Esparza, Puntarenas — September 18, 2024

September 18, 2024. Esparza, Puntarenas. I walk out before the heat sets in and the Pacific is doing that trick where the sun finds one seam in the clouds and pours silver onto the water. Small waves cross the middle distance in a neat, repeating line. Later, past the palms, a raccoon stops on a cracked concrete slab, and just looks at me. Not afraid, not begging. Reading me. That is the thing about raccoons here: their hands are almost as sensitive as their eyes, packed with touch receptors, so when one freezes and stares, it is also feeling the ground for what you are. By the time I reach the river — wide, muddy green, driftwood piled like bones on the bar — the sky has closed again. One sunburnt selfie. One upside-down rainbow I will never reshoot. A day well spent on the coast.