Costa Rica: Entry 3

Day Five. Hey, So, Is the Car Going to Explode or Something?

I believe I have mentioned Greg, the bar dude. Greg is this skinny tan dude from Manhattan Beach who moved down to Costa Rica to smoke pot and own a bar. And snorkel. And hang out with American girls like us. Kidding. Greg was actually a very cool guy and I miss his dog Shadow to death. Anyway, so deal is, Greg took us down to Flamingo Beach which is apparently the “Beverly Hills” of the Guanacoste region. So says Greg. He took us to this white shell beach (Playa Conchal)

which was lovely – the water was way clearer than at Tamarindo. Apparently the reef was manmade. How does one make a reef? Anyone?

So that was cool. We stuck around all day until the sunset, which was beautiful,

and then headed back to Tamarindo. So we’re like 10 minutes into our drive, when we’re like, “umm, hey, Greg, your truck is smoking.” Cuz it was. It was smoking like it was going to explode at any given moment. So Greg starts to freak out a little and we pull over and he dumps a bottle of water in the radiator and he’s ranting about how he just took the car in to get something fixed and why didn’t they check the radiator and the oil? Good question dude.

So we get back going and it is smoking again a second later. But this time it’s smoking even more and we’re all like coughing and gagging on gross exhaust smoke. Someone in the car was like, “umm, it’s not going to blow up or anything is it??” So cursing and swearing we make it back to Greg’s house. This involves driving down really tiny little random roads at like 80 mph in the darkened night time jungle. It’s at this point that I question how intelligent it is that 5 girls are driving around with random Greg. I mean sure he’s great…but is he now going to drive us to a remote jungle location to kill us? We get back to his house now…and he’s like, “yeah, I’ll figure this all out. I’ll get you guys back. I just need to go smoke first.” So he whips out a bong and goes out to smoke up. And now, I don’t want to say anything to my friends, but I’m like, “wow, shit. Are you serious??” Anyway, I bet maybe you thought this story was going somewhere interesting, but it’s not. In fact, about an hour later we had taken cabs which Greg paid for back to our hotel and the episode was over. But prior to dining out w/ Brett, I was rehashing the story to his friends, and it was then that I realized how incredibly sketch it did all sound. They were like, “oh yes, look at that…my car is smoking…and look…there is my house…right there…” Hmm.

Day Six. I’m Trying to Surf…but I Can’t Stop Staring at Your Ass

Today we opted to take advantage of our hotel. We’ve been sleeping there…but there is this is awesome beautiful pool

that we have full on neglected and I sure do hate neglecting a good pool. In the afternoon I got off my butt and headed to the beach w/ Eliz and Kim (new GC) for a surfing lesson. I figured that if I did a lesson, and didn’t get up and stay up for at least a little ride, with a lesson, my surfing days would be officially over. Luckily, while I’m not surfing extraordinaire like Kim, I did get up a few times enough to salvage my future surfing career. And yo! Surfing in warm water is AWESOME.

For the record we couldn’t understand a damn thing our surf instructor said. I do know that we stood on surfboards drawn into the sand and pretended to surf a while before we got in the water (fake surfing is easy!), and I picked up this thing you’re supposed to do, something about “push, push, push” when you need to move faster…but it was pretty much a blur other than that. I was too distracted by the instructor’s tattoo which was in lettering three inches high hovering right over his crack: “Kiss My Ass.” Pure class baby, pure class.

The evening continued on with mojitos right on the sand as we watched the sun set at La Palapa

followed by dinner. We had the restaurant set a table for 20 and then 14 out of 20 departed after determining that they wanted to eat more “authentic” Costa Rican (that rice and beans, just can’t fucking get enough hey guys?) leaving me with Brett, his friends, an attention-hogging Doempke, and Melissa and her South African date, who thought it was sexy to explain he graduated Magna Cum Laude right after asking her what her undergrad GPA was. Awesome.