Fear, Loathing and Pura Vida, or; Back again to Arilapa

This post is particularly exciting to at least me because it adds the fourth country to this ongoing story of backpacking the world, being (between) the two authors: Canada, the United States, Costa Rica, and Panama, listed latitudenally. I wrote it, which now makes it a word, one way or the other. Ive been trying to make it a point to have fun writing lately, so this post may get a bit silly. By the way, it turns out that both Arielle and I made it into Envision Fest's youtube video, which can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_hvRmEXEOA. See if you can find us, and see in more detail what that party was all about.

Last I wrote Arielle and I were still in the final midst of Envision Fest, and getting ready to begin our stay at Finca Nube Nueve, Chantel and Roguer's brand new farm in the Las Tombas neighborhood of Tinamasta, Osa, Costa Rica. The farm is located on two hectares of hilly pasture-land at the base of the Diamante Ridge, which is a giant mountain ridge composed entirely of primary rainforest. Chantel and Roguer are two pioneers in the growing movement back towards mankinds sustainability. Both born and raised in western Canada, they have decided to move their growing family to Costa Rica to live and build a sustainable farming community. Their 5-yr-old daughter Anja is attending local schools, and already developing as bilingual, and their almost two-yr-old son is beginning his development in a multilingual environment. Both children exciting and already very intelligent. Chantel and Roguer are both world travelers, avid surfers, and are both very easy-going, amiable, and easy to work with. In the four-and-a-half weeks that we stayed with them, we were able to build and pour cement foundation columns for the family's container home, build paths, stairways, and the first greenhouse for the farm out of primarily resources harvested on the farm, as well as build drainage ditches to help with access to the farm in the coming rainy season, all while living on the farm and drinking and bathing out of the cabrada [small (for Costa Rica) river]; Arielle also spent time acting as a full-time, live-in nanny to help the family with the vast challenges of parenting young children. In our free time we were able to find one of Costa Rica's most beautiful waterfalls, complete with a twenty foot deep pool at the botton; learn how to surf moderatly sized waves on a boogie-board, and I do in fact mean shredding barrels and getting thrashed by double overhead waves on at least two sessions; and spending time surfing (I did stand up a few times and rode little inside waves on a real surf board, but am still at the very very bottom of a brand new, monsterously difficult learning curve), watching movies and surf-porn, and bumming around Dominical with our fellow volunteer's from the farm, Chris and Nick. Nick and Chris were two fellow world-travelers from the Denver-metro area, who had also found their way to Dominical for Envision. They had basically sold everything in CO and moved down to live in Cenral America, bringing only backpacks and surfboards. Friends for literally their entire lives (I mean they sat together in the delivery room), they were both skinny as rails, but with possibly the mightiest appetites I've yet encountered, a dynamic attributed to healthy diets and super-active lifestyles. The first quote I managed to get out of them was "yeah, we like to work hard, then catch a good buzz." In our time together, we built some cool stuff, worked hard, got buzzed proper, and developed a strange accent that was somewhere between stuffy old british aristocrat, and burned out old Aussie surf bumm. I tried to carry the accent with me when we left the farm, but it just wasn't the same without them. They also taught me the benifits of a healthy lifestyle, both for surfing and for face-pushing, and some more of the language of the ocean, which is also one that is still foreign to me. Y hablando que este, yo estoy aprendiendo espanol, poco a poco. No esta dificil, pero mi y Arielle necesitamos practicar mucho, y hablar mucho solamene en espanol si nosotros queremos aprender. Y no esta bueno todos las fincas asi de trabajos en estan dirigen de gringos. Es bueno, y me gusta aprendiendo un otra idioma. After about four-and-a-half weeks, with our time in Costa Rica beginning to run short, we decided to move on. A friend in Puerto Jiminez owed us some money from our time there, and we decided to head down to try and collect, and to spend one more day in the gardens with the monkeys.
