Mhmm: July 2009

5/16/09

Right now I’m waiting for Fede to deliver the goods. I hope he brings them soon, I want to get some shit done today.
Hmm. I spent nearly all of yesterday timing ants for my project. Ant velocities and ant flow, que timeconsuming. That stuff I said about cards at Jerry’s? That was actually on the 14th and not the 13th. Do you care? Meh. Also the water turned off after I took a dump and it fucked up the flush and I spent a while trying to fix it but the water eventually turned on again so it was okay.
Yesterday was cool. Went to the station and got some work done. Set up stuff for our video project at the windfarm cerca de Tilarán. Chiva. I also picked classes for fall. I’m only taking 3 classes, but my labs are hella long. Looks like this (detailed sketch ensues). So it’s alright. Thursday is a bitchhhh. Sent some postcards. Fede gave Calvin and I a ride back home. Sweet. OH! I actually got a ride up the hill that morning. Some people happened to pick up a bunch of hitchhikers. An old guy who just wanted a ride uphill and a smelly guy who I talked to for a while, and myself of course.
That night I went over to Jerry’s to meet up with him and Nicole and Kelsy and we went to the Ecolodge to drink with some easterners. I always wonder if I’d be able to tell if somebody was Californian just by looking at them, but I could def tell that theses guys were not Californians. They were cool. We drank hard liquor, something I haven’t really done in 2 months and I had a hit of a pipe which had – DING – weed in it. Finally got around to smoking in CR. Sweet. It was just a hit of some shag and I was already drunk, so it didn’t do anything. But it had nostalgic properties, shall we say.
When we decided to leave, Nicole was being sluggish on account of her kissing some boy. So while we waited, I pulled out my harmonica (or as Kenneth calls it, a mouth radio) and played Love me Do cos that shit is easy and fun. But I totally forgot that we were right next to 8ish bungalows with lots of people trying to sleep. So some lady came outside and told me to leave. It was dark and I didn’t have a light on so she didn’t see me. Kelsy, on the other hand, had her light on and was going to get Nicole at that point. So the lady, noticing Kelsy walking and not playing Harmonica says “Good boy! Just leave.” I guess she couldn’t see Kelsey too well in the dark cos she said “boy”, but why would she jump to that conclusion if she couldn’t really see anybody? Whatever, I kept still and wasn’t noticed. I drank nearly a liter and a half of water before going to bed and woke up really having to pee.

5/20/09

Oh man. I gotta catch up again. How unpleasant. I guess on Sunday I put the tubing down for my project. What a bitch! It’s not very agreeable, meaning it always wants to coil up, meaning I have to fight it every inch (centimeter) of the way to lay it next to an ant trail. Fuck. I finished around noon and went to the soccer game in San Luis Abajo. Muy muy lejos. I got a ride for about 200m down the hill in car and then another ride on the back of a motorcycle. We passed some Vermont or Georgia kids, so I must have looked pretty cool.
The games were fun. They were just friendly games. I hung out and drank Coca Cola with Christina cos her parents were working there alongside mine. Some Vermont kids asked us for a ride, but we were hitching ourselves so they ended up walking. As for Christina and I, we jumped in the back of a pickup truck that brought us pretty much to Calvin’s house. There was a 5yr old riding on top of the cab. I don’t think my dad would have let me do that when I was that old.
At Calvins I, uh, counted more ants. They were dead this time though. Calving chops down Cecropia in the mornings and brings them back, opens them, and counts the ants. And most of them are dead because he soaks them in alcohol. He’s got a time consuming project.
After I ate dinner, Christina, Calving and I crashed Chris’s house with our computers, but the goddamn internet didn’t’ work for me. Damn. But cards was fun. That sounded weird.
I forgot to say that Saturday was also pretty uneventful, but Chris, Kelsie, Jerry and I went to the ecolodge to play foosball and ping pong.
Monday! Tilarán! Woke up early and caught the school bus with Calvin and Ali into town. Oh boy. The hair gel. That’s all I’m going to say.
We took another bus from Santa Elena a Tilarán for a 2 hours busride. It sure was cheap. It was pretty much a modified schoolbus. About 30 mins into it I started to write very bumpy postcards. While I was writing one to Murph and Sims I tried to sneak a fart. So much for sneaking it. While it was silent, it was certainly deadly. I had to readjust the way I was sitting because I couldn’t tell if I had just shit myself. Nope. It was just really, really pungent. People on the bus definitely smelled it, but I kept my head down and kept writing my postcard. I have no class. (Editor’s note: I recently read that this ride from Monteverde to Tilarán is one of the 10 craziest roads in Costa Rica. An accomplishment!)
Bus got to Tilarán and we got a cab to take us to the windfarm. Parque Eolicos or something. It almost seemed like they forgot we were coming. It was kind of a secure area, well not so much, but we needed clearance to get it. When we got in, we conducted a video interview with the guy who works there. I guess it worked out alright. After only 2 hours in Tilarán we went back. At the bus stop I got a Coke and a bag of the BEST MAMONES EVER! Heavenly. Tried to sleep on the bus and ended up getting rained on through the window. Eh. Instituto  home.
Yesterday I tried to set up 2 more locations. Didn’t’ go so well. The first one did I guess. But as I checked my old locations it kinda bummed me out not to find any ants on my tubes. Oh well. I ended up going to the ecolodge to use the internet.
After dinner I went to the party at Christina’s family’s place. They own the path to the waterfall and have a cool party place up the hill. Ate drank talked hungover here.

