baby's back

Blowing it. I know that I really lagged on writing my report on the Costa Rica trip, but what can I say, I was out of the country. I actually got back Saturday, the 21st of January and I'm back in school again. Blows. It took me 3 weeks to get it together and get to posting again. Ok here goes the report:

Can I start by saying I loooooooooove Costa Rica. Maybe I will live there someday. I am serious. The only thing that I may have a hard time dealing with is the cold showers. Cold showers at the crack of dawn, cold showers at night. No me gusta. I had a strategy down pat when it came to showering. For one, I avoided them. Then you get to the point where showering is inevitable because it's very hot in Costa Rica, especially in January because it's their summer time. So when the stank is too horrendous to bear you take the cold shower. First you wet your limbs, because those aren't so sensitive to ice cold fucking water. Meanwhile you get your sponge all ready to go and then you jump under the water, screeching all the while. Soap up, rinse, screeching all the while. Washing your hair isn't so bad, because you can stand in front and away from the shower head and practically do a back flip, thereby rinsing your hair without wetting the rest of your body. Voila. That's how you shower in cold water.

There's lots of dogs in Costa Rica. They don't spay or neuter stray dogs of course, so they're free to run and hump each other as they please, hence the excess of dogs...and their hybrid-like appearance too. For instance, you may see what appears to be a rottweiler's head on a chihuaha's body. It's very bizarre. Since these different dogs have bred multiple times with multiple types of dogs, they begin to form a very peculiar looking species.

There's lots of insects in Costa Rica, as you may have already guessed. Once I looked down and a cockroach was just randomly sitting on my boob and another time a cockroach came flying out of mid-air and landed on my friend at a bar. Since they don't use dryers over there and the clothes is line dried, you have to make sure and check your pockets prior to putting your pants on for scorpions or other critters that tend to crawl in there for warmth.

People stare at you in the street, but hardcore, and they don't care either. They don't care if you catch them in the act, men, women, whatever, they just keep on looking at you. Especially the men. The men there are some filthy fucking animals. They stare, gawk, hoot, holler, slurp, honk at you, anything. Thankfully they don't dare to reach out and grab you. They are referred to as "piropos". It's as if these men were wolves locked in cages and the average woman walking on the street was a piece of meat being hung in front of their faces; they'd be licking their chops all the while.

The shopping was AMAZING. I went nuts over there. I won't say that the fashion and clothing stores were great, quite the contrary, the women there dress pretty tacky and trampy all at once. But the jewelry was great. I'm a big fan of earrings; I bought about 25 pairs. A lot of them were gifts though, so think twice before you peg me the greedy materialistic bastard. The artisans on the beach, who also double as drug dealers, really make some amazing jewelry made from wood, shells and random stones they find on the beach.

Pot is legal in Costa Rica! The statement pretty much speaks for itself. Nuff said.

The food was great, but Mexican food still kicks Costa Rican food's ass, if it had one. Their dishes are quite comparable to Cuban food, which usually consists of black beans, rice, potatoes, meat and plantain. I was all about it. However, there is no such thing as 'spicy' food in Costa Rica, which is too bad. Instead of salsa, they use tabasco sauce (eww) and they consider that spicy. Also, their tortillas are tiny, about the size of the palm of my hand. You have to use about four of them to effectively finish your meal. In any case, I was in heaven because eating is one of my favorite past times. I didn't get the runs once! This was very exciting for me because I have a sensitive stomach. I actually bought kaeopectate in bulk prior to leaving and I didn't even need it.

I lived in suburbia for the month that I was there, so I won't say the night life was popping. The beach towns have a relatively decent party scene, but I visited bars that included the likes of crack whores who were so thirsty for a beer that they were balsy enough to come up and snatch the beer out of your hand, take a few sips and then hand it back to you, to which the bartender would take care of by hitting the crack whore with a stick until she ran away. Yes, a stick, as in an actual branch off a tree. Not a huge branch or anything, but it was still a branch. The more 'upscale' bar in my neighborhood had an interesting "ladies night" setup each week, where they wouldn't let anyone with a penis in until 11pm. Up until that point the ladies were able to load up on as much booze as they wanted...For free. Then once the females were relatively wasted, at 11pm the hounds were unleashed, free to feast on the fresh meat that was liquored up, ready and perhaps if they were lucky, willing. Who let the dogs OUT?? WHO, WHO, WHO, WHO? WHO let the dogs out???

I visited 3 different beaches. One of them, called Manuel Antonio, was particularly exotic and marvelous all at once. It had a national park that you could visit, which had 3 other beaches inside of it. There you could encounter monkeys and as an added bonus I even saw a deer. It looked like what you would picture to be "paradise". I would post pictures, but my digital camera got jacked at the first beach I went to since I got too hammered and lost the ability to figure it was dumb to leave my stuff unattended while I went night swimming. I don't want to say it was worth it, because this exchange of swimming for the purse had a total net cost of well over $500, so economically I regret it. But I will tell you, that water that I swam in, at around 1am mind you, was so glorious and divine and warm and NO ONE can take that away from me.

