Rican and Panamanian costs have driven Calvin, JL and I into the kitchen, where surplus bags of dry (or Lizano-flavored refried) beans and white rice and whatever fresh flourishes we compile at the market meld into Lizano-heavy gallo pinto, accompanied by requisite bricks of crumbly, salty queso blanco, surfboard-cut lengths of platanos maduros, and tortillas. If you look closely, you might glimpse half a yellow-green beauty of an aguacate tucked between the plate-obscuring piles, puddles of yellowish liquid-fat pooled in the valleys between foods indicating our newfound fondness for frying and liberal interpretation of "splashes" of cooking oil. "Um, dude, how many cups are in a splash?"

For breakfast variation and vitamin-recovery; sometimes you'll catch me halving cantaloupes to hollow with a spoon, or hefting a bag of tree-ripened mangos whose peels have captured the swirl of tropical sunsets.

La Fortuna's Discoteca Volcán Look, two years later, again treated me to some dance floor tongue-twisting, this round courtesy a thirty-one-year-old Tica with a decade-erasing smile. Besides the transmission risk of herpes and mono, all harmless fun. Seeking surf and sweat, we made our way to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast, where balmy beachfronts and grimy drug-runners hosted us for three nights, though our superlative hostel, Los Sueños, afforded us all the comforts of home. Palm trees and sea breezes (carrying that potent, ever-wafting Caribbean scent), tumblers sweating concoctions of local firewater and cola. All at ease.

We crossed into Panama at the quiet Caribbean border post, boating to Spring Break 2009! in Bocas del Toro. Bocas is another tourist haven, at the moment brimming with Spring Breaking universitarios from across the US. So we partied, shook off hangovers to watch the first day of NCAA Tournament action, and made our way back to the mainland, where reasonable pricing still hovers far above that of the Central American heartland (Guatemala to Nicaragua) I miss more with every hemorrhaged dollar. But Boquete's ever-cool mountain climate, the verdant coffee- and produce-rich slopes, I prefer to sand and sweating in the shade.