the guitar

chris is playing the guitar (i'd say he is the next carlos santana) and prez is passed out (loser). we lost the matches box and cant find the lighter for the stove therefore we can't eat the eggs that we bought. damn. tonight was quite the adventure. nothing of any value really happened. i guess that doesn't make it much of an adventure. we played some games and met a guy from kansas. he was really boring. i guess thats what you get for being from kansas. his friend made fun of us for having accents. minnesotans stand out down here. they had an open bar at this one place called la loft. all they served was rum and cokes. little did they know that's what i love. chris yelled at a bunch of people on the street and i thought we were going to have to fight them but luckily the security guards would not let them in. ha. on the walk back chris wanted to get pizza but it was too expensive so we just ate some leftover rice, beans and bread. prez went to bed. the office is on tv right now and i'm guessing i'm the only one still up in the hostel since its 3:30 am. wake up call is 9 am for a run on the beach and then more surfing tomorrow. time to go to bed.


love to all,
luke

Surf's Up... (or down in our case)

After posting last night we decided to walk next door to the licorera (liquor store if you couldn't guess) and gout ourselves a bottle of Guaro, which is the liquor of Costa Rica. It is very cheap and smells like rubbing alcohol, but when mixed with some Fresca, it becomes delicious. We went upstairs and joined the rest of our hostel-mates on the roof for some games of Presidents and Assholes and Kings Cup. They were playing without the essential component of a communal container to contribute to when you draw a king, so I quickly solved that problem and procured a bucket from the kitchen. Fortunately (or not... depending on your tastes) none of us drew the last king to drink the mixture of Imperial, Guaro and Fresca. After the games I looked off the roof balcony to see a rather tall looking prostitute in a red dress on the corner. She also looked like she had an adams apple... never a good sign. When she talked to try to suck our souls her voice was deeper than mine. Guess that's what you get for traveling to the town the guidebooks call a surfing, partying town known for it's blatant prostitution.

This morning we were awoken at 6am by a bird repeatedly flying into the window. I guess he didn't figure out that he wasn't going to get anywhere the first few times because it continuted for about 10 miuntes. Luckily he either died or flew away because we were able to fall back asleep until 9:30. When we got up this time, we all went running, followed by some Pedestal on the beach. Next we finally got economical and went to the grocery store and got some supplies to make ourselves lunch (egg sandwiches, watermelon and tang - mmmm).

After working out and getting some food in our stomachs it was finally time to try our luck at surfing. We borrowed a board from the hostel and headed out to the beach to find the waves. After many repeated unsuccessful attempts we called it a day. We were all able to catch a wave, but actually getting up on our feet on the surfboard is pretty challenging. We've got the whole rest of the month to figure it out though, so I'm sure we'll be successful some day in the near future. We then decided to take a walk along the beach. This turned in to a 2 hour walk to the end, where we climbed on some rocks. We ended the day by watching the sun set on the beach. How romantic...! We chose to do this over an offer from our Hungarian hostel owner. Earlier in the day he asked us if we wanted to go smoke joints with him on the mountain and watch the sun set over the ocean. We kindly declined, but I'm sure it would have been quite the experience.

Dinner consisted of grilling hot dogs on the roof of the hostel while drinking some Imperials. Pretty awesome. We also heard Lady Gaga on the radio, sandwiched between some Spanish club music. Random, but sweet. We just returned from the store where we bought ourselves another bottle of Guaro for the night. On the way there we were offered weed at least 3 times (no prostitutes this time)....