5/23/09

It’s really hard to actually keep up in this thing cos I write at night and if I’m the only one up, insects will invade my room. Like they did 2 nights ago.
During recent days I’ve been working on my project, somewhat unsuccessfully. Ugh. I guess “nothing worked” is a result too. At least I have some data for ant movement. Fuck
Wednesday I watched Kelsey catch bats. I wanted to help out a bit, but there was a couple other epopel around who kinda uh.. bat blocked me. Oh well. Thurstday night I just stayed in and tried to do some HW, but insects attacked so I went to bed. Last night Jerry and I looked for Kelsey and Nicole at the Ecolodge but they weren’t there.Sneaky dog pounced on me, two different times. But at least we got to see the other dogs who really love getting attention. Sneaker does too, but he’s just a big scary. Jerry and I went back to his house and played cards in the tent on his farm. Fun
Today it rained like it hasn’t in two weeks. I guess it was due. We’ve been really lucky that we didn’t have to do our projects in the rain. But today the skies opened up and dropped an ocean on us. It sounded like the house would fall down. I couldn’t even hear my guitar because the tin roof was making so much noise. I had like 10 more quick project related things to do, so I put on my rain gear and got it done in less than 30 mins. I ve been doing hw and listening to music, playing freecell and watching Mexican movies inside all day. And some soccer earlier. But yea. Last full day here. Triste. Pizza tonight though.

5/27/09

SO HARD TO KEEP UP. THAT’S WHAT HE SAID. OKAY. Night of the 23rd I was set to stay in for a last night with the fam, but Eduardito went to someone’s house and Xiñia and Vichi went to Unicornios, so I called up Robert and got a cab into town to meet up with him. We chilled by the atm and had 2 beers before goingt o Moonshivas and playing dars with an on duty cop. Whoo! We hung out with Oakland bartender and Yorvin, the supposed weed hookup. We watched Blade. Cool. We also smoked a spliff with them and a Canadian bartender. God what a bitch. She had issues with being America’s hat. Whatever.
Slept over at Roberts. Met his tica mom and little sis. Got a ride back to SL. There I packed, ripped dvds to my harddrive and said goodbye to everybody. Haha, you’ll have to ask me about Lobenzo bootleg later. Goodbye was sad, but returning to the station was pretty cool, too. Got to see everybody before immediately going to work on projets. That was pretty much all I did yesterday too. That and fuck around. I also returned to SL because I had to check one of my pipes again. On the day I left SL I was cleaning up my sites and discovered that, yes, one site was actually working. Sweeeeeeet. Yesterday night wayyyy into the early morning I worked on project stuff. FINISHED IT TODAY! So I played cribbage.

