Avellana, No Banana

I awoke this morning pretty early, and hungry. I would say I was sleepy-hungry. I thought a good meal would be Corn Flakes with sliced Banana, but the market was out of bananas. I settled for Corn Flakes with fresh pineapple instead, which was about two dollars total.

After breakfast, we took the remainder of our 24-hour bike rental period, and went down to Playa Negra. I’m not sure how that place got that nickname, but it must be something really bad (Endless Summer II innuendo). The ride was nice, but typical. Howler Monkeys, Chickens, Birds, and Iguanas littered the landscape. Earlier, I had purchased some “Good Weed” from a local. The weed down here is schwag in most cases, so the fact that they were excited about it made me happy. The guy was cool, and gave me a proper amount, but the weed would have been laughed at in San Fran. It got me pretty high, and it was a nice and mellow high, but the weed tasted like sage and was a little bit wet. I was satisfied with it overall, and I’m stoked to have some for my next destination: Monteverde!

After smoking pot, we rode the rest of the way to Playa Negra. The waves were overall pretty large, and some were almost double-overhead. I’m not good enough to be surfing that big of a wave, but the guys out there doing it looked like they were having a blast. I snapped some pictures of it, and I’ll have to see if they look good when I load them on to the computer. We smoked the rest of our pot on the beach, and then decided to get something to eat.

We ate at a place called “Pable Picasso’s,” run by a man we would later hear was disliked by the locals. His son’s apparently killed 13 Monkeys with air rifles, which angered more than one person. I can’t imagine anyone having a reason to shoot a monkey, and it’s sickening to know that it happened. Anyway, his restaurant offered free internet and Skype calls to the US if you get their “Burger as Big as Your Head” or fish tacos. I went for the burger, which was dry and shitty, but I ate the whole thing just so I can say that I did. I shouldn’t have done that, because it sucked, but the fries were very good. I made a couple phone calls and answered a couple emails, and we were back on our way to Playa Avallana.

Once we returned, we hopped in the water and swam for a few. The water was great, and I was coming off a good stone and exhausting day and I swear I almost had an out of body experience! That’s how relaxed I was. I just stopped driving and just started looking through my eyes rather than seeing through them.

Back at the hostel, I drank a couple beers, smoked a bit of pot with the guy who runs the place, and then played some pool. I beat John four out of five times, even though he was really into playing and pretty confident. I could tell he was pretty frustrated, but that’s just how the game goes. It is god awfully humid here and the cue stick was sticking to my fingers instead of sliding, so we cut the game short and just hung out.

There were a bunch of cows sleeping in the road, maybe ten feet away from the hammock I was in. It was interesting to sit and listen to the cows; it made me feel relaxed, and I felt like they really represented being free. I mean, they can just fart, piss, shit, make weird fucking noises, or whatever the fuck they want; and no other cow gives a crap! I also took some funny pictures of their shameless asses. Ah, how bored am I that a cow can make me think so much(question mark) I also snapped some good photos of a huge toad, which I saw last night as well. It was about as large as any I have ever seen, and I was able to get really close. Are you ready for your close up, Senor Frog(question mark) I also ran into my first Praying Mantis.

Jose, a Tico from San Jose, warned us that if we were bitten, we would get a fever for a night. I don’t want anything to do with a fever in this heat, so I stayed the fuck away after snapping a couple of pictures. While I was brushing my teeth, I saw another one on the wall. It must have been Praying Mantis fest ’06 or something, as there was a female on the ground. I snapped a couple pictures of them, until the one on the ground decided to fly right at me, scaring me off. I dodged her, and all seemed well, until I felt her fly right into the arm, scaring the crap out of me. You really don’t know what is latching on to you when that happens, so I screamed like a girl and probably woke up the entire camp. No one gave me shit about it, though, so it must happen all the time.

Well, that’s all I can remember right now. I thought I had something funny to tell, but it seems to have escaped me. Perhaps I will think of it tomorrow and write it down.

Just writing what I know,

Seamus