Well, we're off to see what the night will bring us. We met some guys from Chicago and a surfer from Duluth that arrived here today. They seem like a bunch of bros, but we'll probably end up going out with them tonight. We found out that last night, one of them kissed that tranny I talked about earlier... hmmm

That's all for now

-rivers

One shot, two shots, three shots, more shots...we think

I guess it is my turn to post, and I'm writing on a terrible keyboard so I appologize for my mistakes. I'll start where luke left off last night. We left our humble abode of leo's room/hallway to go downstairs for dinner. Leo already had the curazu blue sitting out with a shot glass, so it was time to take shots. We passed the liquor around the dinner table until we cashed it - about two shots each while we ate our wonderful steak dinner with rice, beans, some cheesy potatoe thing, salad, and some bread...delicious. I have to say it was a little weird taking shots at the dinner table next to a young girl, leo's mom, cousin, and some rando.

We soon left for another adventure to EL PUEBLO! We met up with a couple ticas and three members of the st. olaf group and onto La Periferica we went. We showed up at El Pueblo shortly after nine...way too early. Much to our dismay, the place was a ghost town. All of the bars were shut down. We decided to go somewhere else, but as we were starting to leave we heard some music. None other than the late, great 2Pac! I knew it could only be one place, Tony's! Tony is a bartender I met when I was abroad two years ago. He rocks out to only the best old school, American hip hop. We thought we would stay for one beer since nobody else was there, but one thing led to another and multiple beers and somewhere around 3 tequila shots later we were getting Jose Cuervo poured down our throats. We had a little dance party and ended up having a great time. We even got to dj.

It soon came time to leave and of course, like most times we drink, get some snacks. Rivers and Luke were already chowing down on some pizza, but I wanted chicken. Leo and I went to the fried chicken stand, but decided the price was too high. So we settled for pizza. That wouldn't satisfy me, however. I wandered back to the chicken stand and offered a price for two pieces that they couldn't resist. No one else was going to eat it, so they sold it to me. It came time to leave, so we made it back to Leo's and did some internetting....some of you might know what was sent. Rivers may or may not remember doing that...

We were going to catch a ride with Leo at seven am to the Coca Cola bus station for our journey to Jaco. I didn't wake up for my watch alarm, surprise surprise. Rivers and Luke woke up to theirs I guess, but didn't want to get up. So Leo woke me up when he left for work and told me how to get there, sort of. And I'm pretty sure I still had mucho tequila and Imperial in my system, so it was a bit hazy. So we winged another bus ride into San Jose, not really knowing where it would take us or where we exactly had to be. We got off the bus somewhere downtown and headed west to the bus station.

We were definitely targets for a nice little mugging as we walked with our big packs and could hear people talking about us as we passed them. Stupid Gringos. We stopped once to ask a cop for directions to the place, wandered a bit closer, asked another street vender and a kid overheard us and told me to follow some bum. Rule of thumb says never follow a bum to a second location (or according to Rivers). Not knowing whether or not we taken advantage of, I walked and talked with him in English as Rivers and Luke lagged behind telling me not to follow him. But I soon made a new friend. His English was quite good, probably since he lived in Dallas, Texas in 1972. I guess his cousin is a dentist there. He led us right to the bus stop, we only had about a block and a half to go so I think we did pretty well for having no idea where this place was. We arrived at 11:06 and the next bus didn't leave until 1:00, dammit. If we wouldn't have been so hung over.

We waited, met a couple people from Detroit, Michigan (that's depressing), read a bit, layed on the ground, Luke had to pay 100 colones (about 20 cents) to poop and only got a small ration of toilet paper, Rivers sought out some empanadas de pollo (sooo good, especially for our first food of the day), and we were serenaded by some Tico. We left on a full bus, there were many people standing in the aisle. We decided if any of us would have had to stand we would have died. Rivers had the worst seat on the bus, I sat there first but there was no room for my legs. He ended up giving his seat up to some lady and sat between to seats in the aisle. His hips were getting crushed, so I definitely would not have fit, cuz I'm fat. Rivers fought the urge to puke the entire bus ride, and there were several times when Luke and I felt the same. Winding around the mountains to get out of San Jose was awful. But it was beautiful. We eventually could see the Pacific Ocean, and the last few kilometers of our trip took as long as the majority of the length. We stopped all the time, and we couldn't wait to get off (sexually).

