After much deliberation, we decided to head over to Jaco on the West Coast due to its close proximity to San Jose. Kassie only had a few days left and didn’t want to spend them traipsing across Costa Rica on a bus. I was thrilled to head back to an old stomping ground that my good friend and travel buddy Katie and I had traversed a few years back.

Our experience in Jaco had been interesting, to say the least, and we emerged with one of the travel tales that has gone down in our Greatest Moments collection. I still have the scars from it today…

It all started when we went shopping and happened upon a somewhat creepy western lady with a long nose and piercing eyes who owned a store in Jaco. Katie liked a painting she was selling, but wanted to think on it, so we left to deliberate. As soon as we left, we asked each other, “Did you think she was creepy?” And the more we talked about it, the more we thought that she had a witch-like quality.

Katie decided she liked the painting, so we returned to the store. When we did, our friend was decked out in all black and looking extremely witchy. To top things off, she began telling stories that were extremely suspect. The best was a tale about how she’d had a dream about a little boy that was stealing from her store… she dreamed that she squished his head with her bare hands. When she woke up, she learned that the boy’s family had suffered some sort of accident and were forced to leave Jaco. Great.

When we left, we were really creeped out. We wondered what would bring a Western Witch all the way down here, and entertained the idea that perhaps there were more like her. We set out to find evidence for this theory.

And strangely, we happened on a bar… A bar named “La Bruja”, or “The Witch.” Not only was it called “La Bruja”, it had a huge glowing sign with a witch on a broomstick, and the same logo painted all across the roof. We decided we had to check it out.

The place was insane. In the middle was a huge pit where the (dressed all in black) bartender served. The inside was glowing green like a cauldron. The fans were huge broomsticks going around and around, and there were creepy paintings, skulls, and chains that adorned the walls. There were only a few people in the bar, and they were all in black, and all very sullen looking.

To make a long story short, we tried the “Bruja” drink, which was a green brew served with a triangle slice of pineapple and a cherry on a broom - a witch. Next we ordered the “Coffin.” The bartender, a tall black haired woman with tattoos and a witch pendant around her neck, raised her eyebrows and said with a smile, “Ah, the coffin… he-he… sure…”.

She walked over to the bar hand, whispered something in his ear, and started mixing The Coffin as he took off through some doors to another room.

Now, La Bruja is a hard rock joint, so Metallica-esque music was pounding. But all of a sudden, they started blasting something in another language. It definitely was not English, and we really couldn’t place it… to us, it sounded like Latin. And everyone in the bar was mouthing the words.

The boy emerged with a peanut butter jar of white fluid and handed it to the bartender. She poured some of this mystery goo into our drink, and then handed it back to him. He immediately left through the double doors again with the jar.

We never knew what was in that jar, nor did we suffer any dire consequences from having consumed The Coffin. But after our experience, we felt quite certain that we had in fact stumbled on a witches colony.

And the accident - to make a long story short, we were staying in a hotel with low hanging ceiling fans. I got up one morning and stretched and had a monstrous collision with one of the blades. It was so bad that it cut deeply into my fingers and sent paint flying all over the room. Katie and I cleaned out my wound and taped my throbbing fingers together. We had come to try surfing, but now that was out. When we complained to the French man who owned the place, he said in a slow French drawl, “Yes, I was going to fix it. But today, there is too much sun.”

When we returned from La Bruja that night (after another sojourn to some other bars), we were only grabbing our bags to catch a very early bus and were set to leave Jaco.

“Should I change my shirt?” I asked Katie.

“Ya, why not,” she replied.

I lifted my shirt over my head, and BAM! hit my fingers again. On the same hand. Luckily the tape protected the first two injured fingers, but I cut open a third this time. We cleaned it out, taped it up again, and I cried piteously the whole way to San Jose.

I told Beth and Kassie these stories (in greater detail) before we came to Jaco, and we decided that we have to check out all the old “haunts,” as Beth said.

