So after the Serenity of Manuel Antonio, we headed toward Jaco. Jaco with its major exports of tacky hotels, drug dealers and nightlife was felt a neccesary way to break up the trip to the hippie mecca of Montezuma.
As we were driving on the bus, we faintly heard the bus driver whisper Jaco Jaco, so we grabbed out stuff and jumped off the bus with an english friend from Cornwall we met en route.
We were told that the cheapest hostel around was located across from the omnipotent smiling face of the Colonel so we headed in the direction of the KFC. We found the hostel, staffed by two Hungarian Bohemian types (wait bohemia is in Germany right). The boyfriend of the hostel owning couple seemed more concerned with partying and surfing than running an effective business model but was definetly pretty chill. His g-f on the other hand, was a horse of a different colour. Perhaps because her b'f often abandoned his duties as owner to catch tasty waves, she lived for passive agressive pushes of overpriced travel packages.
Sample Conversation
Hostel Owner: You know the fastest way to montezuma is the speed boat right?
Jesse: Yes
H-O: Well I´m not trying to pressure you but you should really buy the speed boat ticket from us
Jesse: I think we are going to take the local bus instead to save money
H-O: Oh, well, uhh, I dont mean to be rude but the local bus is very slow and unreliable
Jesse: We are ok with that
H-O: Look if you don´t want to buy the speed boat ticket from me I understand, but I assure you we are the cheapest around
Jesse: Its not that we don´t trust you, we just dont want the speed boat
H-O: Oh ok, well uhh, just remember that the speed boat is the fastest and again no pressure, but please buy it from me
Jesse: Ok im going to go get some fried chicken
N.B. That last line is the end of many a dialogue here and can be used to segue out of just about any conversation
The beach at Jaco was pretty underwhelming, so we shared a cab with two 30 yr olds we met from California as well as our Cornish Game Friend (ba dum dum) Hutchy to Playa Hermosa. Playa hermosa is a beautiful black sand beach, with probably the fiercest ripe-tide I have ever encountered. After playing on the beach, interacting with some loveable if mangy stray dogs, and enjoiyng a happy hour with free bocas (appies), we decided we were ready to hit the famous or rather infamous Jaco nightlife.
We rounded up whomever was at the hostel to hit the town. Along with our Playa Hermosa infantry we accumulated a bunch of 18 yr old girls who acted so much their age, I practically expected Heisey to hit on them. We all pounded Nicaraguan Rum (Flor de Cana has become an official sponsor of the trip) and tried to find the it bar. While we struggled to find a place that suited our taste we were offered drugs not once, not twice, but 17 times. The most hilarious of these semi-awkward encounters was when a boy of about 16 came up to us in perfect english and said ¨¿hey guys, do you want some great chronic?¨When we responded with something more complex than simple si ou no he simply said Que???
After walking our buzz off to find a club that wasnt complete with smoke machine and local hookers, we finally settled on a shitty house bar, pounded a beer each and got ready to leave the sin-filled den that was Jaco.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
The Zany catchup post
Ya so I´ve decided im pretty much the Dr. Dre of the blog game. Long wait, lots of hype and a more than satisfactory result than a much much delayed followup.
So after San Jose we hit up Manuel Antonio National Parc / Quepos. When we got there we were suprised that it was not merely a town near the parc but it actually had a pretty amazing beach (and this is coming from a guy who is a bit of a playa hater... get it)
We found a hostel ran by a german expat and his tica wife, who like seemingly all ticas between the ages of 16-27 was either with small child or very pregnant.
While the hostel accomodations left something to be desired we absolutly loved the insanely cheap breakfast. 1500 colones (about 3 bucks) got us papaya, watermelon, pineapple, corn pancakes with syrup (of course maple-styled corn syrup featuring la essence of maple, sounds almost poetic rather than mass manufactured). After I ate this they came with the hot breakfast plate of scambled eggs, toast and gallo pintos (the omnipresent rice and beans).
On our first night we met some Texans, who although quite nice, displayed some classic texasims when they remarked ¨I can´t believe y´all are friendly, we´ve never met ANYONE friendly outside of texas¨. After that I realized how after all these years I have neglected the fact that I am one of two nice non-texans in the world. Oh Rapture!!!
While watching the Celtics shallack the Lakers, Brian felt it was appropriate to drown his sorrows in Jim Beam and prompltly got shit faced (me being the sober voyeur i am only got half slurry and even more sarcastic to boot). We ended up walking an hour and a half in 35 degree heat to find the IT bar, which although a lot of fun mainly consisted of Tico men salsaing their ass off and stealing all the white chicks from the tourists (I guess their is just never enough white chicks to go around. I´m almost positive I have that on a bumper sticker)
As we nursed our hangover that day we were alarmingly awoken by extremly loud dutch at 6 am. That was about it for Brian as he decided the timely reponse to this impromptu alarm clock would be to fire his barf cannons ASAP.
