I’m Working… I Swear

I came into my good Uncle Gerardo’s work today to get on the computer and do some work for my Dad as well as get caught up on emails and facebook. After much research I decided to book my return flight back from… Lima Peru. Mostly because it was the cheapest of all the airports in upper South America to return from. So I booked it.

Then I started looking at a map of South America and I realized the distance from Cartagena Columbia to Lima is about the distance of going from the north tip of California to Mexico, and back again. I need to do that in about 2 weeks, so I guess I got a little stressed about it. I asked my beautiful and kind cousin Karen to reserve me a seat on a bus from San Jose to Panama City. Should be good it’ll go overnight and I’ll be in Panama City on Friday morning.

From there I want to arrange to get on a yacht that can take me from Panama to Cartagena. Apparently you spend two days on the islands off the coast of Peru and its really beautiful and what not. Seems like fun right?

So that’s what’s been running through my head most of the day. I really love spending time with my family down here. Koke and Michael are hilarious and I at least had a great time going to the bar on Sunday and hitting on random girls with my 17 year old x-th cousin Jason who was hilarious. As we talked to girls he kept saying in Spanish “we really are family”. Cracked me up. I basically facilitated him making out with some cute blonde girl from Washington DC.

I stayed at my aunt Isabel’s house and got to eat amazing food for like 2 days, that was pretty fantastic. I had a great time chilling out and watching a football game at the square down the street with Michael and Koke.

Yesterday I came over to see grandma who doesn’t look any older and looks really good for 94. Not only that but she isn’t even crazy at all, super sweet, constantly asking me what I want to eat or drink. I mean, it does get a little annoying but that’s what grandmas do right? It’s kind of hilarious how she orders her maid around like some kind of slave.

The room I stayed in there is super cute, way nicer than any of the places I’ve been staying in at hostels, but maybe that’s just because there’s not 10 other people sleeping next to me.

I just hung out at the house, I met Karen’s daughter Kaylee who is super sweet. I thought she was 15 when I first met her but she’s ten. I helped her with her math homework and tried to teach her algebra, which is the only type of math I ever liked. She doesn’t really like math so it was a challenge but fun. I went to the barber with my uncle Gerardo and we both got our haircut and I got my hippy beard shaved a bit.

It was fun talking to him a little bit about business and stuff, I was talking to him a bit about how cheap programmers are in India and how he might be able to use that in the future if he wants. It sounds like he does really good business here in Central America working with some really large companies. I was surprised that he only has two programmers working for him.

Karen is a really sweet and smart girl, it was nice to speak with her and her daughter in english and I feel like we understand eachother, when I come back I would like to spend more time visiting with her or if her and her daughter came back to the states it would be nice to see them in California.

It’s so weird to me that I feel like I get along so well with my family down here that I haven’t seen in 10 years and the family in the US that I see everyday I barely have any connection with. I am thinking that I wish I had visited here more over the last decade but I guess its never too late to start. I think it would be so much fun to come down here with my mom for Christmas, the family here is just so huge and everyone is so funny and nice.

Oh funny thing happened today, I had lunch at Grandma’s house with Gerardo and as he went to drop me off he asked me if I wanted to go to church with him tonight. I plainly said “no” and “for what?” and he said “to become a better person?”. I jokingly said “But I’m already a good person”. He seemed a but upset when I told him I didn’t believe in God. I told Karen and my other cousin and they laughed. I think he’s a bit upset with me.

Oh well, if he asks more questions I’ll tell him more about why I don’t but I won’t get into it. Hopefully Grandma doesn’t ask me that question, I’ll probably have to lie so she doesn’t have a heart attack.

So instead of church last night a bunch of us went down to the stadium to watch Saprissa play some soccer team from Puerto Rico, the Islanders I think it was. It was a cool experience, football really isn’t that boring to watch, the goals are pretty sick when they happen. The fans are really freaking into and curse at the players if they make a single mistake, which I think is both hilarious and awesome.

On the walk there we had to turn and go a different way because there was a group of kids apparently mugging people under a bridge. My cousin Michael called the police on them. I kind of wanted to try walking right by them to see if they would do anything because I’d love to have to fend off 5 guys at once. But Michael said they might have guns so we just went the other way. People stealing things makes me upset.

