30BE Part Six: Costa Rica!

I got to San Jose around 9am and had a couple of hours to kill before Matt's plane would arrive. I found the closest bar to the airport and settled in to watch World Cup and drink beer. There were a few drunk locals hanging out. I mean wasted. I think they were continuing from the night before. One of them introduced himself to me five times. It kept blowing his mind when I'd speak Spanish to him. Never got old...
Matt really liked the food here...

Finally, he arrived. As soon as we took out seats at the back of the almost-empty bus into the city center, I handed him my remaining bottle of Cuban rum (that somehow materialized from Mike's dream). We checked into a great hostel called Pangaea. After cleaning up and having a drink on the rooftop bar, we sauntered over to El Pueblo - a shopping, dining, and nightlife district. There we had, I kid you not, the best nachos I have EVER tasted. Not by just a little bit. They didn't just nudge out the last best nachos I had. They blew them away. I don't know what it was...

Anyway, we had quite a night. I woke up to Matt shaking the bedframe (I was in the top of a bunk-bed), yelling something like, "My God, it's good to see you!" I went back to sleep. When I re-awoke, I found out that he had been quite serious. It seems that after I'd placed him in the lower bunk (yeah, he kinda over-did it), he got up at some point and wandered out of the hostel, thinking to find his apartment. In that state, little did he know that said apartment was thousands of miles away. Next thing he knows, he wakes up down by the river. Really. There is a river that runs through a little valley between our hostel and El Pueblo. He woke up in the grass, as the bums were also beginning to stir, sans wallet, sans passport. Wonderful. At this point he realized his apartment was nowhere near, and he needed to find the hostel. This took several hours of wandering around, and being shaken down by the cops more than once. Having no ID or money (and no Spanish), they just let him continue wandering drunkenly. Finally he found it, which led to his proclamation of gratitude.

So, no money and no passport. We ate a meal and pondered this. We had a few drinks and pondered this. I insisted that we re-visit the river. Matt had already been, but he agreed. By All That Is Holy, we found his shit. It was on a small ledge that required scaling down a steep ravine towards the current itself. It was carefully stacked there. How did it get there? It seems Matt must have done it himself, somehow. Truth is stranger than fiction...

We were now elated. Crisis averted, we commenced to drinking again. We also remembered that we needed to go to the airport and meet Nick. His plane was delayed, so we drank some more. Nick arrived. We hopped in our van/taxi, filled a cooler with beer, and rode down to Jaco. We paused at the condo only long enough to drop our stuff, then had the taxi take us to the bars. It was a blur from there on...


Matt, the intellectual.
Nick, giving his best bouncer stare.

Gee, it's almost as if Nick wasn't the real objective of my photo...





At some point Mike and Mick showed up, as did my sister. Mike convinced us to get out of the area at least once, so we rented a car and trekked down to Quepos and Manuel Antonio. M.A. is a beautiful little national park. We hiked and clambered on the rocks about the beach. A good time overall.

On the right you can see Matt and Mike, playing "house." Actually "plane" in this case.

Afterwards we had drinks and a meal at a place that purchased one of the aircraft involved in the infamous Iran/Contra scandal. They built their place around it. Both Matt and Mike were at onetime paratroopers (82nd), so they relived their glory days and played at jumping out.

Nick literally had to beat the women off with a stick.

So the objective of this whole trip was finally realized (how could I avoid it?). I turned thirty. The big three-oh. It was truly Great. The entire three week journey with Mike and Mick, and having Matt, Nick, and my sister come down in time for the day itself. I had wanted it to be special, but I also wanted to avoid setting unrealistic expectations that could never be met. It was perfect. There are many stories from this last week that I will be sharing with friends for the rest of my life, but they do not belong here. If you see me at a bar, buy me a few shots of Jager, and maybe they will spill out. Maybe. Here's to the next thirty.