The trip to PJ was entertaining, but unsuccessful economically. The friend had been living off of what he was able to make, and had nothing to give us but a place to stay and some rice and beans. Luckily, that is enough for us after a long day of hitchhiking in a tropical country. Yes, hitchhiking in Latin America, which I'm sure is on most good American's list of things never to even consider thinking about it in rational terms. Turns out it is like hitchhiking everywhere else; lots of people flip you off, and you spend lots of time chilling on the side of some road. Then, some nice person comes along and offres to take you some distance in the direction of wherever it is you are going. You then decide to take, or not take them up on their offer. What happens next is generally fairly pleasant, but is subject to the same random swinging pendulum of fate, just like everything else. Central thesis once again, we got where we were going safely and fairly rapidly. The last ride was even "given" to us for the final cost of 3 dollars per person for the last 35 kilometers. We tried to turn them down, but they had stopped the whole bus (which was full) and wouldn't take no for an answer, so we talked them down from their original price of 8 per person. This was the same bus we had payed 25 dollars for to take us from San Jose to Puerto Jiminez in the first week of our trip to Costa. The money we gave hime went straight into his pocket, and we certainly never recieved anything resembling a ticket or stub, so I still feel like we were swindled a bit, but there hadn't been a car in a while, and we felt bad for the other passangers sitting and waiting on the driver to work on his extortion skills. Plus, it is in fact quite hot on the side of the road in the tropics. But that brings us back now to Puerto Jiminez, where we just were, prior to this vortex shaped tanget I went on. We worked one more day in Tom's jungle, and saw all three monkeys, as well as several mackaws and a whole plethora of other jungle wildlife. Despite the access to good phote ops and great board games, we had already been there, and we sure as hell were not going to get stuck there and be broke in the swamp for our last two weeks in "Paradise." Panama seemed the most logical choice based on the information we had gathered that it was in every way cheaper, friendlier, and quieter than Costa Rica. We found all those things to be true, and spent three days lounging on a beach living off of coconuts and body surfing all day. We also started playing coco-bache, a game involving throwing coconuts around the beach at rocks all afternoon. A truly wonderful game if you ever have the time to play it. We kept score with seashells on a scoreboard drawn into the sand. Sadly, the friend we were traveling with was running out of money faster than we were, and had to head out. We traveled with him to David, Panama so he could get his bus back to Puerto Jimenez, then headed up into the mountains to find some hotsprings we had read about that charged one dollar per person. The springs were amazing, and were located on a 100 hectare finca run by a caballero family. They had seen such an influx of travlers in recent years that the sign they had built at the road to their farm now read 2 dollars per person, but we didn't mind paying. We had an incredible afternoon of soaking in the very nicely done, very simple pools and met several wonderful people from all over the world. After relaxing and soothing the many bug-inflicted wounds we had incured, we decided to head back into David and catch the early bus north back to San Jose the next morning. We had already purchased tickets for this bus when we crossed the boarder in by foot and were turned back until we could furnish proof that we would leave at least some at some point in the next three months, which is how long the bus ticket was open for. We arrived in David, and went the the hotel at the bus station where we had stayed before for the reasonable rate of $10 per night. When we walked in this time, the younger clerk working the desk was not willing to let us stey for less than 35 per person. This was the bulk of our budget, and this did not seem like a prudent way to use it with ten or so days still remaining in our trip. After three hours of wandering David looking for a room, we discovered that even in Panama, hub cities jack up prices on commodities like rooms with a shower. The original 35 per person from the terminal was actual the best price we found, so after a cheap cheap meal from a little corner shop and an hour of gin rumi, we decided that we would just find a good squat for the night and break Arielle's hobo virginity. We walked around the whole area surrounding the bus terminal, and decided that any good spots would not be accessable until the city quited down later in the night. Satisfied with our decision, we sat down at a, outdoor table and starting playing some more cards, aiming to kill a few hours. As the time grew late and the local flavour started to come crawling out, we were forced to re-evaluate our situation. The first couple of crackheads to bother us where harmless old men, and I managed to ward them off by telling them how we had been traveling for some time and had no money, and that's why we were playing cards at a table in downtown David after dark with framepacks and white skin. After the old men, a younger and distinctly more alert local street person came by and asked what we were playing. I showed him, and explained the rules of gin-rumi, as best I could in my broken spanish. After a few hands, he asked if he could join us, and not wanting to be rude, I told him he could. The area we were in was still very well lit and full of people, and all our belongings were immediately visible and within reach. It was actual turning into a fairly pleasant conversation. I was managing to practice my spanish, and communicate with a local, and the man appeared to be harmless, and just frienly and bored. Soon, a