I’m going to miss everyone down here and I wish I had more time to get to Lima but I really have to take off quite fast. My bus leaves at 1 this afternoon and I found a guy off couchsurfing.com to stay with when I get to Panama City. It should be interesting. He was really nice and he already reserved the boat trip that I wanted so everything is set for me to get to Colombia. The only thing I don’t currently have is a place to stay in Cartagena but I’m sure I will meet some people on the boat ride down that will be able to lead me in the right direction on that one.

I think of all the people I met while in San Jose my cousin Karen is the most interesting. She seems like the most down to earth person down here. Maybe its just because I can speak to her in English but she seems cool. I gave her my (probably worthless) opinions about her daughter and her decision to bring her here for school instead of letting her go to school in America with her dad. I mean my opinion shouldn’t matter much to her but I definitely think she’s doing the right thing and she should stick with her decision, Kaylee will eventually understand.

I just remember how much trouble I was for my mom growing up and how I thought everything she did was wrong and I never respected what she said. But now I realize she did the best she could with what she knew and although at the time I thought it was awful, I love her for it now. I feel bad sometimes for giving her such a problem but that’s what children are for right? Haha sorry mom! I love you!

Alright that’s all for now, no more adding to this post .

Here’s a video of us driving from Isabel’s house to Grandma’s house, note that every house in basically inside a cage, there’s a bit of crime here.

Driving through the suburbs of San Jose from Andrew Lang on Vimeo.

Ok so the other night we were out in Manuel Antonio and Quepos. Me and the Swiss boys and one Chinaman polished off a 5th of Rum in about 10 minutes and we were ready to head out to ladies night for some fun. The blonde flight attendent was feeding me free daquiries and pina coladas all night so I was unusually happy. We met tons of different people, finally ending up with two tica’s and the blonde girl and Mischa.

We danced a bit, which was awesome…………..

Then we dropped off the girls and they told us to call them and to come to San Jose tomorrow and meet them there. I figured “hey I have to go there anyway, why not?” I hopped on a bus with the flight attendant and we went to San Jose, on the way there I found us a hostel that seemed pretty cool slash cheap and we stayed there.

I calculated in my head that at the average rate of places I’m staying at on a regular basis its costing me between 280 and 330 dollars per month for living expenses to travel… pretty righteous.

I gave the girls a call last night but it didn’t result in anything so I’m just going to continue with the regular plan on visiting my family. They shouuuuuld be on their way here right now to come get me.

It was funny because Isabel my aunt called me at the hostel last night and warned me about going outside in this neighborhood. She also warned me about tica girls… and pretty much everything. Ok I’m sure its bad but come on… relax.

No but seriously I just finished talking to a guy from Barcelona that said he heard stories that they don’t even come up to you they just come up from behind, pass you out with some choroform or something and then leave you there. Fucking fantastic. I had flashes of getting mugged the entire way on the bus here and I’m glad I got in a taxi as fast as humanly possible because where they dropped us off definitely seemed a bit sketchtastic.

So everyone I was traveling with has officially left me and I’m here in San Jose alone. This is what I wanted right? Sure why not. I hope my family isn’t totally insane and is bearable. I’m definitely going to be practicing a lot of spanish in this town, its not like the tourist places I have been for the last few weeks. All well.

Half Tico OUT.

I really just needed to post something so I could put up this riduculously awesome video of our off roading adventure from Tamarindo to Montezuma. By the time we got to Montezuma the hostel owner was surprised at the route we took and said “wow you guys came that way? I didn’t even know that way was passable this time of year.”

So basically yeah we’re awesome, deal with it.

Driving THrough Costa Rica in an Uninsured Rental Car from Andrew Lang on Vimeo.

When we got to Montezuma we stayed at a quaint little place called the Luna Llena. It wasn’t too bad, they had nice little cabinas with mosquito nets and a separate outdoor bathroom. It was kind of a hassle in the middle of the night when my tiny bladder would get full but it wasn’t too bad. The town was pretty cool and tiny but there wasn’t too much to do. We did find the one awesome thing though. We hiked out to a waterfall that was about 20 meters high and jumped off a ledge into it. I actually dove off the highest point which I’ve always had a fear of doing but it was a lot of fun. You were also able to crawl up behind the waterfall and dive right into it and have it push you under which was fun. I think there are some cool photos of it on Sammy’s camera. Hopefully I’ll get them when he gets back to Switzerland.