We are in our hostel now in Jaco, which is nice. I've got a hello kitty mattress and some STIDZ (but they don't phase us). Luke found a lighter on the bus, which single handedly cooked dinner for half the hostel. We ate the Taco Bar, I ordered pizza. Watched the Gophers bball game, they sucked. Now we are debating whether or not to go out again. The self proclaimed "hotttest beach party bar" is across the street from us. If not tonight, we will be there tomorrow, or both. The other hostel people are drinkin on the roof. We may also join them. Where's the basement?

We are going surfing tomorrow, so if we don't blog it's because we all drowned in the rip tide.

Peace and love,

Prez and the other two sluts

Viva El Pueblo!!!

Shoppin' the Deals in San Jose

After our 10 am wake up call, the three of us rolled out of bed (albeit painfully) thanks to our sunburned bodies. Prez was able to sleep a little better since he has the comforts of a bed; the air mattress was a little less forgiving for Chris and myself. After breakfast (of nothing) we left Leo's to find the Pereferica bus for an adventure in San Jose; Leo had to work and therefore we were truely on our own for the first time. Prez, after his month stint here a few years ago, had some idea of what was going on but much of our journey was on a whim. Our first stop was the American Mall. There we found pretty much nothing of great value. Lots of stalls and shops vending cell phones (pagers too?) and millions of games for the Wii. Needless to say the Spinning workout area was of the most interest. Leaving the comforts of an American mall behind we walked a few blocks to the building where Prez learned Spanish when he was here as a student. Class was in session and the security guard was a bit too scary for us to venture inside. Our stomachs begged for food so we visited the larger, more modern mall down the street. After walking around for a bit Chris decided to try a Quiznos sandwich- Prez and I got Subway. Ordering was a challenge- and later on we discovered that we paid twice as much in the mall as other places downtown; a common occurance we are learning the hard way too many times. And really, who pays 7 dollars for a 15cm sandwich!? I guess it's the price we pay for safe food? And if you were wondering, a foot long sandwich down here is about 13 dollars- not 5. After deciding to go see Avatar (for only 3 bucks) we realized that the movie was in spanish and was not 3-D (our main stopping point) and then didn't go. At the Apple store we bought Leo a cable for his car speakers so that we can rock out to our Ipods when he drives us around. Next we decided to take our journey one step further by heading toward the Mercado Central. The only problem was that we had no idea where to go. We had to make the choice between a 40 cent bus ride or walking 3k. I'll let you take a guess as to what we decided to do...suprisingly we took the bus. After getting on a random bus we somehow ended up right where we wanted to be! I'm guessing that will never happen again. The market was everything we wanted it to be, minus getting pickpocketed or shot. The task of the afternoon was finding myself a jersey and buying sunglasses for the other two. After a bit of searching I found a jersey on sale. I wanted to buy a La Liga jersey but the guy working the store told me that nobody liked them so I decided against it. To this point unsuccessful in their search for sunglasses, a street vendor approched us trying to sell his Ray-Ban glasses for $20 dollars and a deal was in the works. Bartering down to 15 dollars each, the man demonstrated the flexibility of the sunglasses and how sturdy the lens were (by banging on them with a lighter). Chris kept telling the man that he didn't want the glasses but to no avail. As soon as Chris would try and hand them back, the guy would put them back on his face."They're authentic", he said. The deals kept getting better- Prez asked if he could buy one pair for $12, but he would not have any of that. We all laughed at him the entire time- I even walked away and took a picture of the whole ordeal. In the end two pairs of glasses, suggested retail price (approx.) $2, asking price $40 was purchased for $10 each. Perfect. About the time we got onto another bus last nights dinner (Taco Bell) was ready to exit. But alas, we spotted the group of St. Olaf students who are here for the month. We talked to them for a bit but decided that we'd be able to catch up tonight when we meet them for a night on the town. I feel a little bit weird about seeing them but oh well. We walked back to David's old house and watched the end of Star Wars (La Guerra de las Estrallas). Back at Leo's Chris went for a 51 minute run; 6 laps around the University of Costa Rica while Prez and I did a card workout. All three of us showered but got dirty from our towels which were/are/and will be covered with black sand for the rest of our trip. At least we smell a little cleaner. Clean boxers for all- the first time since leaving Minnesota. Leo's mom is making us Steak for dinner, he asked if that was ok-- seriously? Plans for tonight include meeting the group for a night out..Opps.. time to take a shot.. Ok time to go. We're off to Jaco tomorrow morning; a surfers paradise. Our first trip outside of San Jose w/out Leo. Could be interesting. More to come later.

