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Beer and Clothing in Costa Rica (Part I)
Here it is…the day….D-Day…ok, not D-Day, but Easter
Monday, close enough, I guess. I was at the airport with Sean on the way to
Costa Rica, which translates to Rich Coast from Spanish, or "it's gonna
cost you rich guys a lot of scratch" from Latin. Those Latin dudes really
knew how to use slang. The plane departed at 8:00, so I had to get up at 5:30am.
Did you know there was a 5:30am? We got to the airport by 6:00am, checked in and
hung out until 7:30am. We boarded the plane and learned that Sean and I had
three seats for the two of us. This was most glorious. It was stupendous. It was
like crack and I was the addict. I was able to fit my long gangly legs in that
small-ass airplane space without straining any ligaments or causing any
permanent bone damage. The flight was relatively painless. About 4 hours and 30
minutes, I slept for half of it. The movie was "Meet Joe Black". It
looked like the lamest movie of all time. I remember guys going to pay their $8
for the flick and leave after seeing the Star Wars trailer. I think Meet Joe
Black was about a skinny little white pretty boy who never smiles and wears
really nice suits while Hannibal Letter tries to eat him. Interesting enough, I
guess. The plane lands at Liberia International Airport on the runway and went
enter through the gate. The airport is smaller than Chevy Nova in a trash
compactor. It was so damn hot that I started frying eggs on the runway.
"Who wants them over easy? Scrambled for you, sir?" After smuggling 70
kilos of Peruvian flake through customs, we headed to the Blue Bay Village
Papagayo, which is Spanish for Blue Bay Village Papagayo. I guess my Spanish was
better than I thought. We drove though a couple of small towns, which were well,
small. Each town had a school, no matter how small. Very well educated people.
Educated enough to know they were smarter than the redneck hicks who were on the
bus. In fact, they let us know it when they held up signs in English saying
"We're smarter than you! You redneck hicks in the bus. Especially you, yes,
you, the third row, left side, by the window, yes you!" I was impressed,
because that guy really was a dumb guy. So it goes. 12:30 their time (it's two
hours behind there. Actually it's central time but they don't have daylight
savings time, because they are smarter than use. They figured out how to get the
sun to rise and set at the same time all year round) we get to the resort. The
resort was really nice, built on the side of a cliff. Our room was ok. Not like
we needed anything great. We had a good air conditioner, and HBO on cable. We
were happy. The beach was covered in volcanic and not from the many brush fires
that came ridiculously close to the resort. If there is something that Costa
Rican's don't care about, it's fires. It's like "ho hum, another brush fire
coming this way…no problemo…it'll go out." And guess what? It usually
does. Although there were a few fires not more than 800 meters away from the
resort. At 7:00pm we head for dinner, a nice dinner spread. You've got to like
all-inclusive packages (all the food you can throw up and all the beer you can
piss away). As with any resort, there is a lame-ass disco show (pronounced
"cho" there, since they don't have the "sh" sound in Central
America…how the hell do I know), which was pretty crappy. But it killed time
until Sean and I headed to the bar and drank for about 2 hours. The main problem
with the resort was the hills we had the climb to get to our rooms. What a pain
in the ass. Sean is in great shape, being in the army and all, but we, Mr.
White-Collar worker, Mr. Sit on a Chair for 10 hours a day, Mr. Best Looking Guy
on the Planet, I had some problems. But there were shuttles you could call for,
which I did, a lot. So that's it. First day. Stay tuned for the next installment
of "Beer and Clothing in Costa Rica".
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