Posts filed under 'Costa Rica'
If you can guess correctly these questions about the trip. As always… Price-is-Right rules.
How many times Brad will be arrested?
Brad’s Guess – 0
Mark’s Guess – 1
How many car accidents?
Brad’s Guess – 8
Mark’s Guess – 3
How many bus breakdowns?
Brad’s Guess – 8
Mark’s Guess – 15
Number of servings of beer consumed on the Trip?
Brad’s Guess – 250
Mark’s Guess – Too many to keep count. (always the smart ass)
Winner will get a Beer and date with me when I get back… and if there are two or more winners, I will distribute straws.
September 15th, 2007
Jerked out of sleep… surrounded by an family of angry howler monkeys (probably same ones that peed on us few days ago), I met Mark at the bus stop at 7:00 am. We started our wild bus ride to La Fortuna by falling asleep and missing our first transfer in San Ramon. Back to San Jose… where there were no buses to La Fortuna leaving.
Estimated bus time - 8 hours.
“Well where else do you want to go then?” Mark asked. “How bout this town on the border of Nicaragua and Costa Rica called San Carlos.” Ok off we went… without a good working map. After a super short 3 hour bus ride we knew right away this wasn’t our border town and it wasn’t marked on the crappy map I had. We had no friggin idea where we were. Back on a bus to San Jose… but lets get one express without stops that even had a movie for really cheap. It was an illegal copy of the “The Departed” still featuring the cigarette burns from the reel change. (Best quality forge I’ve ever seen.)
Estimated bus time - 12 to 14 hours.
After staying in a chill San Jose hostel with hammocks time for another bus this one direct to La Fortuna… Bus breaks!
Estimated bus time - 17 to 18 hours.
On next stop landed us in a familiar spot of San Carlos. Better known as Ciladad Quesada on my worthless map… directly in between San Jose and La Fortuna. Grand.
Original estimation of Bus time to La Fortuna - 6 hours
Actual time - 24 hours.
SO… in La Fortuna we lived like grimy gringo tourists. Seeing volcanoes, lava, jungle tours, waterfalls and a trip to these fancy Vegas style hot-springs. These springs had loud trance music playing in the background, swim up bars and waterslides. Putting an end to that quickly, we booked some 3 dollar a night hostel and drank some cheep local rum.
September 13th, 2007
!POLICIA!… well not this time and if they were called there are only 3 in the whole Tamarindo area. So I napped in a comfy lounge chair outside a ritzy hotel and watched the waves crash. After a while, Mark and his hostel-mate Checka showed up to let me know everything is ok. Checka isn’t her real name. It is Frances… which was supposed to be Francheska (Checka for short) until her birth certificate randomly appeared at age 14, stating otherwise. Mark and I agree that she is probably the most random person that either of us know (more random than Kaley Clements). She tells this story about her friend “Pete” who is a terrible rodeo clown because he isn’t funny. Anyways, we all went to dinner. Then planned to meat up for drinks about 9:30. So before then I was going to wonder down the beach and find a little cubby for sleeping later that night. I never would have thought a simple beach stroll would turn out so complicated. About every 200 meters a flashlight would shine on me from the tree line from the local security at most beach front hotels and houses. This was going to pose a problem… The only beach exit this far down was at the side of this very ritzy hotels property and there is definitely security guard.
MY MISSION:
Get stashed bags (hidden in the jungle).
Don’t alert security to my wareabouts.
Sleep on the beach.