Luke

Sun Rises and Black Sand

We've made it back to San Jose from our first destination - Puerto Viejo. I'll pick up where Luke left off Saturday (1/02) afternoon. It continued to stay cloudy pretty much all day Saturday so we decided to take a 25 minute walk south of Puerto Viejo to another beachm Playa Cocles. Walking along the road is kind of ridiculous. They're not in very good shape, so there are cars swerving everywhere trying to avoid potholes, other cars, pedestrians and strayt dogs. Needless to say, it can get a little interesting. The waves on this beach were ridiculously huge and there were red flags up indicating that it wasn't safe to swim there due to the strong riptides. Instead we settled for burying me in the sand: After this piece of art we got into a game of beach soccer against a group of Ticos and a fat guy from Mississippi. Leo was sent to the other team and Prez, Luke and my team was victorious. Player of the game (after Prez of course) was a girl that wasn't afraid to sacrifice her body for the good of the team.

On the walk back to Puerto Viejo we saw a random guy with only the top of his head shaved. He was trying to balance a glass ball on his head while staring off at the sea. Probably having a vision quest - WTF? We also saw a sign on the beach indiacting that 49 acres were for sale for the low price of $150,000. I think we'll probably put some money down on that one soon.

Upon arriving back in Puerto Viejo, we headed to dinner at Tamara's Grill and had Casados - a typical Costa Rican meal with salad rice and beans along with meat. Leo and I had a fish fillet (snapper) and Prez and Luke had chicken, yumm... After dinner we headed over to the supermarket and picked up a handle of Jamaican white rum for the night. It was our lucky night because the clerk threw in 4 free glasses to drink out of and on the way out we got free screwdrivers (vodka+orange juice drinks) for the road. Also the awesome American beer they keep in stock (you may notice a certain red dog):
We then went back to the hotel and took naps for an hour before starting our festivities. We proceeded to sit on the balcony for the next 3 hours drinking Cuba Libres (rum+cokes) and playing card games (Chandellier and Riding the Bus).
"I have a feeling we're going to get schwasted tonight." - Prez
"We're going to wake up naked on the beach." -Rivers
Luke talks a big game when riding the bus and Leo rode it all the way through on his second time ever playing the game.
9:56pm - Shirts off o'clock
Before long, we finished the entire handle of rum and headed out for the night. We went to Johnny's again and joined the rockin' beach party there. It was around this time that Prez and I decided to stay up to watch the sun come up the next morning. After leaving Johnny's we headed back to the hotel to put Luke and Leo to bed. Since our hotel was above a bar, it was a good thing they were intoxicated because the bar played loud music until 2am every night making it impossible to sleep. The room walls also vibrated.

