Markham's Stories: July 2009

I know what you are thinking, didn't Markham go to Costa Rica way back in May. Why in the world has it taken him so long to update his blog. Well, if you're reading this blog right now then you know me and you know that I don't ever update my blog, so this is nothing new.

Anyway, my friend James and I went to Costa Rica at the beginning of may. It was more or less my last big trip as a SkyWest employee. (I got laid off a week later) Anyway, this was a really great trip. We had loads of fun, never really figured out what the exchange rate for the money was but we had a blast riding 4 wheelers, dodging sting rays in the ocean, flying down the mountain on zip lines and telling every other Costa Rican that we were not interested in buying weed. So, enjoy the pictures and video.

After flying first class from Atlanta to San Jose, Costa Rica we needed to find a place to stay for the night and a ride to that place. As is customary in South America, for the most part if you own a car you are also a taxi driver. So, we found a guy hanging out at the airport and he took us to a hotel that was actually pretty decent. After conveying our plans for the trip he volunteered to drive us to the beach town of Jaco for a price of course and he would also drive us back to the San Jose the next day. We kept telling him that we might stay longer but he insisted on taking us back the next day. Anyway, after spending the night in San Jose our taxi driver showed up with his wife ready for a little vacation to Jaco. This next video shows part of the drive down to Jaco.

On the way to Jaco we stopped on a bridge to check out the crocodiles that lived under it. There were a ton of them. Even more on the other side of the bridge. I think if I lived down there I would raise chickens and sell them to tourists to feed to the crocodile. It's a living.

After arriving in Jaco we checked into a super scetchy motel and I think that our taxi driver told us it was more expensive than it really was so that he could squeeze some extra money out of us, but 8 dollars a night isn't that bad at all. Not wanting to spend more than 30 seconds at the motel we headed for the beach.

This is James somehow flying out of the wave.

Swimming in the ocean in paradise can be extremely painful. At least that is what you would think by the expression on my face.

So, James and I kept getting hit by Rays that were riding the waves in and I try and explain it in this video by I think I drowned at the end of it.

Evidently Costa Ricans like cheerleading as much as Americans because this competition was going on by where we were swimming.

After hours of beach time we went and got some dinner and decided to walk around. We got stopped by the Policia because they assumed that since we are Americans we were looking for drugs. They were wrong, we were just walking. Thanks to James' superior spanish skills they let us move along.

This is James being hardcore and jumping over a creek on the beach that ran into the ocean.

Since our Taxi driver wanted to go back the next day and we wanted to stay we had to hide from him in the morning and go find another place to stay. We did it was a little more expensive. 9 dollars a night. This is it.

Somewhere my picture is hanging up in the hostile, it was great, I'd recommend it to anyone.

Next came one of my favorite parts of the adventure. Spanish Karaoke, good times.

This guy had some skills. This next guy was really really bad.

I don't know what universe that tune is Hard Days Night but wow, I really should never sing. To be fair I sang a really good La Bamba that James didn't record.

And here's James.

Great Times! And we don't even drink.

We decided to rock the 4Wheelers which was a really good idea. We saw some cool stuff.

Our guide just pulled out these coconuts drilled a hole in them, put a straw in and boom, best drink ever.

So if you look close you can see that James has a girl on the back of his ATV now. And so does our guide, evidently he thought we should give them a ride. I guess our guide was down with hitting on 14 year old girls.

We also went on a zip line tour that day. This video is the only evidence of that.