6/3/09

Fuck it. There’s just been so much shit to do. I’ve done the video project about the windmills. We had a homestay fiesta (FUN!). Saw 4Fast4Furious. Madea couple tiny tico friends. Played indoor soccer. Fun! Did the symposium yesterday. Nobody really showed up, haha. There were a handful of people I guess, but not too many. It was cool to see everybody’s project. Esp. the Cuajiniquil people’s project. Mine went overtime for a little big, but whatever. Frank left us with a final thought and it ended up being kinda heavy, but I guess that’s what people need now a days.
Got back, got POT! Lianna’s tico bf, Mau, got it for us. I went down the hill with Lianna to Mau’s house and picked up what amounted to a 20 sack. It was brown and really compact. Jerry, Chris, Randall, Kimmie, and I smoked in the Cloud forest. Sweeeeeet. It wasn’t horrible. We all got pretty high. Then we played pictionary telephone. HELLA FUNNY!

6/10/09

It’s been only one week and already so much has happened and so much has changed. Jesus. I guess it’s a good thing (not really) that I lost my goddamned book or else I wouldn’t have gotten to this. Fuck. I really wanted to read my goddamned book.
Where to begin? I think the last time I documented my travels I was on the bus to the soccer game. That was fun. Drank a little on the bus, much to Fede’s amusement. We played pictionary too. When we got there we bought a whooooole bunch of shit. Everybody got a jersey. I gought a bunch of scarves and afterwards I got a flag. Chagi, Roberto and I managed to get separated and ended up on the wrong side of the stadium. We knew something was wrong, but everybody told us that we were on the correct side. So at halftime we took matters into our own hands and searched the stadium. Found ‘em! They were worried about us. Fede was concerned (jokingly?) that I was lost and drunk. I was neither. Jus misdirected and increasingly less tipsy. Ticos totally owned the US. Singing was fun. They did the ole’s but at the end they said “Ticos” instead of “guachos”. And then the “vamos! Vamos ticos! Esta noche tenemos que ganar” was fun. CR 3 – 1 USA (barely). We stopped by the tacobell on the way back, whcih was filled wtih red and blue jerseys. I fell asleep in the aisle on the bus.
The next day I worked really hard on the final and my project paper. I actually finished way ahead of time and got to watch Superhigh Me before lunch. It was a pretty funny movie. I smoked with Chris in the backwoods and saw a crazy coati climbing trees. At some point there was also a nice banquet. Everybody came, even the cocineras. Lovely. And afterwards was the slideshow. It was amazing. Everybody had great pictures and it was a gread reminder of our time together.
Later that night we went to Chanchos. It was actually kinda packed. We didn’t stay long. We never do. We taxid back and smoke on the front porch of the station. Berto y Chagi y Ali were among the many people who joined us. We went to Chris’s room to watch Jim Gaffigan, but I was pretty faded so I went back to my room to sleep.
Next morning was time to leave. Triste. We took a bus to Lake Arenal, where I got a coconut, then it was on to Volcán Arenal. Fuckin hotspring, motherfucker! We arrived at a really nice hotel with lots of hotspring pools. Great! Waterfalls and 2 out of 3 good waterslides, chickenfighting, and ultimate ninja and marco polo. Yeaaa! We had dinner there too before going to our real hotel. Ok. I thought, we spend the day at a luxury hotel and then we go back to a shitty motel. Fine with me. But no! We pull up to the place and find out that each room (2-3 people) was actually a whole cabina with 2 king sized beds and a party shower and bidet. WTF. It was amazing. Best school vacation ever. We had a little fiestito in one cabina and Frank and Fede even showed up. Great fun.
After waking up from my incredibly comfortable sleep we headed to SJ. Along the way we got icecream and saw a crazy garden. Then we got to SJ and ate Quiznos. Quiznos doesn’t even try to market to Spanish speakers. All the stupid signs they had up and decorations were all in English. Whatever.
We made a stop at the bazaar where I got that bandana 2 months ago to buy a whole bunch of shit. A whole bunch of shit and a hammock, I should say. Dropped our crap off and went to dinner. Niiice. It was a fancy restaurant. Good wine and good food. Afterwards we had the award ceremony. Squid apparently spearheaded the awards, followed by staff awards. They were pretty good. Squid awarded me with “Most likely to be the tranquilo ukulele playing liger from the Lion King 2½” Whatever the hell that means. I guess I appreciate that Squid thinks I look like a liger. Fede said something about me getting drunk and lost at the soccer game, for never using a comb (but we all thought he said condom) and about having my own cuchillo. For this he awarded me with the “Weed Chaser Award”. I didn’t catch that when he said it. Somebody told me later. Fuckin Erick and Morgan. That was pretty mild, though. Morgan “I just went there” McCarthy really stuck it to her students. Like Kimmie and Randall and Ryan. Frank also had a couple funny things to say. Everybody at some point had broken Mancho’s heart.
After awards we took pics and went back to Cacts and then to a bar. Bar was fun but still a little sad. Some people left early because their flights were the next day. We all eventually hit the sack.
That brings us to yesterday. Woke up and switched rooms. I should have sqitched hotels. Cacts is kinda expensive. Oh well. Some more goodbyes. Bye Chris Frank Fede Sofia etc. Sad, but I didn’t cry. Everybody’s crying. Ugh.
I spent the day trekking around with Ryan, Kimmie, and Randall looking for supplies and bus tickets. Bought a book, Timeline by Michael Chriton, which I was really excited to read, but I fuckin lost it today. Last night ended with dinner at that place by the bazaar and then food shopping. Smoked a bit with everybody on the roof and went to bed.
TODAY begins the adventure! Woke up, and ate breakfast, locked our stuff up with Cacts and jumped on a bus to Cariari. Then we’ll bus to Tortuguero and find Lorren and Alyssa. I’m excited. This is the actual trip, no restrictions. Just go, disfrute, and make it back to SJ on the 15th. I’m planning to stay 2 nights in Tortuguero and 2 in Puerto Viejo. I’m pumped!

