I was homeless in Costa Rica for a spell in the summer of 1983. But a mate had heard of a gringo who had just moved to San Jose and might be looking for a roommate. So I called the guy and we decided to meet up at Key Largo, the local watering hole for ex-pats.

I found Ladd sitting at the bar nursing a Pilsen. Easy to find … I just followed the gaze of the women in the bar. Ladd was a tall slender Texan, moustachioed with sandy blonde hair. I sat down next to him and he lit up a cigarette. I thought I had seen him somewhere before. A few beers later I learned that he had never posed as the Marlboro Man. But he had that masculine Texan look to him. But I learned it was just a façade. He spoke in a soft-mannered way and I could tell at the first meeting that he was a kind and gentle soul.

Ladd worked in heavy construction out of Texas and would spend months on a project out in the field. Perhaps a mine somewhere in a remote area of Colombia. After working for a few gruelling months, he wanted a go to place in between jobs and chose Costa Rica. He rented a two-bedroom apartment in the upmarket Barrio Escalante … a place where he could hang his hat every time he came back. But those places aren’t ‘lock and leave’ so Ladd was keen to have a rather permanent tenant.

And I became that tenant … but more importantly I got a lifelong friend. Ladd didn’t really know the lay of the land in Costa Rica but I had been in country for two years and by 1983 I had travelled to pretty much every beach, island and jungle in the country. Ladd bought a jeep so I started showing him around.

But before long, he got called out on a job. He came back in November 1983 and found the apartment was a mess. I had Cibachrome prints strewn all over and was in the process of framing them. I told Ladd I had a photo exhibition of the National Parks of Costa Rica coming up at the National Theater. Ladd grabbed a Pilsen beer and took the lead on the framing project.

A few weeks later, Ladd was having a coffee at the National Theater and watched a woman as she viewed the photos. She stopped before a photo of a pool in a rainforest and commented so Ladd could hear about how nice it would be to see such places. Ladd spoke up and said something like ‘I know the place and I know the photographer and I framed that one.’

The next day Ladd and I pulled up in front of Petra’s apartment and started heading up into the Braulio Carillo rain forest. I directed Ladd and the jeep to the location where I had found the pool. The pool looked just as inviting in real life as in the photo so Petra and Ladd wasted no time in taking a plunge. She loved it and I could sense her interest at the moment wasn’t only in nature. And I started seeing a glow in Ladd’s eyes.

We packed up and headed back to San Jose where I told them both that ‘by the way that’s called Poza de Sanguijuelas or leech pool.’ They didn’t seem to mind. Their thoughts were elsewhere.

Shortly after that I moved to another part of Costa Rica and at some point, Ladd gave up the apartment and moved in with Petra. And at some point, Petra corralled that Texan and they got married.

In the summer of 1987, Arenal Volcano became active and there were reports of fiery shows and explosions. Ladd and I packed up his jeep with camping gear and drove up to the base of the volcano. We found a matapalo tree with a huge canopy and set up our tent there. The volcano didn’t disappoint. We ran to the jeep countless times when we heard an explosion thinking it was the big one. But we brought enough rum with us that after a while we didn’t care any more and when the volcano rumbled we’d just yell back at it.

We spent two nights under that matapalo tree and only got out of our hammocks to fetch another beer. Ladd never once took his eyes off the volcano and was transfixed by it. We’d watch with binoculars as huge boulders would fly out of the cauldron and we’d gasp partly in amazement and partly in fear. Perhaps it was a wee bit foolhardy to camp so close to an active volcano but the experience in danger proved to be a bond between Ladd and me and an experience I’ll never forget.

I never saw Ladd again after that. Ladd and Petra moved to Texas and I moved back for a while to Wisconsin. Around 1989 or so I hatched a plan to explore Venezuela’s Mount Roraima, a surreal, ancient landscape which inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel ‘The Lost World’. I needed a mate and called Ladd and he immediately signed up for a great adventure. We had to cancel the trip just before embarking but there was no doubt that if I ever wanted a cool-headed mate for an adventure, I could call on Ladd.

Last Friday night, Padma and I were discussing Texan names for no particular reason. I mentioned Ladd as he has not only had a classic Texan name but a classic Texan look. She asked why he and I hadn’t gotten together and I really didn’t know why. Geography and time and life had kept us apart for so many years but Facebook kept us together. Padma and I never made it to Texas but almost bumped into Petra in her hometown of Wuppertal. I mused that perhaps they’d come to visit us one day and I could take Petra out to see birds.

Very shortly after that conversation on Friday, Petra came home and discovered the love of her life for the past 41 and a half years had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away at their home. I can’t imagine her loss.

I won’t be having any new adventures with my mate. But the image of Ladd hanging in the hammock under the matapalo tree while Arenal roared will live with me forever.