It’s been a busy week

At my current position here in Costa Rica, I get the opportunity to put the long-lived flip video in front of many things that occur here. As it would be, there have been a couple nifty little events and therefore a couple nifty little videos. Even though the videos don’t say painfullyvanilla at the beginning and end of them, they are indeed my handywork. I promise.

The first clip we have is of a friendly staff “futbol” match that we set up after our all staff meeting. Although I promise I played, for this portion of the game I manned the camera and caught some of the excitement from the evening.

The second video is of a visit from a local kindergarten. Their visit was very nice, and provided an opportunity to interact with cute little kids who speak fantastic spanish.

Border jumping: REMIX

Nobody likes being an illegal alien, it’s an uncomfortable situation. So in order to avoid the rather inconvenient issues that go along with not having a visa and therefore being an illegal alien, it’s necessary to hop across the border for a a few days and then return with a fresh shiny stamp. This is not the first time I have done an activity like this, however it was a fun and fulfilling trip none the less.

My voyage consisted of a huge array of activities including: sitting on a bus for a day, going on a walk, swimming in the ocean, and then sitting on a bus for a day. This full and exciting weekend could be expressed in words, however words are boring and played out, so lets watch a movie instead!

Some lunch and some canopy tours

Canopy tours are all the rage these days. And since our crew is above nothing, we made the zipline a destination. But first, it was necessary to head to the best lunch spot ever. Yodito (which interestingly enough means cafe in Costa Rican slang). There we dinned on fine assortment of fish casados ( interestingly enough a casado is a Costa Rican traditional dish consisting of  a meat, rice, beans, salad, or another imaginative assortment of sides).

The famed Yodito

After dinning like kings and queens we got in a cab and headed over to the zip line joint. There we suited up in our awesome outfits, joined by my “dead-eyes” wielding coworker.

Looking good

We hopped on a truck, got out, hiked up a ridge and then got hooked in for 40 minutes of high octane adventure! Take a look below for some evidence of this.

Stop please

So that’s it. The next day, with great sadness, I said goodbye to my friends and they returned to the land of milk and honey whist I remain here in the land of jungle rot and bananas. And coffee. And general tropical niceness.

The old woman’s corner

Rincon de la Vieja. This hidden gem of the north is a park with spectacular hiking and very cool volcanic features. Although it was originally the plan to visit here earlier, this was foiled by some rather intense 4×4 action. However we were intent on returning, and return we did.

This time around we went for the far more popular and visited ‘estacion pilas’, which offered a far more reasonable road for our trusty Yaris and a multitude of hiking options. Once there we set off for an afternoon of hiking, which included numerous boiling mud pits, sulfur springs and other strange volcanic anomalies. Take a look!

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After cooling down in a lovely natural spring, we headed out to our little villa for the night (complete with full kitchen/2 bedrooms/living room and a porch-what a deal!). While there we visited  tiny river and did additional swimming, made a tasty dinner, and went right to bed. The following day we woke up had a delicious breakfast, then made our way to San Jose. All in all a very vanilla day.

Tune in next time for more super painful fun!

Life’s a beach

After the failed attempt to camp and hike like the bad asses I know my friends and myself to be, we made a b-line straight for the beach. Which was cool.

I can just feel the stress melting away

The destination for our beach portion was Playa Brasalito, which is flanked by the famed Playa Conchal and the average Playa Flamingo. After finding our hostel and settling in, we prepared for several days of beaching with lovely meals and all that stuff. A day at the beach was certainly our reward for the previous days stress-fest Yaris 4×4 excursion.  Following a tasty lunch accompanied by beers in a bucket (the hallmark of any vacation), we returned to the pool and did nothing more than exist. That evening we met up with the burrito wielding co-worker who was also traveling with a group of friends from back home. After speaking with his posse, we decided the next day will be our last at this location, and we would be transferring to a different beach farther south, where would camp on the beach and enjoy some delicious foods.

