Costa Rica Day 2-5
The first three days of my trip were spent in a Alejuela. Alejuela is a city near San Jose, which is pretty big and absolutely packed with people. It’s not in the mountains or near the ocean and the hotel we stayed it did not have a pool. This is not to discount these days. The weather was nice, played some awesome golf, hit a few casinos and actually did some work related things. This is not to complain. I got my teeth cleaned for $20 bucks (owwwww-uch) and ate real good. That being said, Alejuela is the Costa Rican equivalent to taking a vacation for three days in Milwaukee in the summer. Only the Brewers were out of town and you didn’t go to SummerFest. Now, I love Milwaukee but that’s not what you might call ideal. Sure, it was relaxing and I did some fun stufff but overall I felt like I wasn’t accomplishing anything. Not doing enough vacation stuff to be on vacation, not doing enough work stuff to be productive. This is a problem I know. In my freetime (during breakfast, before dinner, late night) I decided to launch a new website. Free Daily Golf Tip.
The idea came to me while my dad and I were golfing. He was telling me a story about how he didn’t like reading golf magazines, but would instead flip through and read the little boxes with small tips. Being the same way I realized this was a good idea for a website. Small tips, no more than 100 words with Google Ads. After doing a bit of research I found that Google pays $1.25-$1.75 per click for “golf tip” and related keywords. That’s when I knew this was a good idea. Maybe it will even make me better at golf, which is worht the $10 it cost for the domain alone.
On Thursday my stepmom and nephew arrived. We ended up going to dinner at a hotel with some people we are loosely related to and a guy my parents know from the hotel. (Quick aside: My closet patriotism crept up on this day as my dad said “there is so much opportunity here” to which I replied “ARE YOU KIDDING ME? We live in the land of opportunity! Sure, there is opportunity here but nothing could match the greatest country in the history of the world.” He agreed, but not without a who-are-you look.) It just so happened that his salsa band was also playing at a bar that night so we decided to hit that up. Frustrated with the vacation/work feelings I’d been having I decided that on this night I was going to drink it up as I hadn’t really since I’d been here (this could have also been my problem). That worked out marvelously as I tried a local shot called guaro. Then tried it again, and again, and again. I would explain the taste as somewhere between tequilla and grain alcohol, only sweeter. If that makes any sense. It definitely goes down smooth. I resisted the temptation to salsa with 50 year old anti-cougars and ended up going home and sleeping GREAT.
Now for a quick aside about Costa Rican beer and Costa Rica in general
The local beer is Imperial, I haven’t seen a Bud Light anywhere I’ve been. WTF Anheuser-Busch? Where you at? Instead I have been drinking this local beer which is pretty good, except for one thing. When you pour it into a glass it foams, like a lot. If you did that asshole move where you hit your bottle on top of mine with one of these things I am fairly certain there would be nothing left. This could be the all natural ingredients, which if that’s what it is I look like an insane asshole for complaining about. Honestly though, unless you pour this into your glass PERFECTLY you are getting a ton of foam and it’s not the type of foam you can drink. It’s the type of foam you have to sit there and wait to settle before you can drink. AND I HATE THAT TYPE OF FOAM.
Now, Costa Rica is great. The weather is nice, everyone I’ve met is super friendly, the whole works. Yet there is barbed wire everywhere. I went to a bank and the security guards there are strapped. I went to the golf course and it was a gated community, the guards are strapped. Then I was in a cab and there was an accident. The cop directing traffic was SUPER STRAPPED. He honestly had the biggest gun I’ve ever seen outside of a DMX movie. Add this on top of the razor wire I see everywhere and what gives? Are they just completely overprotective? Or is there some secret super shady underworld that I am just not seeing? I saw a cop the other day with a SAWED OFF SHOTGUN. Seriously. A shotgun, sawed off so as to kill you faster. Does this make sense? This is supposed to be the most peaceful nation in Latin America, why are there guns everywhere? It’s freaking me out.
Oh, and everyone drives like a FIB. I met someone from Chicago who thought the driving “wasn’t that bad.” Meanwhile, I almost threw up on the ride to Arenal.
Back to the trip
On Friday we decided to vacation-ize our vacation by heading up to Arenal, which is actually an active volcano with like lava running down it and everything. If in the next few days I don’t do any updates and you see on the news about a volcano erupting in Costa Rica, you know what to do (delete this bookmark). The hotel is all inclusive which is nice because I just wear this stupid pink bracelet and sit in the hotel pool bar all day drinking my life away. This is more like it. We hit a natural volanic hot spring last night, which was pretty damn cool. I topped out at 116 degrees. I was honestly thankful that pool was that hot because looking at some of these weird European couples (speedos!) you know there was some fluids floating around in that thing. Which made me, oddly, homesick.
Ahem.
TODAY, I am going ZIPLINING down the volcano. Followed by a lot of drinking in the pool. It’s going to be fun, but I miss home real bad right now. I can’t quite figure out why. Is it because I don’t like to leave America? Possible. Is it because I barely like leaving Wisconsin? Quite possible. Is it because I don’t like going anywhere without my friends or at least one of my cousins? Definitely possible. I love my family very much, but it’s hard for me to be gone for eight days without someone to get drunk with. Sad? Pathetic? Stupid? All possibilities, but anyone who knows me knows that it’s true.
