I want my MTV.... No, Internet would suffice

What makes a place "a far corner of the world"? Is it a geographical location, the remoteness of a place? Is it the difficulty one has to endure to reach it? Or maybe the unavailability of tourist maps, pina coladas, and other amenities?

I think today it's none of it. It's the ease of access to the Internet.

There are only 3 places here in Playa Flamingo that offer any form of Intenet Access: 2 computers in the school (which are prebooked for weeks in advance), 1 computer in the "Spreader Bar" (which is always occupied by one of the half-drunken diving instructors; and yes, the sexual innuendo of the name is intended and supported by the pictures and sculptures of several scantly clad women in the bar), and 5 computers in the local "Internet Cafe" (which operates at "Hora Tica", which essentially translates into "We open and close when we feel like it"). On top of that, all of the access points here in town are dial-up - so if the local phone lines are down again or more than one information-hungry traveller tries to check email, the Internet is either painfully slow or simply unavailable.

By and large one could consider this as an advantage - part of the tranquility and charm of a place at the Pacific Ocean - but in reality I haven't felt that disconnected from the rest of the world in Tierra del Fuego, Ayers Rock, or even Southeast Asia. Sometimes it takes a week before I can check any mail at all - if a nuclear war would break out (Hasn't happened yet, has it?) I wouldn't know it for days. On a less dramatic scale: I have the hardest time making any arrangements for the continuation of my trip, staying in contact with fellow travellers, friends, and family. These days the Internet is my only means of communication with the people I know, the places I was at and will go to - the guest houses, the apart hotels, the hostels. Not having any access really constitutes a "far corner of the world".

From the classifieds:

Another week and a half here in Flamingo before my course is over. It won't put me anywhere near fluent, but I think if I add another two weeks of group classes in Buenos Aires, I should at least be able to learn all the different times and modi. Today I learned the imperative - no modus is more useful for insults.

Apparently the wind - which is the only thing that provides somewhat of a relief from the heat here - stops blowing in mid-February. From there on it'll be unbearable hot, so it's a good thing I plan on heading towards Monteverde and Volcano Arenal.

Best of luck to PaulCole in his new endeavors.

CatMorr loves me no more.

Being in debt is the new rich.

Quick shout out to Bean mom, Frank, And Kermit!

Life is what happens while you make other plans.

I just started this voyage a few weeks ago with no idea what it would turn into. The end was always hazy – both in terms of destination and date – and so were destinations, schedule, and objective. Part of the fun and purpose of this trip was to find out what to do next, where to go, which step to take next. Finding myself, my purpose (it’s that little thing that lights fire under your ass).

Some of this became very clear when I checked my email today. I will be ending this voyage before August and I will return to Europe – if not back to Germany, then at least close to it. And at least for a few years – after all I have the attention span of a hamster, so I can’t really be expected to make any decisions for years to come, can I? What will I do? I have not the slightest idea, maybe work for a non-profit, a charitable organization, or teach/train people. But the most important thing that I’ll do is spend more time with my family.

I love you, little sister, and can’t wait to see you again.

Other than this (cryptic) realization (send me an email if you want to know more), what else is new?

Today I have come to discover that I have had more beer to drink here since I arrived than drinking water. One could easily dismiss this and explain it with the poor water quality in Central and South American countries, but really – it’s got nothing to do with that. Quite the contrary actually, the water quality here is fine (although the water is not quite as pristine as in parts of Patagonia), it’s just that sitting in the constant heat and drinking a cold beer is tremendously enjoyable. And that’s pretty much all that you can do in the heat – it’s too hot for any strenuous activities, and the waves at the local bay aren’t anywhere near big enough for body surfing or other water activities (and snorkeling is largely out due to the high content of floating sand in the water). So what do we do after coming back from “school”? Sit in the hotel bar and study regular and irregular verbs, vocabulary and expressions – and drink beer. Years of reading didn’t do the trick, but after two weeks here I can finally understand why the characters in Hemingway’s book seem to have nothing else to do but drink, swim, and eat. I almost feel like I could be part of “Islands in the Storm”.

From the classifieds:

Private classes are definitely the way to go if you want to learn Spanish. They are much more strenuous and require undivided attention for a whole afternoon, but I leave them realizing that they also required me to speak for 4 hours straight. And with help of good ol’ flash cards I am starting to remember my verbs as well.

Adding fins to my snorkeling gear didn’t help – the visibility is still close to zero, even when swimming out 100m. I might have to pay for a trip on a dive boat after all.

I am a bit scared of the Spanish in Argentina. Yesterday morning I tried to watch the “Motorcycle Diaries” in Spanish, and I had a hard time even trying to figure out where one word ends and the next starts, understanding anything was next to impossible. I am considering taking another week or two of conversation classes in BsAs.

