Shaun Sellers relaxes on the beach with dogs that the she, Emily Eagen and Emily Howell adopted together. Dreaming of good life They arrived in Costa Rica in January and moved into a hotel in San Jose, an old-world city considered to be the safest large metropolitan area in Latin America. But San Jose seemed crowded and buttoned-down to the young college students, so on a hot March weekend, Eagen, Howell and Sellers jumped on a bus looking for something different. Horses wander unattended in the alleys. Vultures squat on the streets, moving grudgingly when trucks lacking mufflers rock through the potholes.
Surfers smoke pot on the beach.
Day-Glo butterflies flit through lush green jungle. There are none of the fat-cat tourists who frequent the posh resorts on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It's spring break on Prozac, and it never ends. It is beautiful, charming and seductive. It also is four hours across a mountain range and rain forest from where the three friends are supposed to be living during their school program, and from the job at a radio station Howell is supposed to keep.