I can think of less cool things to do

So after a fantastic morning at Playa Conchal, we left for Playa Avellans. While arriving and setting up for an evening of camping, we arranged for a fish to be murdered for us. We then sat down and enjoyed the beautiful scene and pondered about our delicious fish being caught just for us. No sooner did we stop to smell the roses, then our dinner arrived. At this point we began mercilessly preparing the fish for its cooking. After a serious scaling session (say that 5 times fast), we grilled and then devoured the fish. Our happy tummies were then induced a serious food coma and we all passed out in what has to be one of the best camping spots period.

thats a very dead fish

Waking up to the sounds of the water is sweet, I’m not gonna lie to you. Thus it was a sad moment when we packed up our camping equipment, said our goodbyes to the camp site folks, and began the next portion of our trip, the return to Rincon de la Vieja. Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn.

Tune in next time for the exciting continuation!

The best off-road vehicle known to man

One of my favorite questions on the planet is what is the best off-road vehicle known to man. A rental car of course.

Let the fun begin

For our purposes, a Toyota Yaris. This capable and economical sedan was pushed to the absolute limit. I know this because we found that limit. More on this later. For now, the continuation of the epic story of my friends visiting and stuff.

So after a night of social beverages and friendly exchanges. The group awoke early for a day of road tripping. We would be driving from roughly the area of San Jose, all the way up to Liberia, were we would then be heading out to one of two locations of Rincon de la Vieja,  which is a great park/volcano up north. So we began, with breakfast burritos in hand to our destination. As a last-minute addition, we brought along a co-worker, who was only allowed to come after hooking up breakfast burritos for everyone.

After 5 or so hours of driving we dropped off the burrito wielding co-worker, and began our trip to estacion Santa Maria (this one allows camping, which I’m all about). Now to preface, I had called ahead to the ranger station to check how to get there, road condition, etc. Based off of my call, we were absolutely set. After the requisite asking for directions/ cross checking directions and bumping around until finding the actual route, we were presented with a road that eventually turned into a dirt road. This dirt road eventually turned into worn down rocks, which then after about 15km turned into straight up 4×4 trails. Now I have been on some 4×4 trails here, and let me assure you, this was gnarly.

This was the mild portion of our journey

After making it down a 20-30 degree hillside that I was not confident I could make it back up, we passed several folks who I confirmed with that we were indeed on the “road to santa maria”. As I’m sure you were expecting, on one steep climb, the trail consisted solely of worn in ruts from large trucks, which the Yaris became stuck on. After some lightening of the car and aggressive pushing, the Yaris powered up the hill. The group met to determine whether or not a continuation of this excursion made any sense, and a yes was agreed upon. With comical timing, no more than 20 feet past us getting stuck, a steep 100 meter decent, with a river at the bottom, followed by an equally steep 100 meter uphill stood in our path. The Yaris would surely have died in that ravine.

Ryan takes a moment to stress out about the drive

We then turned around, drove all the way back to Liberia, and then continued straight to the beach.

Camping is lame anyway.

Friends ahoy!

It seems like only yesterday that I was the host to several friends from my former life. The famed Partner in Crime and two additional friends joined me for an exciting and diverse trip through many parts of the rich coast.  I am going to make this a multi-post deal, as I want to milk as many posts as I can from this.

After a successful meet and greet at the airport, we headed off the the car rental facility and took temporary ownership of the best off-road vehicle known to man, the Toyota Yaris.  Following a fun and exciting drive back to the Nations Capital (of Costa Rica), we called it a day and slept in preparation for an exciting day 2. Waking up with the sun, the group put on their finest rafting attire and traveled down to the lush Orosi Valley for a day of rafting. The Orosi River offers a fast and furious rafting experience, consisting of a steady flow of technical class II/III rapids. After an exhilarating 1st run down the river, the group hit the reset button and prepared for run numero dos. However this time, I would be rafting in a ducky (inflatable kayak) and doing my best not to drag my face alongside the river bottom the entire time. This was a very fun experience, however I have no visual proof of my escapades. After two fantastic trips down the river, the tired group had a lovely river side lunch and headed back. Take a look at the video below, which was filmed by my co-worker who duckyied/duckied/ducked/whatever down the river during the first run. Pay special attention, and you can see a glimps of the group in the video.

After heading back to base the group showered up and prepared for a lovely evening at the famed Pizote resturant and bar. Being joined by a whole slew of Outward Bound staff, a fantastic evening of social beverages and finely cooked pork dishes were enjoyed by all.

Everyone enjoys their meal with gusto

Tune next time for the exciting continuation of this fantastic adventure!