costa rica

Costa Rica

Another new country and this time not for work. My family’s every 18-24 month reunion was meeting again and this time was going to be in San Jose, Costa Rica. This was extra nice because it was on American Airlines and this flight would set me over the 100,000 mark again, making it three times Executive Platinum for me.

Friday

I drove home after work this day to El Paso. I could have flown out of Tucson but I wanted to be home on Christmas when I flew back a week later. I was leaving at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning so I bought an extra key so my mom could pick up my car later from the garage. She wasn’t very happy with this and she said, “im your mother I should take you to the airport”, and she made it with a puchee face. I think this was the first time I ever really hurt her feelings.

Saturday

Sure enough she got up at 4 am and I wouldn’t let her take me to the airport, so she was extra sad. I told her to go back to sleep, but she wasn’t too thrilled. Our flight was about 6 in the morning and was chock full of soldiers, they were rowdy at 6 in the morning so I didn’t get any sleep. My brother dosed off because he stayed awake all night. We got to Dallas and went to chill in the Admirals Club. Had a drink and just chilled some more. Next we flew to Miami, we kind of went the long way to San Jose. We were delayed arriving in Miami because of weather and then we were delayed majorly by all sorts of stupid errors. Our flight was late arriving so they kept pushing back our departure time. Next we got on the plane finally and I fell asleep. I woke up one hour later and our plane was still on the ground because they were working on some mechanical issues. Next we went back to the gate and got off the plane. Maintenance fixed the issue in about 15 minutes. Got back on the plane and we sat and sat and sat and sat for 1 hour waiting for a fuel top off and a ground crew to push us back. Finally we took off and then 3.5 hours later we landed in Costa Rica. This was succeeded by a 1 hour bus ride out to the resort. All in all we were delayed about 5 hours. Completely unacceptable when im on vacation. Have delays all you want when im on the clock for business, but this is my time were fucking with now and I don’t like it. So I checked into the airport, said my hellos, got my chocolate chip cookie, and went to bed.

Sunday

Woke up fairly early and made my way down to the breakfast buffet. We were staying at an all inclusive place, so for the next week it was open buffet and open bar. Sound Handels Messiah, Jacob is upping his calorie consumption. The resort was very nice but not very many hotties, it was mostly moms and grandmas, none of the ILF kin. I had breakfast and checked out the rest of the resort. Went back up to my room, took my clothes off, splattered on the SPF, and went down to do some cancer inducing activities. The bar opened at 10 and I wasn’t really feeling a particular drink. They had a big list of fun tropical drinks, Mango Tango, Isla de Coco, Hurican, and other fun concoctions. I went with the Mango Tango for the first few, then had some beer, then had some rum….and then….AND THEN…I saw something that would forever change my week. Non-American Fresca!!!!! Fresca in America is a diet drink made without sugar, Fresca in Mexico and the rest of the world is made with real sugar. I proceeded to have about 50+ Palomitas which is tequila and fresco, it was glorious. That day was full of chilling and lounging around. We played the first of many many beach volleyball games, played some tennis, had lunch, welcomed more family members who arrived that day, had dinner and that was all she wrote.

Monday

Woke up, wash rinse and repeat. Another day of having to live on the ocean at 80 degrees, sipping Palomitas, eating delicious food, checking out the non hot grandmas and not worrying about a thing. This day was also full of tennis and beach volleyball and more eating. Nice when your day only consists of four sentences.

Tuesday

This was our first day of activities, we were going zip lining and horseback riding. We rode the horses for about 30 minutes, I didn’t really care for it. I could have gone for a shorter ride, a saddle that accommodated my lanky ass and jeans; because horse hair itches against my bare skin. We got up there and got equipped and started going down what was the first of many, actually too many zip lines. I think an hour’s worth would have been nice, but this took 2 hours, and it was mostly waiting since there were 20 in our group. It was different then the zip lining I did in Mexico, mexico was definitely less safe and had more rules. This one had more safety nets and rules, but it was still fun. What was most fun was seeing Andrew smile. He usually has a whatever I don’t give a fuck attitude, but he was enjoying himself, because he and physics tag-teamed to take on the zip line and the poor guy who was working the emergency stop. They ask you to brake yourself whilst on the line if you are coming in too hot. You have a very leatherd up glove which you hold onto the line, causing friction, and causing you too slow down. There is a secondary line at the end, kind of the like the tow cable on air craft carriers that a guy works in case you are coming to fast. Well thanks to F=M*A, Andrew was pretty much always coming in too fast. I was second to last in line and Andrew was last. So after about the first few runs, the guys would mutter in Spanish to themselves, oy, here comes the big one. So I quickly started calling Andrew, El Hombre mas Macho, which for laughs I switched to El Hombre mas Gordo, the crew liked it, they were joking around, but when Andrew was up, the guy working the emergency brake cut the shit and paid attention. He held on for dear life, braced himself, and usually was thrown from his perch. Andrew rules. He totally never paid attention to the pre braking rules, the guys would motion to him to slow down and Andrew would just come in hot without a care in the world. It was pretty freaking sweet. He actually exclaimed to me how glad and happy he was to come on the trip, Good I said, you should do more shit with us from now on. We had a nice lunch there, it was curry I think, most of my lame cousins didn’t eat it because they are beyond fussy eaters. But were real and were willing to eat whatever is in front of us because if you don’t like it you don’t eat. So you might as well eat. We came back from that excursion and since we had to get up so early I just took a nap, like a 2 hour nap, got up and just repeated what I had done on Monday.