At this point Prez and I were committed to seeing the sun rise so we had a heart-to-heart convo on the balcony until 3:30am and then to pass the time we headed back out to the beach and did some late night naked swimming:

At 5am there were still people playing music outside the hotel and we got in a quick game of drunken cribbage. At 5:30am we headed back out to the beach to get ready to see the sun rise and stumbled upon two people having sex on the beach... awkward. It definitely wasn't even that dark out anymore. Ha.
"At least we're in good company, the drunks are still wandering around." - Prez (not referring to ourselves)
We also played with some puppies that were hanging out on the beach. I wonder if they had slept at all...? At around 6:00am we finally got to see the sun rise. Due to some cloud cover it wasn't as glorious as we had expected. It was still neat though. At 6:15 Prez and I stumbled back to the hotel and went to bed - very much still iniebriated. We were awoken a few short hours later at 9:00am by Leo, who yelled as us and said we were going to the beach to play. After complaining for a long time I finally got my shit together and got ready and headed out to the beach with the group. Prez and I were quite possibly still drunk.

It was then that we were informed that we had eaten fried chicken from a street vendor the previous night, which nicely accounts for the missing colones from my wallet. Leo also told me that I hugged the chicken man... weird.

We layed out on Playa Negra (black sand beach) for most of the day. Some highlights were: spear fishing for crab with homemade spears fashioned by Leo; football in the sea; getting really tan and blonde (and sunburned). Before we had to leave for our drive back to San Jose, Prez and I decided to go for a run on the beach. Did an out and back northwest toward Cahuita (probably 4 miles total). Once you got out of the town there was absolutely nothing but beach and it was beautiful. Along the way we saw a naked guy sunning himself and a topless chick standing on the beach getting water poured over her by another girl (showering). Must have been the day for nudity.

On the car ride home we discussed our nutrition for the day. It included:
1.25 pieces of bread + peanut butter
1 fanta
1 other drink (Me and Luke: Powerade, Prez: H2OH)
2 Liters of water (Prez)
1 bag of chips
This lasted us all the way until 7pm when we all had the Big Box Meal from Taco Bell in San Jose. Now we're back at Leo's house and we'll see what tomorrow in San Jose will bring us. Keep checking back, as we'll be sure to update frequently.

Hasta Pronto!
-Chris

Puerto Viejo

Hola,

We are currently in Puerto Viejo living the dream. David, Chris and I are all at the internet cafe hoping that the sun will come back. It is supposed to be the dry season but for whatever reason it decided to rain for a bit last night and the residual clouds are still hovering. Leo says that in his 28 years of life he has never seen rain in January- Prez said he said that last time he was here too. The beach is absolutely amazing. We spent the afternoon yesterday soaking up the sun on the beach in the black sand. We covered ourselves in the sand and then realized that we didn't have a camera to document it. Oh well. The waves are huge- biggest i've ever seen. Last night we went out and wandered around town. We found the Lonely Planet's recommendation of a beach club called Jhonny's. Biggest beach party ever. They had a big campfire and a man who juggled flamming torches (see chris's video upload). Needless to say he was terrible and we all thought we were going to be lit on fire. Our hostel is on the beach front
Contrary to what most people expect (Jiggy) all three of us went for a run this morning. It is incredibly hot and humid but jumping in the water to cool off afterwards is heavenly. My time is about to run out. Gotta go

Feliz Ano Nuevo

We're about to leave for Puerto Viejo, so this post will be pretty abbreviated. After getting picked up by Leo at the airport, we were driven to his family's house for dinner (at 10pm). When we arrived we were definitely out of our elements. We were introduced to a ton of people and then given some Old Milwaukee and proceeded to stand in the corner and drink them. We played a few games of pool and then left for Leo's apartment. After checking out our abode, we got in a cab for El Pueblo to bring in the new year.

Prez says that El Pueblo was just as he had left it - sleezy and loud. All of our ears are still ringing as I type this many hours after we left. We drank many Imperials and took some tequila shots at midnight. We also took advantage of the free drinks from the dancing Tica on the stage. We all probably have mouth herpes now. We then traveled to another bar (Ebony 56) and received some sweet new years eve party hats and some more free shots from a black man on stage. We arrived back at Leo's via taxi at 2am and Luke and I spooned on an inflatible mattress. Needless to say it was the pinnacle of my romantic life.

We're now headed out to the Caribbean coast to Puerto Viejo.
Til later!