Costa Rica, hostels, and plastic surgery
Ah, summer. Reminds me of last summer, which I spent in Costa Rica. In honor of last summer, in celebration of Costa Rica, and in further celebration of the fact that I am home this summer, I have an old post that I dug up from last summer. But before I post it, I have a few things to say about Costa Rica.
Costa Rica is a fabulous place, especially if you have money. But, then, just about any place in the world is fabulous if you have money, I have concluded. At the time, I did not have money. My sister and I had rented a nice little shack in Monteverde, Costa Rica, for the summer (in the mountains, famous for the cloud forest). We were supposed to be teaching English classes, but ended up having to take a few waitressing and other side jobs to support ourselves.
The weather in Costa Rica is fantastic - the best you could wish for - 70's always (at least in the San Jose valley, that is - it's a little cooler in the mountains, and a little hotter on the coasts and near Arenal, one of the active volcanos). It is also a country where you wake up every morning and wonder what kind of fantastic, exotic fruit you should have for breakfast. The thing I miss about Costa Rica is that the fruit there tastes fruitier than any other fruit you have ever tasted, and you can get fresh-squeezed watermelon, canteloupe, tamarind, mora, pineapple, mango, strawberry, limeade, or papaya juice for breakfast (plus several others that I've forgotten to mention). It really would be the best place to be a street bum that I can think of - great weather, fruit trees all over the place (in Nicaragua, there was a mango-tree-lined street where the mangos literally fell into our hands), dirt-cheap health care. I've never seen such a fecund-looking place.
It is also one of the few countries where you can go camping in the cloud forest, see a quetzal, have monkeys climb on your head, and hike around active volcanoes all in the same weekend.
Additionally, the medical care in Costa Rica makes you realize how shoddy ours is in the States. No lines, no hassles, inexpensive birth control, good medical care (they are famous for their cosmetic dentistry and plastic surgery). And since one of my classes was cancelled, I had a breast reduction there, at approximately a $5,000 savings. I had been contemplating doing this for some time, but couldn't afford to do it in the US.
Now, having the breast reduction required that I stay several nights in San Jose at different times for follow-up checkups. By the end of our trip, we were ravaged by bugs (the walls and doors didn't fit together properly in our rented shack, so we had all kinds of exotic bugs living with us, including scorpions), annoyed by the shower (in order to get rather lukewarm water out of it, you had to turn it just until the lights dimmed, and then turn it back just slightly, or you'd trip the breaker, and the water would be terribly cold), plagued by dust and poor roads (the roads there really are awful - dirt roads in many places, and the road up to our house took an hour and a half to go maybe 15 miles on one of the bumpiest, steepest, dirt trails I've ever seen. This made keeping ourselves and our clothes clean difficult, especially considering our primitive washer), and I was especially tired of staying in my friendly hostel in San Jose. Hence, the following post:
There comes a time in every traveller's life when she realizes that she absolutely cannot spend even one more night in a dorm, and it's time to spring for a single. Maybe it's when the European on the second bunk wakes up at night yelling incomprehensibly (perhaps in French), having possibly awakened from a nightmare. Or possibly while sitting in the "out of service" bathroom stall where she has gone both for the sake of privacy and to decide whether or not she does, in fact, have to throw up. While staring at her feet up on the wall, she wonders why there are 10 mosquito bites on the left foot and only three on the right, and thinks about some of the more disgusting things she has eaten recently (they were all disgusting - nachos with watery cheez whiz, a Costa Rican "hamburger", deviating ever so slightly from a real burger, and worst of all, buffalo wings, slightly undercooked, in the wrong sauce, and of course in this country that knows and cares absolutely nothing for sauces, there was no ranch or bleu cheese to dip them in, and the red - RED- sauce that they gave you finally looks suspiciously like their too-sweet version of ketchup). Disgusting. Finally, when she concludes that she does not have to throw up, she walks back to the dorm, opens the door, is bathed in the warm, musty air created by 8 strangers who possibly haven't showered as often as they should have in the past - week? month? year? There's sweat, and incense, and a bit of lingering cigarette odor (Europeans smoke shamelessly), and then she realizes that maybe she does have to throw up after all, and returns to the relatively fresh air in the out of service bathroom stall and scratches her left foot a bit more and hopes the funny looking Belgian will not try to be so friendly tomorrow.
I am so, so, sick of hostels. The one I'm staying at now is in an area of San Jose where there's a lot of prostitution, so for general amusement and to kill time yesterday, a fellow traveller and I went to a nearby hotel/casino where lots of Americans go, ostensibly to arrange fishing trips, and then sit down at the bar trying to decide which hooker they want for the next hour. It's kind of interesting to watch; the hooker soutnumber the men, who look like your generic church-goer from Ohio still wearing the same acid-washed jeans they've had since the mid-1980's with a rather sad-looking collared shirt, and white sneakers. They look as though no one pays attention to them usually, but here they are someone. Here they are pimps. Have you ever seen someone dressed like they are from a poor part of Ohio smoking a big fatty cigar and trying to impress a bunch of hookers with how rich/cool/funny they are? The hookers are interesting to look at, too. In general, hispanic women tend to have smaller breasts, but in this place that caters to Westerners, the breasts are much, much larger, lots of implants. They're also dressed like a thousand trends have exploded on each of them, and it's jarring to look at, but you can give them all makeovers in your head, which distracts you from the aforementioned undercooked chicken wings, slightly pink, with that sickeningly undercooked texture. Which reminds me, I still haven't decided whether or not I have to throw up.
*Note: The author is not prejudiced against Europeans or people from Ohio. Although Europeans do seem to smoke more than is strictly necessary.
