Costa Rica! Day 2: Manuel Antonio

7/29/2012

We were woken up in Quepos to the feeling of dripping sweat on our bodies thanks to the lack of air conditioning in the hostel. One thing that the hostel in Quepos had that the rest of our hostels during the whole rest of the vacation lacked was a ceiling fan. This one appliance made the first night the most pleasant out of all the rest of the nights in the humidity. The locks from the prior night in our room actually kept all of our belongings, including ourselves safe.

Balys had gotten up at like 5am to take Harriet to the bus stop because she had to catch a bus back into San Jose to get to the airport, for she was on her way back to the U.K. So we were minus one for the beginning of day #2. We packed up and had decided that A.J., Balys, and me would all head to Manuel Antonio for the day. Hydi, Brian, and Kava were going to head down south because they were going to head into Peru to renew Hydi's 3-month Visa. Amy was going to an internet cafe to find other woofing opportunities in Costa Rica so she went her separate way right away. Before the rest of us were to split up, we went to the Soda Stand from the first night to get breakfast. Got the typical Costa Rican breakfast consisting of pintos (rice and beans), an egg, and a tortilla. After that went to the bus station to get our tickets to our respective destinations. At the bus station in Quepos Hydi, Brian, and Kava decided they wanted to come to Manuel Antonio with us. Balys says that he just wanted to be away from them, but I welcomed the addition of Hydi (cuz she was blonde and pretty hot, although she was 21) in particular, but after hanging with Kava I liked the Kiwi from New Zealand also. At the bus station I ran into Christina from the night before. Her and her beautiful big eyes were heading to San Jose because she was going to the Carribean side of the country to meet up with some other friends of hers.

So we got on the bus for the quick trip from Quepos to Manuel Antonio. It was about 20 minutes I guess. On the ride there, Balys pointed out a pretty sweet broken down cargo plane that was converted into a bar. Of course I don't have a picture of it, damn! But it still was cool because the fuselage was the main bar area and the wings with engine housing in tact were used as a shade for outside tables. We were dropped off in Manuel Antonio around noon and the four experienced travelers took us on a short walk to the hostel we were to stay in for the night so we could drop off our bags. The walk up to the hostel felt like walking in the surface streets of the San Diego Zoo. There was so much vegetation on both sides of us, and it was almost encroaching on us, but not quite like the canopy of the rain forest. The hostel we stayed in was called Costa Linda, and it was pretty sweet. In stark contrast to the dirt lot that the hostel in Quepos had, Costa Linda had all this vegetation in the courtyard complete with a huge tree for shade and lots of bushes lining the walkways. Already it was a totally different experience than Quepos. After dropping our stuff off at Costa Linda we headed to the beach.

Manuel Antonio looked like something out of Jurassic Park. In fact, at one point later that night I mentioned to Hydi that I felt like I was in Jurassic Park as we were walking back to the Costa Linda hostel. Mainly because when we were walking back at night with the jungle vegetation on both sides there were all these birds singing and monkeys hooting along with all the insects making their respective noises. The sounds along with the surrounding jungle environment totally felt like that movie. When I said that to Hydi she laughed and said, "That's pretty much what everyone says the first time I take them here."





The beach was like nothing I had ever seen before, granted I have never been to Hawaii. It had palm trees lining the sand, but it was more like a jungle than a beach atmosphere to me. Just a little ways in from the sand and further south it was very green all the way up to the sand. How green it was reminds me of the hills in North Carolina and Virginia in the Summertime with the hills blanketed with green trees, and not a trace of dirt in sight for miles. There were huge rocks out in the ocean probably about half a mile out with vegetation on the north side of them. It was here where Brian and A.J. decided to rent surfboards. I was scoping out the waves with my trusty pal Balys, and both him and I decided they did not look very inviting to us. I opted not to surf on this day. The waves were barely rolling at all, crashing in and closing out: not forming a very nice ride. Plus I was not about to try to get on any wave that was anything bigger than 3-4 feet. These waves were right around 5-6 feet and likely would've thrashed me all around the water from any wipe out I might experience.





