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itravelwrong-blog · 7 years ago

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Contra fighters and Attack Monkeys.

I guess there are two types of folks that travel. The ones chasing something or the ones running away from something. In the winter of 2011 I had just broken up with my girlfriend and my sister was shooting a wedding in Jaco Costa Rica. Yeah, I was running. Looking back on it always evokes an old adage that describes the true essence of the running type. ‘When life gives you lemons, flee the fucking country!’.

So, after dutifully dropping out of college and blocking my ex on Facebook I set out for Costa Rica. Blablabla first traveling experience, blablabla epiphany about finally experiencing the world or some shit like that, blablabla finally arrived in our cabana in Playa hermosa.

My brother in law had a friend that, as with many culture negating gringos, had invested in real estate out in Playa hermosa. Not far from Jaco, playa hermosa boasts world class surfing and honestly is one of the prettiest beaches that I’ve ever seen. The cabana that we were staying in was nestled on a forested hillside overlooking the beach. I can still remember seeing the thin white strands of the waves gently caressing the pristine white sand......wait I told you I wouldn’t write like that. Anyway It was a nice spot, and had the luxury destination feel that gringos enjoy. As comfy as it was, It was only two thirds built. That’s right, we got a deal on the place because the dam building was still under construction! Never the less the place had a shower overlooking the beach/selva, a beautiful view from the massive balcony, and a guard with a Baretta and a storied past.

They called him the mariachi, a stoic yet kind guy from Nicaragua that managed the team looking after our place. He really hit it off with us and so one evening Danny (my brother in Law) and I thought we’d buy enough alcohol to drown a small country and invite him over. Spoiler alert: We got wasted. Two things happened that night that are burned into my memory almost as bad as the pursuant hangover that I experienced the next morning (I actually woke up at like 2PM)..

1) Drinking with people from different countries is a great way to experience local culture. That’s a lie. No it’s not. But it is an honest experience that can help open a dialogue through chemically impaired inhibitions. For instance, that evening as a storm rolled in from the pacific silently flickering with lightening as it was pushed our way on a warm and determined wind, I met an ex Contra fighter.

About 9 beers into the evening he begins to explain to us that he was a soldier at one point. Naturally (drunkenly) I ask him to elaborate and he candidly explains that he was in the army fighting against president Ortega during the civil war. This is where it gets sad folks: In case you didn’t know, His side lost BAD. his career as a soldier ended when the helicopter that he was in suffered a malfunction after taking fire and crashed tumbling through the selva, killing two of his friends and leaving him grievously wounded. The gnarled patchwork of scar tissue on his torso were the only things he had to remind him of his service to his home country. He was working in Costa Rica as a guard because he had experience killing people, and he’d be killed if he tried to return home. Next time you, the reader, think that you have a hard life, reread this section and then promptly fuck yourself.

2)Monkeys should be respected, Loved and also feared. After this experience my facebook was littered with photos of me gloriously posing with my new ‘friend’ Oli the monkey. The mariachi had rescued him a year earlier when his mom died from electrocution on the powerline feeding our cabana. Yep, the house that a gringo built for gringos that I, the gringo, was staying in; Literally killed this poor guy’s mom! Real estate development at it’s best, truly. After nursing him back to health the Mariachi did what I wouldn’t have done (I’m selfish and want a pet monkey) and released him back into the wild. I wasn’t there though I’d assume that it was a tender moment between two companions parting ways after bonding through a shared experience ( Electro house murder). Sending the little fella on his way lasted an entire 6 hours. He returned to the Mariachi’s house Basically beaten to death by the local pack of Capuchin monkeys that lorded over his section of the forest. Thus, the Mariachi had entered a new stage in life, as a dad.

When we first rolled up to the cabana, Oli peered at us from the tree house that the Mariachi had built for him and then slowly warmed up over the next few days. On the night that Danny, the Mariachi, and I were getting trashed he was in amazing form. We had realized as time went on that he absolutely despised my sister, like actually wanted harm to come to her. At one point he almost made of with her camera. I don’t know if there’s some kind of unspoken code for destination photographers (like my sister), but if there is, the part of it regarding monkeys and cameras must be grim and dire. Not only did Oli bite her a few times, chase her around the place, and literally pull out a tuft of her hair, this monkey was now going after her livelihood. Looking back, this was a pretty good example of how monkeys should be respected and enjoyed at a distance far far away from Bug (my sister).

By the time my sister had returned from her shoot the three of us were proper drunk. And so was the monkey. I had left my beer on the hood of the car that we rented for maybe a minute. I didn’t worry about it being gone until I saw who had it, the fucking monkey. He pounded that thing. I’ve heard rumors about alcoholic monkeys in resort areas before, but never had I seen it before in all of it’s environmentally devastating glory. It was hilarious until Bug came back. Turns out, he was a mean drunk. Bug had to run as fast as she could to the house to escape him. She made it, but I’m sure that event still haunts her to this day.

As the evening wound down (outta Booze) the Mariachi bid us a cordial farewell and made his merry way back to his place across the driveway from us. It was a shack. The guy building the houses let the guy guarding the houses live in a shack. Bug and Dany never saw what transpired as I walked him to the door, though with the first first fledgling notes of the storms arrival my friend, the Mariachi face planted and I had to help him back home.

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itravelwrong-blog · 7 years ago

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I have no Idea how to start a travel blog........

.......So I guess I’ll just tell you a little about myself. My name is Rusty and I travel.. Hell, off to a good start! Anyway I’ve got about five years living abroad under my belt and I figured I’d share some of them with you.

A couple of things to note before I start writing actual stories about my experiences.

1) I’m not going to be waxing poetically about my intrepid life as a “world citizen” go read some other duchebag’s travel blog (of which there are literally thousands on here) if you’re looking for the granola woke experience

2) A lot of my stories will be humorous, some will be sad, I do have opinions about expats and their impact on local culture, and I am not going to go out of my way to be politically correct. Trigger warning, deal with it.

3) I spent about half a decade as an international development worker in some of the poorest regions of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. Holier than thou? Not a fucking chance. I’d like to think that I helped a lot of people by helping to build schools and social housing. However, at the end of the day I recognize that the communities that I worked with knew what was best for them. No amount of privileged gringo do-gooders can truly no whats best for a community that isn’t theirs to begin with.

Buckle up butter cup. I’m gonna write some shit!

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