Costa Rica is a fabulous place, especially if you have money. But, then, just about any place in the world is fabulous if you have money, I have concluded. At the time, I did not have money. My sister and I had rented a nice little shack in Monteverde, Costa Rica, for the summer (in the mountains, famous for the cloud forest). We were supposed to be teaching English classes, but ended up having to take a few waitressing and other side jobs to support ourselves.
The weather in Costa Rica is fantastic - the best you could wish for - 70's always (at least in the San Jose valley, that is - it's a little cooler in the mountains, and a little hotter on the coasts and near Arenal, one of the active volcanos). It is also a country where you wake up every morning and wonder what kind of fantastic, exotic fruit you should have for breakfast. The thing I miss about Costa Rica is that the fruit there tastes fruitier than any other fruit you have ever tasted, and you can get fresh-squeezed watermelon, canteloupe, tamarind, mora, pineapple, mango, strawberry, limeade, or papaya juice for breakfast (plus several others that I've forgotten to mention). It really would be the best place to be a street bum that I can think of - great weather, fruit trees all over the place (in Nicaragua, there was a mango-tree-lined street where the mangos literally fell into our hands), dirt-cheap health care. I've never seen such a fecund-looking place.
It is also one of the few countries where you can go camping in the cloud forest, see a quetzal, have monkeys climb on your head, and hike around active volcanoes all in the same weekend.
Additionally, the medical care in Costa Rica makes you realize how shoddy ours is in the States. No lines, no hassles, inexpensive birth control, good medical care (they are famous for their cosmetic dentistry and plastic surgery). And since one of my classes was cancelled, I had a breast reduction there, at approximately a $5,000 savings. I had been contemplating doing this for some time, but couldn't afford to do it in the US.
Now, having the breast reduction required that I stay several nights in San Jose at different times for follow-up checkups. By the end of our trip, we were ravaged by bugs (the walls and doors didn't fit together properly in our rented shack, so we had all kinds of exotic bugs living with us, including scorpions), annoyed by the shower (in order to get rather lukewarm water out of it, you had to turn it just until the lights dimmed, and then turn it back just slightly, or you'd trip the breaker, and the water would be terribly cold), plagued by dust and poor roads (the roads there really are awful - dirt roads in many places, and the road up to our house took an hour and a half to go maybe 15 miles on one of the bumpiest, steepest, dirt trails I've ever seen. This made keeping ourselves and our clothes clean difficult, especially considering our primitive washer), and I was especially tired of staying in my friendly hostel in San Jose. Hence, the following post:
There comes a time in every traveller's life when she realizes that she absolutely cannot spend even one more night in a dorm, and it's time to spring for a single. Maybe it's when the European on the second bunk wakes up at night yelling incomprehensibly (perhaps in French), having possibly awakened from a nightmare. Or possibly while sitting in the "out of service" bathroom stall where she has gone both for the sake of privacy and to decide whether or not she does, in fact, have to throw up. While staring at her feet up on the wall, she wonders why there are 10 mosquito bites on the left foot and only three on the right, and thinks about some of the more disgusting things she has eaten recently (they were all disgusting - nachos with watery cheez whiz, a Costa Rican "hamburger", deviating ever so slightly from a real burger, and worst of all, buffalo wings, slightly undercooked, in the wrong sauce, and of course in this country that knows and cares absolutely nothing for sauces, there was no ranch or bleu cheese to dip them in, and the red - RED- sauce that they gave you finally looks suspiciously like their too-sweet version of ketchup). Disgusting. Finally, when she concludes that she does not have to throw up, she walks back to the dorm, opens the door, is bathed in the warm, musty air created by 8 strangers who possibly haven't showered as often as they should have in the past - week? month? year? There's sweat, and incense, and a bit of lingering cigarette odor (Europeans smoke shamelessly), and then she realizes that maybe she does have to throw up after all, and returns to the relatively fresh air in the out of service bathroom stall and scratches her left foot a bit more and hopes the funny looking Belgian will not try to be so friendly tomorrow.
I am so, so, sick of hostels. The one I'm staying at now is in an area of San Jose where there's a lot of prostitution, so for general amusement and to kill time yesterday, a fellow traveller and I went to a nearby hotel/casino where lots of Americans go, ostensibly to arrange fishing trips, and then sit down at the bar trying to decide which hooker they want for the next hour. It's kind of interesting to watch; the hooker soutnumber the men, who look like your generic church-goer from Ohio still wearing the same acid-washed jeans they've had since the mid-1980's with a rather sad-looking collared shirt, and white sneakers. They look as though no one pays attention to them usually, but here they are someone. Here they are pimps. Have you ever seen someone dressed like they are from a poor part of Ohio smoking a big fatty cigar and trying to impress a bunch of hookers with how rich/cool/funny they are? The hookers are interesting to look at, too. In general, hispanic women tend to have smaller breasts, but in this place that caters to Westerners, the breasts are much, much larger, lots of implants. They're also dressed like a thousand trends have exploded on each of them, and it's jarring to look at, but you can give them all makeovers in your head, which distracts you from the aforementioned undercooked chicken wings, slightly pink, with that sickeningly undercooked texture. Which reminds me, I still haven't decided whether or not I have to throw up.
*Note: The author is not prejudiced against Europeans or people from Ohio. Although Europeans do seem to smoke more than is strictly necessary.
posted by jessica rabbit at 9:52 AM
1 Comments:
And why is that? So you don't forget all the cool details of your last trip? For the organization factor?
It was a damn good idea on your part, Jesse, and I'm glad you advised me to start blogging. It's been a lot of fun. Haven't written this much non-academic stuff in years.
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