proper crack head, the kind with fresh bleeding head-wounds and swollen lips, walked over and asked us for some change. I told him the same thing, that we were flat broke, and didn't even have money for a hotel room. The card-player told the crackhead to fuck off, and we resumed playing. A few minutes later card-player asks us if we want to buy any pot. We told him "no man, like we said, we don't have any money." Then he started asking about our familys, and if they had any money to send us. We politely shrugged the question and brought the card game to an end. We told him that we had to go now and that we heeded to find a place where we could sleep. We started walking in the direction of the bus terminal, and he said he would help us, and picked up Arielle's purse. Arielle pounced, and covered ten feet in a single bound, snatching her purse from his hand with a quickly mumbled "I'll get that." The look that car-player pulled at the manuever was one of pure confusion, and he walked quickly ahead of us with a wave of his arm, as if he would take us someplace safe to sleep. He walked straight to the bus terminal, which was now closed and vacant, and starting motioning at a bush in one of the gardens. He said something that I was unable to understand, even after he repeated it several times, but I think he was trying to get us to burrow in for the night. We shook our heads, and I took out a bandana with a flaming eagle and two skulls on it. He offered it to me and pointed at the dirty black bandanda that I was wearing. He seemed insistant, and so I took the bandana, and tied it onto my head. I offered him my bandana in return, slightly confused by the oddly-timed gift. He shook his head, and so I thrust the dream catcher that had been my first attempt into his hands, that being the only thing i could think of that had any sort of aesthetic value to this man. I explained what it was, and he smiled and thanked me and ran off into the darkness. Arielle and I looked at each other, and headed straight for the hotel, where we walked in and slapped a 20 on the counter. In the best spanish I could muster i told him "this is the last money we have in our possession, and your manager has already made us this deal once before, and God damn it, we are not going to get our fucking innards ripped out by rabid drug-fiends in a foreign country just because you are a fucking errand boy!" The clerk considered our proposal for a moment, then agreed, provided we were out by ten. "Thats fine with us, our bus leaves at 8 in the morning anyway." The shower and cheap latin porn on the television was certainly worth the money, as was the knowledge that it was intirely possible that we had just narrowly avoided a very unpleasant situation. It was also possible that we acted very weird at a harmless local bum who really was just bored and friendly. Either way, I slept much better on a bed that I would have outside, no doubt about that. The next morning, we caught the early bus to San Jose, and made our next random connection while standing in an inspection line to cross back over the Panama/ Costa Rica border.
Ivan is a young looking 30 year old surf bum who lives in Quepos where he has a landscaping company that does all sorts of municipal and private jobs. He also has a finca up in the mountains where he has a tree nursery that specialises in thirty or so species of palm trees. One of Ivan's projects is the reforestation of migratory pathways for the various species of animals affected by deforestation, primarily monkeys, who develop numerous problems caused by inbreeding as the troops are isolated into islands of primary forest. When we asked him if he had any projects that he needed help with in exchange for some rice, beans, vegetables and a safe place to put our tent with a water source, he rattled off about six in his first sentance. We started talking about life, the universe, and everything, and decided there in line that we wanted to work together for the next week until Arielle and I would be heading to Arilapa for our last few days in the country. The boarder crossing went completely smoothly until the very last moment, and then blew up into one of the most flagrant abuse of power i've yet witnessed.
Arielle has been harvesting the roots and vines we have been clearing in the last few months of work, and using them to create dozens of dream-catchers that she has been gifting along the way. They are all quite incredible works of organic art, and over the last few months, has built up quite a supply of various stones, feathers, and shells to use in her dream-catchers. With the combined workshop/storage closet/home backpack, we had both become accostomed to there being up to 6 or 7 dream catchers in various stages of production pinned to one or both of our bags at all times. They fit nicely onto the outer rings, and at the time of our crossing, Arielle had about 5 hoops, as well as the first atrapasuenos that she had made, and had been constantly working on strung on the outside of her pack. She also had, behind the dreamcatchers, a custom hand made sign reading "ENVISION 2011" that Russell had gotten us as a gift from a local artist in Dominical who makes custom signs on pieces of driftwood. As fate had it, the dream-catcher I gave the bum in David was the the last one i had at the time, and i didn't have any organic material on my pack. Although I don't think it even would have mattered, because the man assigned to check my pack brushed me through i could even open the thing up. Arielle was not so lucky. The short, skinny, balding, younger Tico thug that saw rings of vines on a pretty white girls pack nearly blew his top. By the time I got there, the evil bastard had worked Arielle to the point of tears by taking all of her dream catchers, the driftwood sign, and digging her pack out like a rabid wolverine until he found a pouch with the feathers and seeds and shells and other assorted supplies that she had gathered in our travels. He even had