Wednesday

We took a day trip to the island of Tortuga, but it wasn’t the same as the Tortuga from the Pirates of the Caribbean. We were also promised a big catamaran boat, well it was technically a catamaran but not one where you lie and go for a walkabout. It was more of just a water taxi, it took about an hour to get there. So we just drank most of the way, talked, hung out. Then we went snorkeling, but I don’t snorkel cuz I suck at it. So I swam and warmed the ocean. Then we were off to the island. We played some epic games of volleyball, the sand was ideal for diving and lunging for balls. I think we went 50/50 on the games, had a really fun time. Also had a nice lunch and discovered one of the greatest sauces known to man called Lizano salsa, it was super delicioso. Its this thin brown sauce, kind of sweet smokey. We headed back to land and got home a little before dinner. Except not really, because we were having dinner at this fancy place at the resort and our reservation wasn’t until 9pm, ay yay okay. So we just hung out the bar for awhile, we made quite a few friends with the barstaff that trip. So we had dinner, it was kind of fancy which meant, most of my cousins didn’t know what to do. There was ceviche, yum, and steak prepared with fancy sauces, yummo, and really good desserts, yummy. But my cousins were like yuck, barf, gag me with a spoon. That night afterwards we moved to the bar and we played a game called Presidents and Assholes. Turns out its my new favorite card based drinking game. It has lots of rules you can make up as you go along. Like rowing your Viking boat, eating pussy, dick, and ass, or whatever else your dirty mind can think of. We ended up closing down the bar, about 2, then we headed to the discotheque, had a few more drinks there, went home about 3. I was just tired and wasn’t really feeling the muchachita vibe there.

Thursday

Woo got up early again to go feed some monkeys and some latin American raccoons. It was actually pretty fun. The monkeys open your hands like a human would to get the bananas out of your hand. Then we headed to an area to do some shopping. On that day the cruise ship pulled in, it was a bunch of old white Europeans, so we walked around and perused the wares. I actually did all my transactions in Spanish I was very proud of myself, I got tripped up when it came to saying 1500 in Spanish. I thought it was mil cincocientos or maybe at the least quincecientos, but no, it was mil quinientos, which to me would be like 1000 1500, but okay, my Spanish speaking friends confirmed it. So im better for being brave enough to speak Spanish, viva Jacob VIVA JACOB. We came back from that, had some lunch, and I took another nap. We had kept being denied tennis, because everyone loves tennis there evidently so mostly the courts were reserved. So we put our names down for about 1.75 hours, yeah that’s kind of weird, but they had two courts and we got one for two full hours and the other for just one hour so you do the math. Well we took a nap for a little bit and then killed it, played some more volleyball. I need to back track a little bit right now. We had played a lot of volleyball over the week; we were also the whitest people on the beach. We also won 80% of matches so when we rolled up to the courts people knew what was up. Well a couple of the guys who work there are really good, they play volleyball all summer long. Well I was pwning the net something fierce, I have long arms and this white boy has some ups. Well I had blocked this like two or three times and he was getting made because I had this shit eating grin on my face. Well he went up to hit the ball as hard as he could, only problem is, due to rotation I was in the back. And my cousin took the full brunt right on her nose. Pobresita, it knocked her flat on her ass. The due felt terrible, super horrible,…as he should. The game and mood were pretty much over. The resort said sorry and ended up giving her a gift certificate to the gift shop as a way to apologize. No blood and it didn’t break, so it was all good. That night we had another late late dinner, this time at a fancy seafood restaurant. No one was really that hungry. But we went and hung out with each other, had some pretty good conversations. We tried to recreate the magic of the drinking games before hand, but just really wasn’t feeling it. Plus, my sister was leaving so I wanted to spend mor etime with her, she was leaving one day early to go party in Australia, what a puta. Its okay im just jealous.

Friday

Got up and you guessed it Fresca and tequila time. Had breakfast, signed up for some tennis multiple times and hung out and worked on my tan. Went over to the dining area for lunch, went back to my room and took a nap. Then we all played tennis, it was all the cousins and a couple of parents, it was a lot of fun. Of course I was topless the whole time, because when in doubt people want to see my hot white bod. That evening I don’t think we really did anything, we just went to dinner, got some drinks and called it an early night.

Christmas

Woke up at 4 in the morning and got our shit together to go the airport. It was Saturday, Christmas morning and we were off to the airport. Andrew and I were late, because we just were alright, get off our backs. There was a guy walking the hallways, an older man and he was working security. We locked eyes, did the cool guy head nod whats up and I said Feliz Navida. He responded back Feliz Navidad gracias para El Dios. I thought I was being nice by saying whats up and I think I totally made his day…I think. So our drive was an hour and then we got through all the security mumbo jumbo at the airport. You have to pay a exit fee, no me gusta. We had about 2 hours to kill and so we just sat around and talked. Most everyone left on a flight to Atlanta, Andrew and I and our cool cousin headed a flight to Dallas. I got upgraded and had me a nice continental breakfast. Andrew and cousin were in coach and had some of the best French toast they have ever had in their life or so they claimed. Its about a four hour flight, but I didn’t get much sleep. Customs and immigration weren’t bad, nothing to report there. We hung out with our cousin before she headed off to denver. Then Andrew and I got on a plane to The 915. Ive never waited longer for luggage in my life than I did at ELP. It was a good 30 minutes. Zekey was circling the baggage claim and getting ancy. He took us back home and then we headed to my aunt’s house for the last bit of Christmas dinner. Then we headed to my cousins a little bit later in the day for our annual boys vs. girls Trivial Pursuit game. The girls ended up winning and was super upset about it. They were up, then we were up, but we couldn’t get into the final circle, so they managed to come back and they got a question about soccer and the answer was Brazil. It was truly not a happy day for me. Later that night I went to ians to play some video games and some board games.

Sunday

Unfortunately had to drive back to AZ because I had work on Monday. Drive home was uneventful. And that is how you have a holiday in Central America.

Gracias,

jacobito