I did get in the water here in Manuel Antonio. This was my first experience of the water temperature in Costa Rica. It was 80 degrees, and a totally different experience from the water temp of 60-70 degrees in San Diego! Up to this point in my life, I have never been in an ocean this warm. It was awesome! I swam around for a little bit, but once I couldn't touch the ocean floor I would venture a little closer to the shore to be able to stand on my two feet. I was super impressed with Hydi's swimming ability though. She was out in the waves treading water and just body surfing them without the help of a board. She literally was probably out swimming (not able to touch the ground) for over an hour. I couldn't believe that one could brave the ocean like that. I would've had a hard enough time the way these waves were crashing staying out if I had a surf board! Finally we decided to head back to the Costa Linda hostel after a while. On our way back, we saw monkeys jumping through the trees! Scavenging for coconuts and whatever food they could likely find.

Costa Rica! Day 1: Quepos

You know I had to blog about this trip, didn't you? Right around the time my old roommate from San Diego and Ocean Beach, Balys, decided to take a year off from what us normal Americans would call work (which now is looking very much like it could turn into 2-3 years or more off for him), he had mentioned going down to Costa Rica for part of that time. This was back in September of 2011, and we both planned on me visiting him down there whenever his endeavors would take him down to that part of the world. Well, it just so happened that he flew down on the Red-Eye from Denver on June 20h, 2012 and set foot in Costa Rica on June 21st. He went to Jaco and hung there for a couple of days before heading into Londres outside of Quepos to work on a farm in exchange for camping space and food (woofing), which he did for 4 weeks. As luck would have it, my best friend from Denver, A.J., who had met Balys on a few occasions while we both went into San Diego for a surfing weekend for a couple years in a row was able to trek down to Costa Rica with me for this adventure. We all decided that A.J. and myself would fly into San Jose, Costa Rica on the Red-Eye leaving out of Denver on Friday, July 27th. So at approximately 5am on July 28th my feet touched down on foreign soil after getting off an airplane for the first time in my life.

I had done a little bit of research into getting around and having some things to do while we were down in Costa Rica just in case we were not able to meet up with Balys down there. And I started to become fearful of not being able to meet up with him when we had yet to plan a meeting time and place, and here we were less than a week away from our flight. My fears were banished when I Skyped with Balys on the Tuesday before we left the country, and much to his happiness I decided to bus into Quepos which was only like 10-15km from his farm on that Saturday morning. We planned for A.J. and me to meet him at the Quepos bus station at 12:30pm on Saturday, July 28th mainly because I thought that me and A.J. would be catching a 9am bus from San Jose and would get us into Quepos at 12:30-1pm. My initial timing was WAY off! Why you ask?

1. Customs in Costa Rica took all of 1 minute to get through. It consisted of handing an already filled out slip of paper to some uniformed person, and putting our bags through an Xray machine. No lines or anything.

2. We were on the street at 5:30am and immediately searching for a taxi (not hard to find cuz they're all waiting for you outside the airport)

3. I asked the cabbie to take us to the bus station so we could get a bus into Quepos. The cabbie in his broken English said he'd take us to the Coca Cola station (contrary to what the internet told me). I was puzzled because the internet told me to go to Tracopa station for that bus, so I asked the cabbie, and he told me that I was wrong.

4. We get to the Coca Cola station. Well, the cabbie was WRONG. We needed to go to Tracopa station in order to get into Quepos. I was armed only with U.S. Dollars, but what I read online about the exchange rate, I figured it was 500 to 1 and was able to not get ripped off. My Spanish isn't very good, but I remembered counting and numbers for the most part so I was able to figure how much to pay pretty quickly. Our original cabbie left, and we got another cab to the correct station (Tracopa) for $6 more.