We decided the best hangover cure would be a nice dip in the ocean, which made us both feel better but eventually we got a weird urge to surf. One of the texans from the night previous gave us a few tips and we felt we were clearly above instruction. BAD CALL. We got tossed around the waves worse than a red-headed step child. Leaving battered and bruised we decided to turn in for the day.
At Dinner we assembled a posse of a couple from Chicago, the two dutch girls/alarm clocks (who actually were really nice yet they felt acclimated to North American culture through watching Friends.) a San Diego/ Coloradoan who had just returned from filming an episode of the French version of Takeshi´s Castle.
The next day we woke up early to see the national park. It was deemed neccesary to splurge on a tourguide in order to maximize the amount of wildlife we saw. And oh the animals we saw Capuchin monkeys, three towed sloths, White Frogs, 4 kinds of Lizards and much more. The unfortunate casualty of this amazing park was my New Balances which after being soaked in Sea Water and then hastily jammed in to the bottom of back took on an odor of salty decaying jellyfish (Soon to be panted by CK as next years hottest scent)
After some Nicaruagan rum and a little rump shaking at the ladies night next door to our hostel we went to bed, thinking of our great times in Manuel Antonio and preparing ourselves for the general sluttiness of Jaco.... To Be Continued
So after San Jose we hit up Manuel Antonio National Parc / Quepos. When we got there we were suprised that it was not merely a town near the parc but it actually had a pretty amazing beach (and this is coming from a guy who is a bit of a playa hater... get it)
We found a hostel ran by a german expat and his tica wife, who like seemingly all ticas between the ages of 16-27 was either with small child or very pregnant.
While the hostel accomodations left something to be desired we absolutly loved the insanely cheap breakfast. 1500 colones (about 3 bucks) got us papaya, watermelon, pineapple, corn pancakes with syrup (of course maple-styled corn syrup featuring la essence of maple, sounds almost poetic rather than mass manufactured). After I ate this they came with the hot breakfast plate of scambled eggs, toast and gallo pintos (the omnipresent rice and beans).
On our first night we met some Texans, who although quite nice, displayed some classic texasims when they remarked ¨I can´t believe y´all are friendly, we´ve never met ANYONE friendly outside of texas¨. After that I realized how after all these years I have neglected the fact that I am one of two nice non-texans in the world. Oh Rapture!!!
While watching the Celtics shallack the Lakers, Brian felt it was appropriate to drown his sorrows in Jim Beam and prompltly got shit faced (me being the sober voyeur i am only got half slurry and even more sarcastic to boot). We ended up walking an hour and a half in 35 degree heat to find the IT bar, which although a lot of fun mainly consisted of Tico men salsaing their ass off and stealing all the white chicks from the tourists (I guess their is just never enough white chicks to go around. I´m almost positive I have that on a bumper sticker)
As we nursed our hangover that day we were alarmingly awoken by extremly loud dutch at 6 am. That was about it for Brian as he decided the timely reponse to this impromptu alarm clock would be to fire his barf cannons ASAP.
We decided the best hangover cure would be a nice dip in the ocean, which made us both feel better but eventually we got a weird urge to surf. One of the texans from the night previous gave us a few tips and we felt we were clearly above instruction. BAD CALL. We got tossed around the waves worse than a red-headed step child. Leaving battered and bruised we decided to turn in for the day.
At Dinner we assembled a posse of a couple from Chicago, the two dutch girls/alarm clocks (who actually were really nice yet they felt acclimated to North American culture through watching Friends.) a San Diego/ Coloradoan who had just returned from filming an episode of the French version of Takeshi´s Castle.
The next day we woke up early to see the national park. It was deemed neccesary to splurge on a tourguide in order to maximize the amount of wildlife we saw. And oh the animals we saw Capuchin monkeys, three towed sloths, White Frogs, 4 kinds of Lizards and much more. The unfortunate casualty of this amazing park was my New Balances which after being soaked in Sea Water and then hastily jammed in to the bottom of back took on an odor of salty decaying jellyfish (Soon to be panted by CK as next years hottest scent)
After some Nicaruagan rum and a little rump shaking at the ladies night next door to our hostel we went to bed, thinking of our great times in Manuel Antonio and preparing ourselves for the general sluttiness of Jaco.... To Be Continued
Thursday, June 12, 2008
San Jose (the one in Costa Rica) Silliness
Hello, dear blog readers, I didn't see you come in.
