Travel

My brother is still travelling around the Americas. He sends funny emails. They deserve a wider audience. Also, I’ve got nothing.

Hi folks,
Greetings from Costa Rica…the name of the place means rich coast in case ye were wondering. Having an amazing time landed in San Jose on Oct 31…the town I stayed in first is right beside the airport it’s called Alajuela and is the second city. From Alajuela I met a few people that had a car and we went to the Poas volcano….to see the raw ferocity of nature, unfortunately we could only hear it as the crater of the volcano was covered by dense cloud, in fact the visibility was so bad that I could barely see the picture of the volcano on the board beside the view point.

Next was into San Jose….I have a strange ambition in life to ask stupid questions (an ambition oddly unfulfilled by years of obsessive curiosity) like going into Tiffany’s in New York and asking for breakfast or asking someone how long the Camptown race track is or asking someone does it rain in southern California (although the latter was answered emphatically yes by mother nature during my visit there). So in the taxi to San Jose I was presented with the ideal opportunity to ask the driver ‘do you know the way to San Jose’ …….hoping for a fitting acknowledgement of my great wit instead I got a confused look and a reply ‘of course I know the way to San Jose I’m a local taxi driver’ I said you know the song attempting to back track…..negative…tried to change the subject for a way out but the increasingly uncomfortable situation ended up with me having to produce a rendition of the song which was even worse than the original if you can imagine that. The driver couldn’t produce a false laugh to conclude the episode ……finally I escaped the Irish way by talking about the weather.

Next stop was Montezuma on the Pacific coast….planned only to stay 2 days but ended up there a week, it was that kind of place. I took Spanish lessons for the week and made impressive progress albeit from a low base, so much so that I was able to spot the error in the name of the hotel where I stayed next, Casa tranquilo was the name, I questioned the owner why it wasn’t Casa Tranquila as casa was a feminine noun, it turns out I was right but that the incorrect name would be more catchy for the Gringo tourists. I also went surfing with somewhat less success, did manage to get standing on the board just about but with about as much control as a trainee teacher in a northside school.

I stayed in a really cool place in Montezuma called Luna llena (full moon). It was in the middle of the jungle which was amazing except for the time I woke up in the middle of the night to see a giant cockroach buzzing around, I’m afraid to say I left myself down badly; I was completely unable to retain my strong silent type composure, I eventually managed to kill the bug after a terrifying struggle. The mozzies also seemed to see my legs as an all you can eat buffet. Otherwise everything was brilliant met great people and had an absolute blast. The other big thing there was yoga, in new age speak the whole idea is to become one with el cuerpo and connect with the source, I’m afraid during my attempt at yoga the source remained distant, I listened to my body as instructed but my body answered back what the hell are you doing you muppet, I’m definitely in need of more enlightenment.

Next was inland to Monteverde which is a cloud forest, the big thing here is spotting wildlife in the forest. Day 1, got up at 5am for a bird watching trip, (you are thinking there is something drastically wrong here 5am me and bird watching could never inhabit the same sentence unless as a set up for a punch line or something, but no this is a statement of fact, I really did do this). We got to see some cool stuff including the Toucan from the Guinness commercial, I didn’t get any cool photos, spectacular wildlife shots are typically not captured by a sleep deprived, unskilled photographer with a severely mistreated compact camera. Also did a night hike and got to see a tarantula which was very impressive. At the moment I am in a place which is known for it’s active volcano…going to see the lava fields today, my knowledge of thermal landscapes has not been developed since Inter Cert Geography so there’s going to be some scope to learn something new I’d say……will report back.

Regular readers will recall that my brother is taunting us from his extended holiday in the US. Despite myself, I must concede he is funny. Consider this email:

Report on the trip around the S. West. I set out from San Diego in a gigantic gas guzzling SUV, got up sold in the car rental place very easily; how Mum and I are related I’ll never know. First stop was Joshua tree NP in the dessert. The ‘town’ I was staying in was Yucca Valley, like a lot of rural places in America it was basically just a strip of fast food joints, motels and stores on the highway…..no character but tell me where in Ireland could you get a Burrito at 01.30am (and 7am too probably)?

Next morning I went to the rangers station. Even with my So Cal bronzed skin I suppose it’s fair to say I don’t look like a species that’s ideally adapted to life in the dessert, however, the ranger gave me a concerned look like I was a black guy going to a Ku Klux Klan meeting. I was warned of the dangers of dehydration and hiking in a remote area. Suitably apprehensive, setting out I nearly cleared a gas station of their entire stock of bottled water. On into the park…vast haunting open spaces…it was a strange landscape. The Joshua trees were named by Mormon settlers after the biblical character, there was some reason for this I didn’t altogether understand.

It was hot but I did only short hikes. On the first hike, with the warnings ringing in my ears I loaded up on water, I was in more danger of a broken back carrying the water than I was of dehydration. The U2 album the Joshua tree was inspired by this landscape, no wonder they were obsessed by nuclear devastation. I was hoping to find the tree from the album cover, but it was take your pick from millions of them.

Next morning it was off to the Mojave desert , it made Joshua Tree look like a metropolis, there was a place with two broken down sheds that got a mention in the map (Cima check it on Google maps, seemingly the 2nd city of the Mojave). The main place in the park was Kelso, a renovated railway station, which served as a visitors centre. It was pretty cool saw a Union Pacific train passing very slowly, there must have literally been hundreds of freight containers (no passenger trains use this route any more). I enquired about hiking routes and got more concerned looks from the ranger but at this stage I was more confident of my dessert survival skills.

I was revelling in the vastness and solitude when suddenly the decision to rent the gas guzzler came back to bite me in the ass. Having passed up an option to get gas before I entered the park on the basis it was too expensive (although still half the price of Ireland) I found myself in the middle of nowhere when the display suddenly jumped from 100 miles to empty to 40 miles to empty. Night was falling (why did I ever watch that movie Deliverance) and the nearest gas station was 40 miles away. Driving style went from all action 4 wheel driving to Driving Miss Daisy. After a long and stressful hour, (no radio just in case…I didn’t want to get stranded in the desert due to listening to Country and Western music), hoping that Sat Nav was correct in its identification of a gas station, and that it would also be open, eventually just as the message on the dash came up saying ‘you’re rightly fucked now’ out of the vastness came the magnificent sight of a Neon sign with a yellow shell. Phew!!! I pulled up to the pump and fed my thirsty chariot. As soon as the relief of not dying alone in the desert had faded I was mightily miffed at the price of the gas (…5 dollars a gallon, I suppose I’m related to Mum after all) and as well in my panic I filled up much more than I actually needed to get to Las Vegas where the tour was starting from.

I proceeded from there to Vegas without further incident. No roulette table for me though, early night was needed as I was up at the crack dawn to kick off my tour……to be continued, my hopeless editing skills have meant that my email about the tour has gone over the max before I even started talking about the tour……

Take it easy,

PS Before all the pedants get back I freely admit I’m not sure if spelling of desert is correct it could either be a harsh dry landscape or something sweet to be consumed after dinner (but rarely found in the parents’ house), it should be clear from the context which is intended.