From there we drove down Manuel Antonio and we took the ferry, that was pretty rad. We got down here and this random flight attendent girl came up to us and asked us if she could come with us while we found a hostel. We’re the friendliest group of two Swiss kids and one American on the planet so naturally we said yes. She was cool, nice flight attendent. We ended up staying at the Backpackers Manuel Antonio hostel (I mostly picked it because it sounded pretty nice but it also had Wifi). There’s some pretty sick places right across the street to eat that cost almost nothing and serve a crapload of food.

We met this hilarious Chinese kid in the hostel that is practicing his Spanish here. He refuses to speak to people in english even though he knows it. He also chats up pretty much every local or person that looks like they speak spanish he sees. I kind of find that annoying but I think its funny that he does it. He’s hilarious to watch at bars. Him and the flight attendant sang horible karaoke last night which definitely cracked me up. I think that was early in the evening before she started crying about her boyfriend (or something). We definitely drunkenly meandered around town last night. I’m surprised I’m not hungover due to the 10 minute consumption of a bottle of Flor de Cana at the hostel while playing “table football” and the subsequent drinking of the flight attendants free ladies night drinks at the first bar. Actually now that I think about it I didn’t pay for a single drink last night. Fucking win.

At some point we met some pretty cool girls from San Diego who are staying at the other hostel, Vista Serena, which is where our other buddies are staying. We also ended up being introduced to a couple of nice local girls who were really sweet. We went with them back to the ladies night bar and danced a little bit and talked, they gave me their phone numbers so I might call them? Why not right?

I’m fairly sure there’s some other stuff I’ve done lately but I’m probably way too hungover right now to think of it.

Now seems like as good of a time as any to be honest about the flight attendant girl. The first night we met we kind of got drunk and she was acting like kind of a whore, nothing happened really but the next day she really wanted to do this stupid visit of the Manuel Antonio park in the late morning despite how few animals everyone told her there would be. She “HAD TO SEE IT BECAUSE THIS IS HER LAST DAY HERE”. Anyway nobody wanted to go with her and I went with her since nobody else would. Worst decision ever, I was annoyed for literally 3 hours. I don’t know how someone who seems so normal and like a genuinely decent person could be so abrasive but she definitely pulled it off. After that I basically aimed to get the hell away from her as much as I possibly could until she left our hostel.

I found comfort in the fact that everyone else that met her seemed to be annoyed with her so it couldn’t possibly have just been me. She was constantly talking about volunteering in different places and how she wanted to travel to all these places and BLAH BLAH BLAH, I don’t know why it was so annoying but I wanted to decapitate her. Ok I’m done.

I’ve had a sore throat for like 4 days and I don’t know why.

I’m thinking of getting some breakfast and maybe going kayaking/snorkeling.

I’m also thinking of calling one of those Costa Rican girls… maybe its a bit early? It’s like 8 am here. They were heading back to San Jose and it would be cool to hop on the bus with them and have someone to talk to and make sure I didn’t get mugged. Or I could just see them later?

Definitely meeting some cool people, weird people, and shitty people on this trip. Which is cool.

That girl yesterday said something about some book called “The Secret” I immediately came to the conclusion that it sucked because I remember my mom tried to give it to me a few years back and I started reading it and it just seemed like total obvious bullshit. Anyways she started summarizing it and basically said that life is good when you think positively about what you want, then those things will come to you? Something like that. I prefer my method which is totally opposite… don’t think about what you want, want nothing, and you are never disappointed or unsatisfied. Anything good that happens is a pleasant surprise and you appreciate it more. I don’t know that just seems to be working out for me thus far.

I’m getting a little tired of the question “how long are you here for?” or, the one from back home “when are you coming back?”

Piss off?

PEACE.

Today I had one of those cool experiences you don’t expect. We stopped by a hammock shop because erica and I wanted to get some hammocks to sleep in. I started talking to the salesman in spanish and he was surprisingly honest and helpful. He asked where I learned spanish and I told him my mom was from Costa Rica and he seemed very surprised and said “ah so you are tico?” And I said well no not really and he said “yes you are half tico”. I tried to bargain with him on a hammock he said was really strong and well made but he wouldn’t budge on the price. He said his boss would be angry with him if he did.

We decided to leave since I couldn’t purchase my dream hammock. As we left he told me to have a safe trip and not to forget I was half Tico. I don’t know why but his honesty and helpfulness really took me by surprise and I felt the need to write about it. This trip has been full of discussions with some really cool people.