So after ending up in a wrong contient (see Feb 07), Emergency Medical trips and other acts of G-d, we finally ended up in San Jose, C.R! on Sunday.
We arrived in San Jose and after some gajooling and a 80's music themed cab ride (apparently Billy Ocean is the G.O.A.T to Ticos) we arrived and found our hostel. Brian neglected to remember the name of the hostel he booked so we scurried down the streets of downtown S.J, were inundated with American Tourists and offers of special fun (not sure whether they were offering us prositutes, weed or some weird Tico fusion of the two), we found an internet cafe.
Some quick obsevations about S.J:
1. Street Names and addresses are seemingly non-existant, instead its all about distance from a a major landmark I.E. 200 metres away from the Karantonis Hellenic Sandwich Shoppe.
2. American Fast Food is King!! Everywhere we went we saw KFC, Burger King, McDicks and every other greasy artery clogger produced by these United States. And they were almost entirely populated by Ticos.
3. Dusty and Grimey. This is certainly not one of the more awe-inspiring capital cities I have ever been to but it served its purpose as a jumpoff to the more interesting sites in C.R
Attempting to avoid eating our first meal of the trip in a KFC (what is this, the great wall or something???) We decided to eat at a Chinese-Tico restaurant called Chan Chan or something like that. Simply put the food was neither Chinese, nor Tico and far from good. But after 8 hours travelling and wandering aimlessly it went down easy washed down by some Imperial Cervecas.
Our Hostel was RULED by cats. The owner had a single grey tabby who got knocked up by a tico alley cat and produced 4 adorable kittens, who at the time of our visit were 6 weeks old. They spent there days jumping on backpackers (myself included) sleeping in flowerpots/my shoes and generally living an adorable catsistence (patented Jesse Todres, 2008). Despite their ready cuteness the owners of the hostel were overwhelmed by the amount of cats and even offered one to us as a trip mascot.
The next day we got up early to see the 'sites'. Not much here folks. Apparently the best cultural site is the jade museum but only two years divorced from my lankyjewinasia days, Im still pretty jaded about the precious stone(ba dum dum).
We visited the city centre, took pictures of cows (San Jose has a cow project similar to the Moose project in Toronto in the late 90's) ate pollo frito in a local market while watching the Euro Cup and then dashed home to avoid one of the hardest downpours I've ever seen.
After 3 hours of intense rain, we ventured out to find dinner, but again we were surrounded by either over priced tourist traps (one was actually called Cancun, ugh) and the Colonel's benevolent smile, we decided to hop into a very nice-looking shopping centre. There we played mid 90's arcade games and I managed to find a nice spaghetti and pepper dish for $1.60.
The next day we got up at 5:15, thanks to help from a roomate whose homestay experience teaching english was cut short when the house she was staying at was destroyed in a mud slide and then got to our next destination, Manuel Antonio Park (incidentally this was the very same park, that on our first trip to 'San Jose' when we were discussing how to get to it from San Jose, we were kindly informed by the stewardess "... but that's in Costa Rica)
Spicily Yours
Jesse
So after ending up in a wrong contient (see Feb 07), Emergency Medical trips and other acts of G-d, we finally ended up in San Jose, C.R! on Sunday.
We arrived in San Jose and after some gajooling and a 80's music themed cab ride (apparently Billy Ocean is the G.O.A.T to Ticos) we arrived and found our hostel. Brian neglected to remember the name of the hostel he booked so we scurried down the streets of downtown S.J, were inundated with American Tourists and offers of special fun (not sure whether they were offering us prositutes, weed or some weird Tico fusion of the two), we found an internet cafe.
Some quick obsevations about S.J:
1. Street Names and addresses are seemingly non-existant, instead its all about distance from a a major landmark I.E. 200 metres away from the Karantonis Hellenic Sandwich Shoppe.
2. American Fast Food is King!! Everywhere we went we saw KFC, Burger King, McDicks and every other greasy artery clogger produced by these United States. And they were almost entirely populated by Ticos.
3. Dusty and Grimey. This is certainly not one of the more awe-inspiring capital cities I have ever been to but it served its purpose as a jumpoff to the more interesting sites in C.R
Attempting to avoid eating our first meal of the trip in a KFC (what is this, the great wall or something???) We decided to eat at a Chinese-Tico restaurant called Chan Chan or something like that. Simply put the food was neither Chinese, nor Tico and far from good. But after 8 hours travelling and wandering aimlessly it went down easy washed down by some Imperial Cervecas.