I saw a couple of epic waterfalls. They were amazing. I was able to step in the river close to one of the more powerful waterfalls and revel in its majesty. Sure it sounds dramatic, but that type of natural setting truly is humbling. There was a small group of about 8 people from my university that went on this trip and under normal circumstances, none of them would be caught dead hanging out together. Yet the day we went to visit the waterfalls together, all the spite and animosity was forgotten and the group came together as one; nature is great indeed! It can bring together a group of people who would never look twice at each other on the street. Even the most winy of females was silenced for a split second, it was truly awesome.

The last week I was there I decided to go bungee jumping. It was never something that interested me, quite the contrary, I really had little to no desire to do the bungee jump. That's basically why I did it though, for a change of scenery. So I jumped off a bridge that was 265 feet high (about 80m). I was a little nervous, not only because it was high, but because I didn't get an opportunity to use the facilities before my jump. I really thought I was going to crap my pants, but thankfully I didn't. I'm actually surprised I didn't, because as I approached the edge of the bridge and looked down, the bungee staff called me back down because there "was something wrong with the cord". Meh? Something wrong with the cord?? That messed up my mojo you know, because I had already looked down and the 'something wrong with the cord' bit, that sucked too. Fortunately it was just a bit twisted, not too big of a deal. Then I got to stand on the edge of the platform again and feel scared. I still jumped. I didn't really want to scream, because I knew that there was no way I could sound cool if I screamed. Especially since they filmed it, and I knew my friends would laugh at me when I showed it to them. I couldn't help but scream bloody murder however, because it was pretty much forced out of me. It's actually pretty interesting seeing what it would look like if you tried to commit suicide by jumping off a high setting. Plus there's a chance you very well might die, but clearly I didn't die and I earned myself a certificate of courage...so how you like me now? I have also acquired new philosophies on account of my professor's teachings. I decided to join the Socialist party, because they've got some really good ideas. I also learned more appalling facts regarding the history of the United States and my disdain for Starbucks grows stronger by the day.

Did you know that Starbucks buys 80% of Costa Rican coffee? Neither did I. Not only does Starbucks buy out the best coffee grown in Costa Rica and leave a mere 20% for the locals and rest of the planet, but it pays only a fraction of the coffee's real value. This is because of the rising competition amongst prime coffee growers, such as Brazil, Colombia and Guatemala, hence it is difficult for exporters to have a say in regards to the going rate of coffee. So Starbucks gets to rape Costa Rican coffee growers dry and sell the coffee in the US for double the price, meanwhile the ticos (Costa Ricans) can't afford their best coffee since Starbucks bought it all, leaving it relatively scarce. That's capitalism for you. I would also like to take the opportunity to apologize to Fidel Castro for laughing at him when he fell down. I'm sure Fidel could care less, but I seem to have misjudged him. I discovered that Fidel wasn't all that bad of a guy, sure he had his flaws, but don't we all? The U.S. paints such an ugly picture of him and without even acknowledging the history of Cuba (except in some watered down and completely biased PBS special). Then when the name Fidel Castro is mentioned, all these negative connotations pop into our heads.

May I also say that I saw a t-shirt stand where a Che Guevara t-shirt was thrown in the mix right along with the Britney/Avrile Levigne of Latin America and Backstreet Boys or some junk like that. I'm sure Che is tumbling in his grave at the moment. It's nutty how icons like Che morph into pop culture. The famous image of Che is somehow "cool" to youngsters, who don't know didly shit about his life or what he stood for. Nice t-shirt. Who's Che Guevara? What did he do? Uhhhhhhhhhhh. Duhhhh. Errrrrr. I don't know. And that's what the common answer will be. I don't know. That's nice. I like that. And that's the difference between Cuba and the United States. The U.S may be more economically stable and well to do, but at least the majority of the population of Cuba has enough education to be able to answer a basic question about history. And they have health care. Is that so wrong? Is that why Cuba is bad? I believe the revolution that Fidel and Guerilla fighters started had a good idea behind it, but his regime just went awry due to flaws in his design...and personality. I think Fidel is a bit of a control freak, not to mention arrogant, and that's were it went wrong. Just because Fidel refused to succumb to the U.S. and it's plan to exploit and globalize all 3rd world countries, doesn't make him an asshole. Perhaps the fact that he executed remaining members of Batista's regime and Cubans that didn't remain complaisant to his orders, or that he polices people's basic freedoms and choices, that in fact may make him an asshole.

Look at me, I'm ranting and raving again. Yes, it's good to be back in the US of A. There are days where I wish I was back in Costa Rica, but I will go back soon because I got in good with my host family. They said I can come back and stay with them for free when I pleased. Ain't it grand? They better have meant it, because I WILL do it. Starting next winter. No joke.

Shout outs to Costa Rica.