5. The earliest bus into Quepos was at 7am, and we were there at 6:15am. So naturally we took the next bus (which was a blessing in disguise cuz it saved us from a heated bus in the sun since we got on it so early). Plus this bus was a direct line into Quepos with hardly any stops so instead of a 3.5-4 hour bus ride, it was only a 2.5 hour ride.

So A.J. and me were in Quepos at 9:30am, and we were supposed to meet Balys at 12:30pm. That gave us 3 hours to kill. We first hit Subway for some food, which was expensive. It was like $8+ for a 6" Sub Combo, but it was food, and we got to sit in A/C. Around 10am we walked out to the water and checked it out a little, but there wasn't really a beach close to us, more of a jetty with rocks bordering it. If we went further south or north by a kilometer there might be some beach to get on, but we were loaded with our packs and my mind was on finding Balys. We walked around probably all of Quepos keeping a lookout in case we saw him walking, and looked inside some businesses, but didn't see the Lithuanian from the U.S. anywhere. So we found a bar that was mostly a Gringo Bar, as evidenced by the fact the bartender was white and spoke English, and also that everyone else that we saw in there or passed through were all apparently from the U.S. or Canada. It was called Los Pescadores, so we drank until 12:30 when I went to the bus station and saw Balys, along with a girl he worked on the farm with who was from England named Harriet. We all set up shop in Los Pescadores and drank some more. Then Balys's boss, Elena showed up (which Balys was not happy about). She owned the house and land that he had been working on the past 4 weeks, and he was ready to get away from her, but she decided to invite herself over to our table and stayed there for a couple hours. The poor people who worked on the farm couldn't even get away from her for most of the day! There were 4 others that joined us as the day grew a bit longer, all of them worked with Balys and Harriet on Elena's farm. Kava from New Zealand, Amy from Scotland, Heidi from Montana, and Brian from North Carolina were the coworkers. Finally we made a deal with a shady character at the bar to get two rooms in a Hostel in Quepos for the night, each with a bathroom, and each was a private room that locked from the outside and inside. So there were 4 of us to a room. And thank God the rooms were secure because my money, GoPro, Digital Camera, and Passport/ID were in there!

Let's list some funny things that happened all while we were just hanging at the Hostel coming to and from getting food and getting some alcoholic beverages to sip on back at the rooms, shall we?

1. The shady character who set up the Hostel had told us that he could get us a ride from the bar to the Hostel, which (Surprise!) didn't happen. So he decided to be our tour guide through the city on the way to the Hostel. Walking us to the Bus Station telling us this is how we can get in and out of Quepos, and also walking us around a grocery store and some food places. We didn't ask for a tour mind you, but he decided to give it to us.

2. We were promised keys to the room after we paid him. I asked Balys if he ever got the guys name, and Balys said Paco. I was like, really?! To which Balys replied, they're all either Paco, Pedro, or Juan for the most part. We were hanging in the room for five minutes when I asked Balys about the keys. Balys's response, "Hiatt you're gonna figure out that things down here move a lot slower than the U.S. Don't worry, these things always have a way of working out. We'll get the keys, just don't stress about it." So I kinda just chilled after that. But an hour or 2 went by and we still didn't have the keys so Balys was now thinking we need to find Paco and get the keys, and we did find Paco eventually and got them.

3. Balys's statement about things moving a lot slower down there was spot on... Including time. The sun sets at 6pm and it's pitch black at 6:30pm. Once it gets dark, time starts C.R.A.W.L.I.N.G. If you think it's been an hour, it's probably only been 15 minutes... Seriously!

4. Paco was seriously shady, cuz I went to a Soda Stand (the cheapest place to eat in Costa Rica) with Balys and Kava to get some cheap Empanadas. Soda Stands are basically street corner restaurant shops owned by locals. We were walking back from there to the Hostel and Paco saw us and asked, "Was I talking to you guys about powder?" Yeah, he was dealing cocaine.