Nate wised up and moved his trip to Argentina up by a month, so we should be able to get some great weather throughout Patagonia and parts of Tierra del Fuego when we head down there in late March. I am still hoping to make this trip with a motorcycle and follow parts of Che Guevara’s route and the book “Chasing Che”, but I’ll have to see about this when I am in BsAs. What’s a good bike to take? Anyone?

I am no kid anymore...

The B&B that the school put us into is located just a block off the beach, situated between the towns of Playa Flamingo to the South and Portrero to the North. There is a tiny super market (don’t buy any meat products here, there is a power failure pretty much every other day) across the street, but any other shopping, surfing the Internet, eating, etc. requires a 4km hike south or a 2 km hike north. The walk along the beach into Playa Flamingo is nice, but a 45 minute walk gets old really fast if the temperatures are way over 30 degrees Celsius and there is no shade to be found anywhere.

Other means of transportation were necessary. While there is a school bus that shuttles students every morning and afternoon between their residence and the school, there isn’t any other public transportation to speak of for a quick shopping run or dinner in the evening. Renting a car is prohibitively expensive, so a few of us resorted to a vehicle that none of us had used in years: We rented bicycles.

Growing up I have ridden my bicycle all over the place, so I figured it’d be easy to pick it up again despite not having ridden a bike for more than 6 years – after all they say it’s “like riding a bicycle”. And it’s true. Partially.

The actual act of riding really isn’t a problem whatsoever. I didn’t fall over, lose my balance, or crash into the nearest tree. What are a problem, however, are sore muscles. Not in my legs, or shoulders, or arms. I don’t know whether it’s really the fact that I am now 31, or maybe I or my saddle were a lot better cushioned when I was younger, but I don’t recall ever sitting down on my bike and thinking “My butt hurts.” I am sure both the simple bike (picture to follow) as well as the Costa Rican roads (more pictures to follow) are at least partially to blame, but at the end of the day you just take a sore butt a lot better as a kid – especially after spending the last four and a half years sitting in a comfortable office chair.

I already dread the ride back from school today. I only take comfort in the fact that our entire bicycle gang feels the same way. It’s the price to pay for mobility.


In the classifieds:

My Spanish is coming along splendidly; I watched a movie with Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn today and understood at least 5 words (Anyone know which movie that was?).

There is an appalling amount of sand in the water here, which reduces the visibility to only a few feet. Not a whole lot of fun diving here. I’ll be going out farther soon to see if it’s better.

Rum is really cheap here, about the same price as Coca Cola.

Canopy tour next week. I am hoping for some cool pictures of flora and fauna.

The word of the day is:

"Hilo dental"

Dental floss. Or the equivalent of what Americans call "butt floss" - it is simply amazing how many slang terms translate perfectly into one language, while they are utterly unimaginable in another language (Hinternzahnseide?).


I've completed my first week of Spanish here and it was just enough to realize how much I don't know - most of the time it's simply vocabulary that is missing. That and the desire to construct more complex sentences than necessary. Today I learned the entire vocabulary for the women's wardrobe - from maternity dress (el vestido maternal) over panties (los calzones - you don't eat calzones in C.R.) to the bra (el sosten) and of course the backside of a tanga - the hilo dental. I'll try my best to put that vocabulary to good use over the next weeks, I've already found uses of the verb "to turn on" that my teacher apparently wasn't expecting...

All in all there are about 60 students here in Playa Flamingo learning Spanish - some of them for similar reasons like me, others preparing for work in a Spanish speaking country, and yet others are still in school and earn some college credits here (those of course are the most studious people around, like college kids are).

The people here in Costa Rica are very friendly and helpful - up to the point where it seems to be "off" for us: I had just finished a drink and wanted to throw the empty can into a trash can. The can was packed full, so I decided to just carry the can until I would hit the next trash can. A passing bus driver saw me and stopped the bus, rolled down the window and pointed at the trash in my hand. Upon seeing the confused look in my face he dug up a trash bag from the floor of the bus and pointed again at the can and then the trash bag. I handed him the can, he put it in the trash and drove off. No word was exchanged. Now one might believe that maybe they are just very enviromentally conscious here - believe me, the ditches on the side of the road and the constantly burning trash fires in every front yard speak a different story. There also isn't any refund on cans or aluminum, so that can't be it either. Did he really just want to lift the burden of carrying an empty can from trash can A to trash can B from me? I'll never know.

This weekend I'll head to the "big" city of Brasilito. It has got 2 supermarkets and an internet place with DSL, maybe I'll be finally able to upload some pictures then.

Jessica Alba is not too bright...

I´ve just concluded my 4th day in the language school here and have decided to write a few lines before I´ll start the long walk on the beach back to my ¨"dorm room".