Our Hostel was RULED by cats. The owner had a single grey tabby who got knocked up by a tico alley cat and produced 4 adorable kittens, who at the time of our visit were 6 weeks old. They spent there days jumping on backpackers (myself included) sleeping in flowerpots/my shoes and generally living an adorable catsistence (patented Jesse Todres, 2008). Despite their ready cuteness the owners of the hostel were overwhelmed by the amount of cats and even offered one to us as a trip mascot.
The next day we got up early to see the 'sites'. Not much here folks. Apparently the best cultural site is the jade museum but only two years divorced from my lankyjewinasia days, Im still pretty jaded about the precious stone(ba dum dum).
We visited the city centre, took pictures of cows (San Jose has a cow project similar to the Moose project in Toronto in the late 90's) ate pollo frito in a local market while watching the Euro Cup and then dashed home to avoid one of the hardest downpours I've ever seen.
After 3 hours of intense rain, we ventured out to find dinner, but again we were surrounded by either over priced tourist traps (one was actually called Cancun, ugh) and the Colonel's benevolent smile, we decided to hop into a very nice-looking shopping centre. There we played mid 90's arcade games and I managed to find a nice spaghetti and pepper dish for $1.60.
The next day we got up at 5:15, thanks to help from a roomate whose homestay experience teaching english was cut short when the house she was staying at was destroyed in a mud slide and then got to our next destination, Manuel Antonio Park (incidentally this was the very same park, that on our first trip to 'San Jose' when we were discussing how to get to it from San Jose, we were kindly informed by the stewardess "... but that's in Costa Rica)
Spicily Yours
Jesse
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Nueva Yorka - home of Guerilla Street Performance, Tasty Chicken and John Brown
So here I find myself at the onramp of the highway that is my forthcoming trip.
I have been in New York since Sunday and as always I am having an excellent time here shopping, eating and miming my way (to those who hate, step your mime game up)
through these 5 boroughs.
Highlights of the trip include the following:
- Walking up Rivington with my sister, when I noticed a blind man being a little liberal with the swinging of his cane. When Lindsay went to pass him he started swinging it in every direction Lindsay was trying to walk. After we walked passed, my sister remarked "you know, I don't think he was blind"
- Korean Fried Chicken: The much-lauded artery clogging culinary delight from the land of the Choson Dynasty. Double fried, with either a spicy or sweet sauce surely did not dissapoint (insert Seoul Food joke, they have the internet food scene going nuts)
- Seeing the Emir of the Burbz, John Brown from VH1's The White Rapper Show. In line with his constant boasts throughout the season, it seems John Brown does HAVE black friends!!! And highly visible ones at that.
Now i'm going to get my last bagel for a cpl of months, savour it and then peace out of here...
Also there will be no non-sequitor wikipedia link this time, deal with it.
P.S I CAN'T WAIT TO SEND ALL MY READERS MASS EMAILS WITH BUENOS DIAS FROM ________. Nothing says I'm in a foreign country like a boring ass email with the local language used in the subject line only!!!
I have been in New York since Sunday and as always I am having an excellent time here shopping, eating and miming my way (to those who hate, step your mime game up)
through these 5 boroughs.
Highlights of the trip include the following:
- Walking up Rivington with my sister, when I noticed a blind man being a little liberal with the swinging of his cane. When Lindsay went to pass him he started swinging it in every direction Lindsay was trying to walk. After we walked passed, my sister remarked "you know, I don't think he was blind"
- Korean Fried Chicken: The much-lauded artery clogging culinary delight from the land of the Choson Dynasty. Double fried, with either a spicy or sweet sauce surely did not dissapoint (insert Seoul Food joke, they have the internet food scene going nuts)
- Seeing the Emir of the Burbz, John Brown from VH1's The White Rapper Show. In line with his constant boasts throughout the season, it seems John Brown does HAVE black friends!!! And highly visible ones at that.
Now i'm going to get my last bagel for a cpl of months, savour it and then peace out of here...
Also there will be no non-sequitor wikipedia link this time, deal with it.
P.S I CAN'T WAIT TO SEND ALL MY READERS MASS EMAILS WITH BUENOS DIAS FROM ________. Nothing says I'm in a foreign country like a boring ass email with the local language used in the subject line only!!!
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
FIRST!!!!
Just set this up.
Hopefully this time around, I will not Riddick Bowe the situation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riddick_Bowe#Joining_the_Marine_Corps
and will update constantly, lovingly and thought-provokingly
J
Hopefully this time around, I will not Riddick Bowe the situation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riddick_Bowe#Joining_the_Marine_Corps
and will update constantly, lovingly and thought-provokingly
J
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