Just last night I talked to a really cool guy with Erica about his plan to get himself all the way from his city in mexico to the tip of Argentina (tierra del fuego) using public transportation. He had to work about two years and quit his job at Nissan to do what he dreamed of. I really admire that kind of attitude, he left the world behind, his family, friends, job, all for an adventure that would require him to live on almost no money. He said he thought his travels would take him almost a year. Wherever he is I wish him the best of luck.

We met some really cool people at the Pura Vida Hostel in Tamarindo. There are a couple of Swiss boys that stayed in our room last night that are pretty cool. We went out to the club with them and last night was ridiculous. I’ve never seen so many young foreigners in one place all drinking. It was ladies night everywhere so maybe that’s what brought everyone out. Anyway I’m thinking of spending a few more days at the beach before traveling back inland to see my family. We’ll see what happens, its fun not having a plan.

This trip has been amazing so far. Its pretty awesome traveling with erica and this guy mikey who I just met is pretty cool too. The people have been ridiculously nice and helpful to us so far and although there have been a couple sketchy situations everything has worked out so far.

My family seemed pretty stoked with the electronics I smuggled into the country for them. After dropping that stuff off we headed towards the coast and ended up at playa hermosa one of Costa Ricas most famous surfing beaches. Mike tried to surf but found it a bit too difficult. The girl who rented us the room I definitely would have married in a second.
We had a couple good meals and conversations with the dudes running the new “Dos Gringos” restaurant there. They had just opened up a week ago but were making good food using some pretty primitive equipment. They moved down here from the US to do this for the rest of their lives. The owner told us anyone could do it if they had three things:

1) No debt

2) Consolidate your possessions into a bag

3) Not have a need to see your family and friends.

And 4) (he knows he only said three but…) Grow a pair and do it.

I thought what he was doing was awesome, and I could definitely see myself doing something like that in the future but… Right now I just have too much to see to see to settle down in any one place. I’m seriously considering flying to Peru instead of home and crossing Machu Pichu off my list this month.

We spent our second day relaxing at the beach and had a nice makeshift picnic. It was a really relaxing day and I got some reading done while mike surfed. I don’t know if its in my genes but the women down here are definitely doing it for me… I can see why my dad fell for it.

Today we went ziplining and I learned a few awesome tricks like going upside down and stuff. We got some cool videos and photos Ill post up. Right now we are just pulling up to La Fortuna which was recommended by the zipline guy I talked to. Apparently Arenal the volcano should be a blast and we can do class four white water rafting here so I’m stoked. We plan on staying in a hostel tonight for under five dollars per person.

8/13/09

We drove several hours today on the recommendation of our ziplining guide. We made it out to La Fortuna which we found to be quite cozy and hospitable. We wandered into the first hostel we found in the book and found it to be pretty decent. Four bunk beds in  a room and hot water for 10 dollars per person. We decided that from now on we were going to haggle everything so I acted very insulted when the lady told me 10 dollars and demanded it for five. She looked at me like I was crazy. I thought that I had read this place should be 5 dollars per night but maybe I was insane. Anyway she said she’d give it to me for 8 and we went back and checked the book and turned out it was supposed to be 10 so when we found out the other hostels were full we went back and checked in.

Wifi was available but apparently died out in the evening and now that I actually want to use it the owner is asleep and I’m way too nice to try to wake him. I found out today that if I change my ticket its going to be a 225 dollar fee so I’m going to have to check how much it would cost just to fly straight to Peru. Maybe I can make up some lie about how it was cheaper to fly to Peru and then back to the US than just to fly straight there? I might get fired but I’m not sure I care that much at this point.

We met a really cool couple at the hostel while we made dinner for ourselves (which was pretty mediocre by the way, but we are living cheap). Anyways they are motorcycling together from San Francisco all the way to South America and have been on the road for 6 months. They are on their way back up right now. I took a look at their bikes and it’s a pretty amazing idea that I hope one day I could do. The guy is from Belgium and the girl is from San Fran and loves to continuously talk shit on Irvine (understandable). We booked a Class IV white water rafting tour tomorrow which I’m really excited about… it should be pretty intense. I hope we don’t die, well I hope I don’t die. Just kidding!

We set up our mosquito nets tonight and I feel pretty cool about it. My one roll of toilet paper I brought came in handy since they don’t provide towels, soap, TP, or really anything at this type of place. I’m really glad I have Ericas sack sheet to protect me from ringworm… yeah…

Ok so I’m known to do things quite randomly that sometimes involve large expenditures of money without really thinking it through. Starting a gym for example. The next incarnation of my incredibly irresponsible decision making has been this new project. It originated when Evan said “hey, did you know you can buy an old mercedes on craigs list for like a thousand dollars and convert it to run on veggie oil and not have to pay for gas?”

