Costa Rica action

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Well once again I have gone way over my hoped once a week entey and I think about 1 month has passed since my last entry....needless to say the last month has been action packed.

Let me start way back towards the end of July when a ropy Mandeno picked himself out of his "Plush" bedroom of the Train spotting style apartment in Quito at 5am after only 1 hour sleep.

I made it to Quito internationl airport without any drama and the 1st flight to Panama went fast due to the fact that I slept and only woke up upon landing at Panama. I have to say the lougie connecting me to the pillow when I woke up would have made any dog look at the spit stane with pride. I dont want to brag but I believe I must have been some 20cm away from the pillow when the last spiderman style thread of spit cut free from the pillow. Amazing.

Panama required a change of planes and a tax to be paid....I love departure taxes. We made it out on the run way and once again I was asleep before take off, happy days.

In the air I was woken up from extream thrusting of the engine for periods of 10 seconds. Not one to let this worry me I started drifting back to sleep......10 mins or so later the captain shouted across the loud speeker for everyone to buckle in and put seat positions back to up right.

Although at the time I must admit that the Captain announcement seemed a little over the top in terms of intensity and I was really happy at being at San Jose so quickly. I just thought business at normal. I looked out my window expecting to see forest covered mountains etc, except all I could see was the sea. Added to this the fact that the costal town seemed very similar to Panama and the fact that everyone seemed to be holding hands, promped me to ask the guy sitting opposite whats happening.

Appreantly some gear on the plane had failed and we were taking an emergency landing in Panama....O shit.

The landing went fine and all passangers got off that plane and onto another within 1 hour. We taxied until the captain spoke spanish that went something like, this plae is fu&/ed to so we will have to wait in Panama until another pre war plane gets here.

Eventually I made it to San Jose, walking down the main street I got offered the full gringo package. Everything from a place to stay and eat, to the any drugs you want....to any female you want...to every male you want. Delicious.

Eventually I made it to San Jose backpackers, for a quick feed and Bed.

The next morning I took in a little history and culture by visiting both the gold museum, with loads on......you can read it up if you want to know more. And one of the local parks.

The general impression about San Jose is unless you want to partake in the Famous fat American holiday known as the sex tour, get in and out of San Jose as fast as possible.

That night Louis got in Minus one bag which had gone to another San Jose somewhere in America. Since it had been a few months we decided to go out and Wet the whistle at the recommended Hotel Del Rey. Which turned out to be full of call girls and the horrible americans I referred to earlier...though I do have to say many of the girls were stunning.

From San Jose we rented a 4wD and headed to Hermosa and Jaco. We needed to pick up a Surfbord for Louis and also get his bag delivered. With the Bag on its way and the Bord purchased we were all ready to hit another spot when disaster struck. With us surfing infront of the car...it got broken into, and all my gear got taken, passport, clothes, money. I literally got out of the surf in my boardies and thats all I had.

Well these things happen, guess you just have to move on!!
After this shock I managed to get some stuff together, and Joined by a friend of mine, John, we toured around for 2 weeks surfing as much a possible.

The 1st place we went to was Mal Pais, which is an amazing white sand Beach lined with rain Forest. When I was surfing a whole family of Monkeys went past on the Beach. It was something else being there. The only thing which got in my skin a little was the ant. These little fire ants would crawl over you feet if you stood still for more then 10 seconds. And man the little buggers have a nasty little bite.

After surfing there in near perfect conditions, *the water was Spa temp, we decided to move down the coast to Manuel Antonio, This Beach resort although not as Beautiful as Mal Pais was still worth a look. At the southern end, as I checked out with Dazza on a later visit was full of White Faced Monkeys, howler Monkeys and Squirrel monkeys. In the second resort we stayed in there, Linda. The Squirrel Monkeys crawled across our roof every evening and if you were there with the classical Monkey food, a Banana, they would actually come up to you and you could feed them.

One night daz and I decided to crash a mates Wedding there. We had been hanging out with the lads who were on there stag for a few days and for some reason we thought it would be cool to wish him all the best at about 11pm at night with a few drinks in our Bellies.

I dont want to go into detail but lets say the Bride was none so impressed. O well it just is not what its like in Hollywood.

From This the 3 some of Louis John and Myself moved down to Dominical, here was full of backpackers and had a great vibe to to mention a great if not scary wave that always produced huge Barrels that Mandeno got amongst a few times but always ended up getting dominated and cruched against the hard sand bottom.

The 2 weeks of Traveling around with Louis and John were so much fun, despite the missing gear we had almost no

Highlights of the 2 weeks included

Mal Pais, a beautiful white sanded forrest lined beach in the north east. The surf was good, pleanty of wildlife, one day when surfing a family of monkeys went past.

We hit Montezuma from 2 night to have a few wet ones and look into the Waterfalls. The 2nd little bit of bad luck hit me here. After looking at the 2nd waterfall which we were told we could jump off the 3 of us decided one should go down to have a look.

So there I was climbing down the rock bank, half way down a vine was there, I was sure it was there to help people climb buck up. After giving it a good few tugs I decided to use it to take a little of my weight. At that very moment it broke away from the Tree. Classical Mandeno moment. Everything started off slow, slipped over and as soon as I git the rock I knew I would not be able to stop myself rolling off about 8 ft drop onto Rock. I took the tuck position to help with the impact. As soon as I started to fall I knew pain was only a few short feet away.

The pain was huge.....but I did manage to add to the lads laughs by sticking up my arm and giving thumbs up. Then for about 20 mins I sat on the rock in Pain. poor me haha

Finally we got around to checking the water, it was too deep to touch the bottom....shit

So back up the waterfall to jump off, Naturally I, having by far the most minerals out of the 3 of us went first (despit the pain I felt from the fall). Louis was a short distance second then John did not jump at all until.......5 rather good looking girls came to the top of the waterfall. Naturally John put his fears aside and was straight in...good times.

When Daz got here we did the same sort of tour, Montzuma and Manual Antonio.

My passport finally arrived in San Jose on the 9th September......good times, The pick up went all smoothly and with this we started to make our move down to Panama.

One the way we spent a few days at the largly Tourist, Jamican, and German town of Puerto Viejo. The main reason that I wanted to surf a wave known as Salsa Brava, naturally the whole time it was flat haha.

The Town was as I would have thought any Jamican sea side town to be, the one club was everynight filled with what my mum would describe as the smoke from Wacky backie. And everyone pushed around there chopper styled bikes offering you weed, green, skunk, good shit, great shit, the best, herb, friendly times and many other names. I am not so sure what Law there is there but by all accounts it is fine for the locals to smoke anywhere they please.

From there we made our way to Sixaola where a river and a bridge seperate Costa Rica and Panama. Naturally withmy New Passport having no entry stamps into Costa Rica there would be trouble getting out. The immigration office told me to go find my flight numbers and entry date and I would be let in to Panama. Naturally the Internet was not working on the Costa Rica side of the 300 m bridge. So the office told me to walk unaccompanied without my Passport over the border, to a shop on the Panma side of the river to get the details from the Internet...very random. They would not stamp my passport but they would let me walk fine acroos the border to go to the internet.

After the 4 hour Delay at the border in 35 degree heat finally the exit stamp was granted and I was free from Costa Rica

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