5. Balys explained that when we're out, and especially at night, any chick in high heels is almost always a hooker.

6. Prostitution is legal down in Costa Rica, and there was a Pimp next door to us. Me and A.J. were drinking on the bench outside our room (cuz it is fucking hot all the time in Costa Rica and especially inside a Hostel room with no windows!), when a dude with running/basketball shorts on and shirtless (who could blame him for the attire though) started talking to us and asking if we like the girls in Costa Rica. We responded yes, and then he started only what I could say was his sales pitch. His hooker girl had walked by us once already, which we noticed because she was kinda hot wearing a tight dress (which isn't the case for all hookers down there) and wearing high heels, of course! After the initial conversation he left, and I turned to A.J., "I hope I didn't just end a transaction there. I wasn't trying to 'buy' that girl." A.J., "Yeah, I have no idea." Then the guy comes back over to us, "She likes you guys. I can tell. She likes the Gringos." At that point she was walking up the stairs again and she says, "Si, I lika do Gringos!" Me, "No gracias." A.J. was just laughing over the whole situation.

7. As we were chilling/hanging at the Hostel, our neighbors next door were getting a little rowdy in their room (it was probably just the girl and some Joe that she snagged). It was just weird because at one point a key had gotten thrown out their bathroom window onto the floor outside. A few minutes later Paco walks up the stairs coked out of his mind, pissed and yells at the Pimp, "I don't fucking need this shit man! This is bull shit!"

8. Amy and Heidi had Cuba Libres (canned Rum and Coke) so I tried it, and it was delicious! 8% alcohol, so 1 ounce rum and 11 ounces of coke. These were 1000 colones, so about $2.

9. It is humid as all hell in Costa Rica! Living in Colorado has made me forget about what humidity feels like. It's funny because I've spent summers in Louisiana before working on a barge and outside all day long, which was probably worse than Costa Rica. But the lack of A/C in most places we frequented (including our Hostel rooms) had me sweating all the time! Balys informed me that there are two types of clothes in Costa Rica: Wet and Damp.

But enough with the lessons. Kava, Heidi, Brian, A.J., and myself wanted to walk around so we left the rooms probably around 8:30pm. Our attempts at waking Balys and Harriet up proved futile, so we let them sleep. And Amy was done for in the other room too. Before leaving we got some more drinks and walked down to the water. I climbed down the rocks to stick my feet in the water. It was so refreshing, and not cold at all! I wished I had my board shorts on and no electronics with me so I could get into the water at that very moment. After chilling there for a little bit we started walking around Quepos for a little bit when Heidi and Brian decided to head back to their room. It was mine and A.J.'s first night in Costa Rica and we were ready to party though! Kava shared our sentiments so we found a dance club in Quepos, which kinda reminded me of a tiny version of some of the clubs I used to frequent in Tijuana, Mexico back in my younger days. Except the club wasn't nearly as packed as those T.J. clubs would've been, but it still was fun. We drank some more beers and started scoping out the talent which included a bunch of hookers in high heels. At one point I saw a short haired blonde girl dancing, but I thought she was there with another guy. It became apparent later that she was not attached to the guy cuz she was dancing by herself, so I decided to try to dance with her. I didn't even know if she spoke English, but we did dance for a while, then I asked if she spoke English. She was from Norway, but she spoke English so we chatted for a while. At the end of the night we just left though, empty handed.





As Kava, A.J., and me were walking back to the Hostel we were all hungry. We found a Soda Stand on the way back and we got some American food there (hamburgers and hot dogs). So we're chowing down on our food, and a cab roles up to let some people out. Who's in the cab, but the prostitute from the Hostel with another guy! And she's wearing a totally different dress. Like a black dress with fringes on it (I'm guessing this was her club attire). So after that we headed back to the Hostel to sleep in our rooms drenched in sweat.

What a memorable first day out of the United States.

Best Game I Have Ever Played!