6/11/09

Our trip went well. The bus I was on connected to another bus which connected to a boat which brought us to Torturguero. Some guy named Roberto from the first bus arranged everything. I guess part of the business is directing tourists from the get go. The boat ride was like 45 mins and looked like the Disneyland ride.
Tortuguero is pretty damn cool. It’s kind of like a small beach town where everybody knows each other and is related to each other and wants you to spend your money with them. Tours and turtle watching are like $25… caro. Other than that, theres a beach and a nat’l park.
When we arrived, we were directed toward cabinas aracari, where Lorren and Alyssa were. They weren’t actually there when we were, though, so Ryan and I walked down the beach and swam a bit in THE CARRIBBEAN! We got back and found the girls, got clean and went out. We went to a tiny restaurant where they pretty much told us what we were going to eat and there we met Chano, our tour guide for the next day. Very nice. Man, everybody is soooo nice here, it’s kinda scary. We got a couple drinks at a bar, played a little pool, took a pic with Jarjar, went back to the room and smoke out of an apple. We went to bed earlyish so we could wake up at 5am the next morning.
Did that ---/\ and went with Chano in a canoa through the rivulets. We saw a lot of cool stuff. River turtles, otter, caymen, spider monkeys, carablanca, lots of birds, herons, spiders. Lots of stuff. After getting back we ate lunch and took a fat nap at the rooms. Woke up, met Hoai Nam, Athena, Akiko, Sophia, and some Danish girl. We were on our way out to walk the trail at the nat’l park though, so we did that. Saw SPIDER MONKEYS! Basilisks fucking basilisks, cool bugs, leafcutters! Walked back along the beach and got cocoloco. Showevered up and got some dinner.
Right now Ryan and I are planning the second leg of the journey. We’re taking a boat to Moín, but to Puerto Limón, bus to Puerto Viejo. WHOOOlegtwoooo!