“Really? Lets do it.” I said. And it was so. Working together me and Evan managed to find a nice vehicle listed on CL for around 2100$. Thanks to my sparkling charm and friendly personality I was able to negotiate the purchase down to 1600$ and project Veg was officially underway. Sure the car leaked a bunch of oil, but for the most part it seemed mechanically sound. It was also convenient in that my other two cars are either 1) in detention or 2) in the shop getting fixed from me driving the piss out of it.

It’s actually quite satisfying driving around a 27 year old car when you know you could afford something much nicer. Its pretty much like driving a couch around and you never have to really worry about hitting things or speeding because the car is a ridiculously slow tank with no monetary value.  We began with the goal to simply make a car that will run off of the used vegetable oil that we could acquire from restaurants for free. We did our research and found the conversion kit we liked. Essentially all it needed to do was heat up the oil coming from the gas tank to 150 degrees Farenheit before entering the engine. Simple enough. The kit is in the mail so we’ll see how hard that is to install.

The other part was figuring out where to source the oil and how to filter it. We researched filtering old vegetable oil, quite a simple process really, I’ll be keeping a large plastic drum in my garage with a pump attached, sort of a makeshift gas station if you will. The filtering process will have two stages we decided. The oil will first be filtered with a more coarse 50 micron filter, the passed through a more fine 5 micron filter to remove any food material or impurities before the grease even enters the gas tank.

Veggie oil is much thicker than traditional diesel gasoline but once it is at 150 degrees it begins to act like diesel fuel and as such it can run the car just fine. I managed to talk to the owner of the Chinese restaurant I go to with my Dad a few times a week and they would be more than happy to give us their old vegetable oil after they are done using it. Normally they would have to pay to have it disposed of so this is a good deal for them as well.

There are a few interesting legal implications to a project like this. Its not really illegal to do the modification to the car, but it is slightly illegal to run a car off of vegetable oil for several reasons. First, the government doesn’t like you getting out of paying fuel taxes, so in reality you are supposed to pay them a 2500 dollar fee to run a vehicle like this. Futhermore, to collect the oil like we are planning on doing you should have a certificate from the people… who… give certificates to handle food and waste and such. Also, you’re supposed to have a permit to burn vegetable oil, which we obviously don’t have. So basically our plan is just to not advertize what we are doing by putting something like “I DON”T PAY FOR GAS” on the car anywhere. I thought maybe just a vinyl decal of brocoli on the gas door would be subtle enough that THE MAN wouldn’t catch on.

Beyond the vegetable aspect Evan and I also decided that this would be a great car to slap tons of religiously offensive stuff on since, if someone banged the car up because they were fanatical Christian idiots, it wouldn’t really be that big of a loss. So, we went online and bought enough religiously hilarious bumper stickers to cover the whole rear bumper.

That wasn’t enough though. We definitely needed to take this a step further. Initially we had thought that if the car continued to run well we’d pay to have it painted a flat black, we thought that’d look quite nice. Instead though we thought it’d be much more interesting to let someone tag up the car with spray cans, make it into a sort of art car with an anti-religion theme. Some of our ideas included a bloody pentagram on the roof or hood. Blood red 666 racing numbers on the door, and Karl Marx quotations like “Religion is the opiate of the masses” written on the car.

We thought this would all be fun and potentially result in me having to get into fights in public which is always a plus. My favorite part about this project is it’s a very obvious way to show how little I take my life seriously. I mean I guess I could be driving around a 2009 Mercedes SLK AMG 49234020 but…. why? I totally enjoy driving around this old piece of crap knowing that I have two beautiful cars that I love sitting at home safe in my garage. Beyond that I truly believe that getting used to having nice things is a weakness.  I feel bad for people who wouldn’t be comfortable driving around my 1982 Mercedes everyday because they are so used to their cushy life, you’ll never be able to travel around the world with next to nothing, sleeping on the floor, meeting strange people or eating food that makes you constantly sick. Sucks for you, enjoy your boring life. I’m gonna go drive my smoking/incredibly offensive vehicle.

I’m sure that this will be the first of many blog posts on this subject. Stay tuned.

“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.” -Henry David Thoreau, Walden

1982 Mercedes 300D WVO Project Car