The guard at my exit flashed me with his light, to which I said “Buenos Noches” and the light turned off. Found my pack and stuffed sleeping gear into the smaller bag and stashed the large pack (had to be light and stealthy). This time I would have to pass the guard in complete darkness sans headlamp. Being pretty sure the guard stays roughly in the same spot and doesn’t turn on his light until he hears something… I avoided the corner where he was the last time. Taking an alternative route around some bushes was going to be tricky. All it took was one miss step… CRACK!…the light shot on blinding my vision. I walked calmly to the beach giving a smile and wave to the beam. Hopefully I was out of his hair and off his property he would leave me alone. Relaxingly, I scouted a nice soft spot down the beach near some trees; when all of a sudden two lights shot on from where the guard post was! I quickly darted behind some rocks before they could see me and and watched the movement of the flashlights. The lights probed the tree line and down the beach for any sign of me. “Just like the lights from a prison breakout movie!” I thought excitedly. Utilizing running, ducking and dodging movements from paintball I avoided the glow of their spotlights. There was this one moment when the ball of light was coming up the sand right for me. I quickly dove over it and rolled into this cliff overhang… (If that wasn’t ninja I don’t know what is). After about 10 minutes they gave up. Breathing heavily I found another nice spot to lay-down and catch my breath. In order to get drinks with the gang I would have to cross back over the gaurd beach and then make my way back here to sleep. Just as I figured out a way to do this, an animal scurried up and stopped a few feet away. GAURDDOG! It barked ferociously, alerting everyone in the area. I could have walked down the beach towards town and nobody would have bothered me…but wheres the spirit in that! I took off full sprint in the opposite direction, spotlights and guarddog hot on my heals. I Arived at a cliff drainage crevice that I could scurry up while the dog barked at the bottom. I would Most likely have to bushwhack before reaching any sort of established road. About a half mile of walking in mud and brush there was finally a dirt road but had no idea where the hell I was. Making my way through the maze of roads put me about an hour late for my engagement and I still hadn’t found a place to sleep.
September 12th, 2007
Relocating from the center of Costa Rica’s razor wire en-caged capital of San Jose. Mark and I found ourselves in the beautiful tourist destination on the pacific called Tamarindo. Its filled with ritzy hotels, gringos, and long romantic solo walks on the beach during sunset. ´My first encounter with the ocean ended in disaster. I dove in just under a large wave and my knife was sucked out of its home in my belt strap to the sandy deep below. Yep… after the first week my most important stabbing possession is lost. Brad was living the hobo life… stabbing folks with his hobo knife… but not anymore, I am going to whistle people to death. So after one night of camping in mosquito filled jungle, finding a scorpion in his backpack and being peed on by a howler monkey, Mark decided to book a hostel. Of course, during a power outage in a wild Costa Rican rain storm, I snuck into the hostel without anybody knowing and drank some cervezas in he dormitory with my newly acquired flat mates. All was well until the next morning… when operation “Escape from the Hostel” began. Sorry it needs a more catchy secret opp name like “Desert Monkey Beach”… OK, still not catchy… how about “Stealthy Stinky B”… yeah I like it. So, operation “Stealthy Stinky B” began. Several times the previous day I exited the Hostel straight through the front door, but this time I would have a pack. As soon as I exited the caretakers quickly surrounded me by the front gate and forced me back inside. I waited until they were distracted talking about what they were going to do when I slipped out the front door once again when nobody was looking… hopped a fence and hauled balls through backyards and muddy swamps. Until I reached the beach. Then calmly changed clothing, found a pair of sunglasses in the trash, stashed my backpack, and walked down the beach waiting for a damage report from Mark.
Join us next time for our second part of “Tarmarindo Troublemaker”- part two entitled POLICIA…
September 10th, 2007
As we boarded the insanity plane at 1:30 in the morning, my face speckled by the world-wind of thoughts, excitement, terror and rushed preparation. Knowing my relaxed manor before boarding the plane I grasped to hold on, but failed. The realization of my lack of communicating language and being in a very strange place was overwhelming. It wasn´t until the beautiful sight of a hemorrhoid cream ad in Costa Rica. Followed by a tampon billboard sign where the only word that I understood was menstracion, forced me to snap out of my solem way. I finaly realized that this is how it is going to be the entire trip.. and just get used to it. Just like the ad said “Go with the Flow.”
September 5th, 2007
Guess what boys… size matters. If your like me, you´ll know that sometimes big ¨”things” are a burden. The´re harder to hold when squeezing, the shear volume of its gigantic mass can lead to a mess if grasping it forcefully. I thought 8 was a good size to have, I was dead wrong. 5oz over the 3oz amount allowed in a carry on package, my toothpaste was confiscated. The worst part about getting my toothpaste taken wasn´t just, the fact that carpets would be growing on my teeth the next day… but the notion that my sewing kit filled with 5 razor-sharp needles hadn´t even been glanced at. More damage could have been done with a single sewing needle than all of the nail clippers that have been taken in the world. So remember ladies sometimes small “things” can be overlooked but are somewhat more useful.
September 4th, 2007
