June 13: Jaco (San Jose)

(1) The Pink Palace! Early in the morning, we hired another cab to drive us from San Jose out to Jaco. Having seen the other coast, Jerome and I comprimised that we would just relax in a comfortable place until it was time to go home. So, we found ourselves back at the Copa Cabana and our new room. It wasn't completely finished, but it was more than enough for our needs. Later in the day, I walked over to Walter's Surf Shop and rented the surfboard seen in the corner by my bed.

(2) Here's my question. Is it kind of obvious or PAINFULLY obvious that I'd never surfed before? Out on the water, Jerome was in comedy heaven as he watched me get knocked around by the huge waves. Trying to surf in Jaco without a lesson was like attempting to teach a child how to hit a baseball by making him face Nolan Ryan. Still, more than once I managed to stand for a few seconds before falling to my humiliation. Because I'm a good sport, for the rest of the evening I gave Jerome some added laughter by talking like Johnny Utah from Point Break: "Yeah, dude, waves were cresting at around six. Good swells. Breakin' real clean. Had a few good pulls, rode 'em real tight." Whatever. It was fun. I surfed in Costa Rica.


(3) That night, at Beetle Bar, we met this guy. He was a total pervert, obviously in Costa Rica for one reason. Jerome and I ended up having a couple drinks with him and, as a tag-team duo, managed to get the whackjob all fired up about the crazy, disgusting things he wanted to do with the girls he planned to hire. I'm not sure that he ever caught on to the fact that, at that moment, he existed solely for our amusement, but Jerome and I reached a level of laughter where it became difficult to breathe. FInally, we did some shots with the poor bastard, and left the bar to see more of the strip before crashing out.