February 1999, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA—

I played lacrosse throughout high school, and was able to find a decent club team to play on at San Diego State University when I decided to extend my playing career into college. The first time I picked up a stick was at the age of 10 years old in the San Diego County town of Poway, CA thanks to my older brother discovering the game when he was in high school. It was a relatively early age for someone on the west coast to pick the game up, especially when it was still in the very early stages of the game reaching that part of the country way back in 1989. I played decently my freshman year at SDSU during the Spring of 1998, but still was not able to earn a starting roll on the team that year. The next year that all changed when the team was in turmoil due to an issue with a recent alum and the school, and the firing of the head coach from the year before. The team was barely able to field the minimum of 10 players needed for a game in the Spring of 1999, and I was immediately thrown into a starting midfielder roll. Our first game of the season and coincidentally the first game I ever started in college was on February 19, 1999 against USC in Los Angeles. It was a chilly, Southern California night, as evidenced by the fact that we could see the warm exhales of our breath as they emanated from our mouths (though we don't have the winters that a lot of the country get, this is about as cold as it gets for a Southern California boy). The nervousness that I get every time I walk onto a field for the first time was with me as well. I couldn't help but shake from the nervous excitement as I stood at the wing for the opening face off. From the get go, it was apparent that both teams were evenly matched as neither team was able to build a lead of more than two goals all night. For my part, I don't believe I have ever played a better game than I did that night before or since. From the moment I touched the ball the first time, as I waited to receive that first check and find out what the other team had in store for me, I felt in control of every aspect of the game. It helped that our team that year had probably the best fast break of any team I had ever been a part of. If I were running down the field on a 4 on 3 odd man advantage I knew that if I could get the ball to one of the three attackmen down low, it was almost automatic that they would score. We had probably the best finishing attackman I have ever played with that year, in David Jacobs. If he got the ball in a one on one situation with the goalie, he couldn't miss. He always scored. That night, I had 4 goals and 2 assists (both to Jacobs). Every decision I made with the ball was the right one. If I was the catalyst for a fast break, we scored. On two occasions, the defense slacked off of me and let me run to within 15 yards of the goal without picking me up. Without hesitation I shot both times, which resulted in two goals. Although, this was the best game I have ever played, there was still the problem of winning the game. As I said both of the teams on the field that night were evenly matched, and so much so that with a minute left the score was tied. I still will never forget the trust we had in our goalie, Curt Borton, to make the one big save in order to give us the chance to win. In the timeouts he would tell us, "If you see them shoot from outside, just assume that I am going to make the save and break out." Perhaps the fact that he was 25 years old when I was only 19 had let me put a little more faith in his statement. We were on defense with about a minute left and that exact situation happened when one of USC's midfielders shot from about 15 yards out. I broke out for an outlet pass the second the ball left the midfielders stick, and Borton made the save just like he said he would. I found myself wide open for an outlet pass to start the fast break. I ran down the right side of the field trying to draw the defense to me, and finally was able to get one to bite. To my right I spotted Jacobs awaiting my pass. I gave him a perfect pass, but the defense had recovered to him in time and the fast break had died. As I watched Jacobs protect the ball, the only thought in my mind was to make sure he had a clear lane to the goal. If my defender were to slide to help on him, then I would call for the open shot provided Jacobs would spot me. As it happened, I never did get the ball. Jacobs took the ball from behind the cage and beat his defender one on one to score the go ahead goal with 0:06 seconds left. Both teams knew the game was over at that moment. It didn't sink into me the type of game that I played because I was so overjoyed with the fact that we won! The fact that I didn't have the game-winning goal meant absolutely nothing to me because after going through a fired head coach, and barely being able to field a team, we deserved to win that night. That is the moment that I realized my love of the game would last forever also. The team aspect is still something I search for in all walks of life, and although it wasn't the Olympics, my teammates and coaches had the ultimate respect for each other that night and throughout the rest of my time playing as an Aztec at SDSU.