We had some trouble finding a hotel at first, so we set Beth down with the bags as Kassie and I went in search of accommodation. We walked a few steps, and I burst into laughter. There was “La Bruja,” in all its glory, still standing.

We went on and found a really nice hotel with a pool for $75 per night and a crack-den of a place with cement floors and bars over the filthy screened in windows for $20. We spent forever trying to find a middle ground, and finally found a place with a pool and a kitchenette for $45.

We were headed back to find Beth when Kassie pointed out a place we had missed, and we went in to ask the price. It was $39 with

AirCon, a better deal, and we asked to see a room. As we were standing at reception, I looked around and things looked familiar. Then it dawned on me.

“Kassie, this is the hotel!” I whispered loudly. “This is where I got attacked by the fan!”

We saw the room (which was not the room Katie and I had stayed in), and it was nice. It also had AirCon, as I had mentioned, which meant that we wouldn’t have to deal with any fan issues. And regardless, our French friend had managed to find a cloudy day, since the fan was not hanging dangerously low if we decided to use it.

Kassie made sure that my post traumatic stress was in check and that I’d be able to handle staying in the hotel. I said I’d be fine, and we decided to take it.

As we were leaving, I caught sight of him, our old French friend. He was still there. (Later, Beth and I would see much, much more of him. But that story will have to wait.)

We grabbed Beth, who had been harassed repeatedly by police who told her it was not safe to sit with bags (Jaco is a serious beach town, with expensive stores and restaurants, and resorts going up all over the place. We thought this was a little silly, given the places we’ve been to). We grabbed our stuff and checked in.

Beth and I went in search of new bathing suits and cloth for my quilt project. We walked up and down the main street and were walking past one store when I recognized someone.

“Beth! There’s the witch!” I said, maybe a bit too loudly. “There she is!”

People on the sidewalk had turned to look at me, but luckily the witch hadn’t heard. We began looking around the store so that Beth could get a good look at her. She wasn’t wearing black, just some brown pants and a flowered shirt, and I began to think that maybe Katie and I had over-excited ourselves.

But then she turned and looked at me. There was the long nose, the thin face, and those piercing eyes. I looked away quickly, fearing that she’d remember me. No, Katie and I had not overstated the case. This woman was a witch.

One of the nights we were in Jaco, we headed out to La Bruja, a much anticipated outing. We walked into the blaring music, the empty bar, and took a seat next to a charming mural on the wall depicting some strange demonic scene. The same bar tender was there, again decked out in all black.

She came over to take our drink orders, and I asked her if she had a menu. No, she didn’t. Hmmm, that’s strange, I thought. I told her I had been there a few years back and asked if she still had a drink called La Bruja.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “La Bruja, I can make that.”

And then I asked about the infamous Coffin drink…

A twinkle appeared in her eyes as she looked up to the ceiling and smiled.

“Ha, ha, ha,” she laughed. “Ah, yes. The Coffin. I remember that one.”

Off she went as Kassie and Beth looked at me and laughed. So far, things were exactly as I remembered.

The drinks took a while to make, and this time, some man came over to help her. We had only ordered two of them to share, since they were really expensive. It seemed odd that it was taking so long and that she needed help. (This picture is kind of dark, but it´s the two bartenders mixing The Coffin.)

And then the white jar appeared again. Same way, through the doors and then back out of the room again as soon as she had dumped some into the brew. For some reason, this ingredient could not be left at the bar unsupervised for even a moment.

We all split the drinks which were pretty tasty, and had fun taking photos of ourselves with these infamous concoctions. The bar tender even came over to take some pictures of all three of us and tell us a little about the bar, which she had started 13 years ago. At one point Kassie asked, “Who is this playing?” feigning interest in the bizarre, witch-like music. I tried hard to contain my laughter.

We had hit all the old “haunts” early on in the game, and later managed to find some new ones as well. This time I actually made it out surfing, and managed to get out of Jaco without any (visible) scars.

(Katie, feel free to add any commentary or correct any mis-rememberances. I´m used to telling this story with you…)