“Black Gold” Submerged in the Tempisque

“The ritual of decanting the sand is infinite / and with the sand goes our life,” wrote Argentine Jorge Luis Borges in his poem The Hourglass, as if the Tempisque sand excavators had inspired him.

The first verse could well come from this scene: a line of men navigating downstream in their sand-laden boats.

I remember the second verse as I walk along with Luis Jarquin, a 25-year-old guy who pushes the boat from the other side, with water up to his chest. Especially when he tells me in his low voice that “there on the other side is where the crocodile walks.” There goes our life.

His work is the activity with the lowest impact removing sand from the Tempisque. It is also the only more or less stable economic activity that a worker can have in Filadelfia, because the options are limited: they either work under the sun in melon or watermelon fields seasonally, or they look for sand year round, having faith that neither floods nor crocodiles will stop them. In Guanacaste’s climate, it’s hard to believe.

Many sand excavators like him start work before the first light of the day refracts over the waters of the enormous Tempisque. From Monday to Saturday, dozens of men go down to the bottom of the river to extract Filadelfia’s “black gold”, and earn their living from it.

The area known as La Isleta is one of several points where sand excavators have been granted concessions to extract material.

Omar Medina unloads the sand on one of the piles. The Association receives around 250 cubic meters of sand per day.

Luis Jarquin removes four boatloads of sand a day, which is equivalent to about ¢14,000 (about $23.30).

Luis Jarquin goes under water with a bucket to collect sand and throw it into his boat. Tempisque sand excavators have been working in the same way since the middle of the last century.

Byron moves his panga downstream to unload it. Laborers like him earn between ¢3,500 and ¢5,000 (about $5.80 to $8.50) for each boat filled with sand, depending on the size of the boat.

The sand excavators start working at 2 a.m. Starting early is better for them and for the oxen so they avoid the high temperatures of the day.

This is how one of the sand piles looks before being taken to the Tempisque Valley Sand Excavators Association, where intermediaries market it.