The school here is literally 20 meters (about 20 yards for you Americans) from the beach, located just outside the city of Playa Flamingo - if you want to call it a city.

It really only consists of a few resorts and dive shops, a single super market, a pharmacy that carries only the medications and supplies for tourists, and a few restaurants with menus aimed at the American customer. And 5 real estate offices - an industry that seems to be booming here. Interestingly all prices - from the menus in restaurants to the displays in real estate offices - are in US dollars, and are only converted to Colones on the final bill. Even the ATM offers a choice between colones and US dollars when you withdraw money.

Every day I have 4 hours of Spanish, from 8am to noon. I was supposed to have private lessons, but since they seem to be running above capacity at the moment, I decided to join an intermediate group for the first week and am now learning together with 2 ladies. Since none of us speaks much Spanish, it´s often quite entertaining what we cook up when trying to tell our stories in Spanish.

Unfortunately school at 8am means getting up at 6:30 just to catch the bus (or ride the bike) to school in time. The majority of the students are staying in a small Bed&Breakfast about 3km outside Playa Flamingo right at the beach. If you weren´t lucky enough to show up here with a spouse or friend, you get a roommate for the duration of your stay - in my case Ken, a lighting operator for the movie and film industy in his mid-40s who fled Vancouver for a month. He´s been working in the industry for a few decades now, and just finished shooting X-men 3 before he got down here. Since I am a movie nut as well we´ve had countless of conversations about movies already - after all he worked on movies ranging from ¨"The 13th Warrior" to "Best in Show" and other gems like¨"Dark Angel". He has robbed me of many illusions about actors and actresses and enlightened me on others. Jessica Alba - albeit cute - is apparently not too bright, Neve Campbell is as much of a sweet heart as she comes across in movies, and Christopher Guest really makes his movies up as he goes along.

Pictures as soon as I find an internet connection that isn´t on dial-up and can accomodate the upload. Not that easy here.

All pictures will be stored on my site at http://markpet.smugmug.com

There is nothing I am passionate about...

... at 3:45 in the morning. That's the time I had to get up in order to catch my flight from Austin to Liberia, Costa Rica last Friday. Would somebody have offered me to fly on a later day, to postpone my trip for a week, or possibly to call the whole thing off and refund the money - I might have done it. It just seems that there is nothing out there that is worth getting up for at 3:45am.

And the flight to Atlanta and on to Liberia confirmed that. The food on a flight isn't much to speak of anymore (snack, anyone? choose between a small bag of pretzels, some cheese crackers, and a chocolate chip cookie) and now they have even eliminated the free alcoholic drinks on international flights. I mean - wasn't that the only thing that made those long transatlantic flights bearable? Taking the edge off with a triple gin tonic?

The liberia airport isn't much to speak of either, but I am a fan of airports that have no doors and windows. Not only does it show that the fear of terrorism isn't as prevalent in the rest of the world, more importantly it also indicates that the weather is always nice. And it is.

There are only two seasons in Costa Rica - Summer and winter. And for my friends up north: The winter here isn't in any way comparable to the slushy streets of seattle or the nippy temperatures outide building 36. No, the winter here (which lasts from October to November) simply means it rains - and for the following 10 months of summer it doesn't. Ever. They only have roofs on the buildings here to provide some shade in the summer. And to keep the countless lizards, ants, and 3-inch spiders from falling on your head.

I just finished my 2nd day of Spanish course in the language academy here (seen to the right) - more about that and the fabulous accomodation just a block from the beach next time.

Now get back to work :)

P.S.: No complaints about typos. There is no spell checking for English here....

Unemployed, in Greenland!

I've made the first 3000 miles southward: Austin, TX. It's not quite Central or South America just yet, but it's a first step on a journey that'll keep me on my feet for the next 6 months. 5 days here before I'll continue on to Costa Rica for 5 weeks to brush up my Spanish, and then on to Buenos Aires, Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego,... for the next 5 months.

It's Tuesday now and for the second day I have been unemployed. Right now it still feels like I am just on a vacation to visit my friends Mat and Heather - and it seems that there is work lurking just around the corner on an upcoming Monday... but I am sure that feeling will subside soon and I'll give in to the acceptance of my new life.... as a bum.

As a matter of fact right now I am an unemployed, homeless pedestrian that is about to become an illegal alien. Now doesn't that feel nice? It's the american dream!

The next days are going to be fun! How does one pack for a six-months trip that takes one to the beach, the lush equatorial rain forest, modern city life, remote desert, rugged costal regions, and moutains and highlands - if one only is to bring a single backpack?

The answer to this is easy and can be found at every airport from Seattle to Miami: sneakers and a sweat suit. I shall try my best.