6/13/09

Haaamock. Haaaaaaamock. Yea. I’m in Puerto Viejo ahorita. Chiva. Yesterday Ryan and I caught the boat to Moín. I thought it would be a boat by sea but it was actually down a 60km route by river. WTF. Crazy. We got off and ltos of cabs tried to convince us to take their taxi to PV. $10 = too much. They said all kinds of things like the bus would cost too much cos of gas prices and that we’d have to wait 45 mins and that it would be slow etc. But the $2 bus ride was well worth it. We also met 2 Israeli girls on the bus.
I forgot to say that I fucking lost my pocketknife. Sheeit. I think I left it outside after cutting up a locococo. Somebody probably pocketed it. Oh well.
PV. Sick. Woah. Slfkjsdglkj. Suck a little surfer/reggae partytown. Everybody tries to sell you pot and there’s lots of beer and food to be found. And our hostel, wow. Rockin J’s is the shit. Hammock hotel is cool. You get a locker and then you just sleep in a row of hammocks. Upstairs they have a hwole bunch of camping tents out and you can sleep in those. It’s got a great look too. Constructed and decorated by artists. And…. Hammocks everywhere. Mosquitoes too.
Ryan and I visited town for a bit to get stuff done and get some food and then right outside of J’s we ran into Miles. We convinced him to come to 2nd dinner with us and then out to drink.
We got some Greek food and then went to see music. Some really sexy Aussie musician. I say sexy instead of hot because she really fucked some air while she was playing guitar. She had kinda raunch lyrics too.
After that we went to the corner reggae bar for a Cuba Libre. Some guy asked if I wanted coke, but it was loud so I said “Yea Rum and coke!” And he sat me down and told me how much it would be for a gram of coke. “No thanks” I said and tried to explain that I thought he said something different, but he told me to go away and pushed my face back. Woah. Awkward… we left after that and went to Jhonny’s (and yes it’s spelled like that). It was cool. A bar on the beach complete with bonfires and lots of pot. Two gringas came up to us and sold us some pot cookies. Sweet, I was planning on eating it today, but Ryan and Miles had other plans. So we mucned them right there. In a short while we were pretty fuckin baked. And Miles would not stop reminding us about it.
Today we got up kinda late, said goodbye to Miles, rented some bikes and rode to Manzanillo. It was a great ride. The bikes were shitty but it was mostly flat with a bunch of potholes. At Manzanillo we locked the bikes and went on an awesome hike. Saw some howlers. Sweeeeet. Oh and we ate a nice lunch on the beach. Perfect.
It started to rain, so we turned back. It was pouring. My boots drained a bunch of water when I pured them out. We changed clothes and read a bit. A long bit. Fuckin lost my locker key. Damn it. Smoked out of an apple. Ate some PBJ for dinner and saw Erick and annalise. Now its bedtime. OH! And fuckin phone carde didn’t work. Fuck. I wanna talk to EK.
PS Biking in a tropical rainstorm.
EPIC

6/15/09

I don’t’ know what to say. This journey is coming to an end and the pen I borrowed from Ryan is dying. While I’m sad that I’m on THE bus back to SJ and the states, I can also related to the Magic Bus of the Who fame (god that sounds really bad. Sorry).When I get a chance on the plane, I’ll write something reflecting about my time here. But right now I’ll just tell you what I did yesterday.
Nothin. A fat lot of it. And that’s how I wanted it to be. Woke up and went into town for breakfast. Came back and saw Chato and his wife and then went snorkeling with Ryan. It was pretty sedimenty and hard to see. We did see some coral though. It was realy cool, esp since we were circling this big rock out far in the water. Then we laid in the sun for a bit. Me quemé, pero no me importa. Went back to the hostel and read a lot in the crows nest hammocks I finished the book I jacked from Tortuguero already, so I bought another at a secluded little bookshop. I got Franny and Zooey by Salinger. It’s a good read.
I finally got a call out to the fam and ek! That night Chato, Annalise, Ryan, and I went to town, bought an L watched the Lakers win (fuck), returned the bottle for the deposit and played pool back at J’s. It was a good day and a good night.

6/16/09

Tuesday. Fuck the pen. I guess there’s a little more to report. I did get to the hostel and got my bags at the other one and I met a Swiss guy and Finnish girl. We went out to dinner and then later on at the hostel I remet Sneuf, Ali, and Katie. How pleasant! I got some cheap breakfast today, bought some Lizano sauce and headed out to the airport. I’m glad that I had a nice convo with the drive. Yay proficiency in Spanish! It’s also noteworthy that not only did I meet a new friend on the plane AND we had a vacant seat between us, but that now I have a whole row to myself which just happens to be the extra legroom emergency exit rows. Yackpot! As Roberto would say.

Done. FUCK YEA!

Mhmm

Monday, July 13, 2009

Guess Who's Done Transcribing?

Kanka-bono Girls

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