one of her hemp necklaces in the pile that he had gathered. Arielle's spanish isn't amazing, but I know that she was able to explain that all of these things had come from Costa Rica over the past few months, and that none of this had been a problem when we went through the boarder in the reverse direction. This mean prick was making absolutely no attempt to even communicate with her, though I'm almost positive that a career of boarder-checking in a tourist flooded country has given the man more English than I managed to get out of him. He explained to me that his pile of loot was all under the list of organic materials not to be allowed over the boarder to prevent the spreading of insects and such. I understand the law, and the principles behind it, but all of these things were already from Costa Rica, and I figured that once I explained that to the man in Spanish, he would return Arielle's passport and her supplies, and we'd be on our way. I first calmly explained to him that all of the things he had taken were from Costa Rica already. That we had been working on farms and clearing trails in the botanical gardens in Puerto Jimenez (which was only an hour away), and that the sign came from a local artist in Dominical, and was a gift from a friend and that we were making the dream catchers to give as gifts to our families. In spanish that was spoken much faster than I could understand he told me that he didn't believe me. I grabbed the bracelet from the top of his pile and said, slightly more agitated "Y este! Este de los estados unidos, tiene. para un ano. Y este (picking up the sign), es un regalo de nuestros amigo. De un artiste en la playa en Dominical donde trabajamos para la fiesta de envision! he responded by angrily throwing the bracelet at me and grabbing the sign back. At this point I get a little Taurian, and started to get angry. I grabbed the sign again and told him that it was a gift and the it was very important to us and he replied by very coldly telling me that it was more important to him, and grabbing it back out of my hands. The third time I picked it back off his pile he went into a tirade about how if I interered with his job again, he would sick a pack of rabid, crack-fueled police chihuahas on me, then throw my stupid american ass in jail. I responded as appropriately as my limited spanish would let me, and he stormed off with Arielles passport and the pile of our things, as well as a giant bouque of professionally done orchids that a Tico man had brought with him on the same bus. Luckily our new friend Ivan speaks much better spanish than I do, and with the help of the bus driver, we were able to talk to nazi scumbag into giving us back the sign when we produced official flyers from the festival bearing the ENVISION and Dominical, Costa Rica. He returned Arielles passport, with a small notice of our "Violation", and the sign, along with an angry glare towards me. I moved to grab the dream catchers, saying "Y estos, todos de envision, estan art, art de envision. He retaliated with a speech about what a nice guy he was for even giving us the sign. "I shouldn't even be doing this, but she was crying, and I felt bad." I still think that if i had just slipped the fucker a 20 he would have handed over the whole pile, but he might have been on a quest from god that day to fuck someones day as hard as he could. Our lasting sentiment is that we hope that his miserable little life brings him some joy one day, and that he will see through and come to the light.
Ivan's palm nursery was a beautiful farm/orchard with a large valley of primary jungle. His plans are to eventually turn the place into a sustainable eco-treehouse community. This was just one of many incredible projects that Ivan had running, and we never actually saw him again after he dropped us at the farm. Luckily, Sandy and Chip live on the property in a house that they have built over the last eight years. Wonderful people that treated us like we were their grandchildren while we worked on weeding the nurseries and rebuilding some of the structures that the jungle has eaten over the years. It was during this time that we came to grips with the fact that Arielle's bite had been from some sort of venomous spider somewhere between central Panama and Central Costa Rica. We did find a spider in the tent that I think may have been the culprit, and removed him, but it quickly became evident that Arielles bite have become infected, and I had been biten as many as five times by the same spider. We sought medical treatment for Arielle's infection at a local pharmacy where Chip and Sandy knew a good doctor who they trusted, and got antibiotics for her infection and an antibiotic cream for a mild fungal infection I had gotten on my toe. Everything seemed to clear up nicely over the next few days, and though we had spent the last of our money on the antibiotics, we knew we had a safe place to stay at Arilapa, where we had arranged to work in the gardens in exchange for a room and veggies from the gardens. After one of the best rides we've ever gotten together, certainly the best ride in latin America, me did make it safely to Alijuela, and then caught the local bus up to Arilapa. The ride was a true golden ticket. A van full of college-aged Tico kids rolled passed us and pulled to the side, waving us over on the north end of Jaco, a sluzzy, skeezy little beach city built to prey off of the Gringo sufer/hooker/drug culture. The ride we got in was from a cool local couple who told us they would never pick up a Tico, but always stopped for gringos, who probably really needed the ride if they were asking for it with their thumbs. This was a very ironic counterpoint to the fact that we did not get picked up by one single tourist vehicle the entire time we were here. In fact, the only white person that ever picked us up was the owner of a small Italian restaurant in Uvita who had moved to Costa Rica to raise his family, and didn't really seem like a "gringo". A big hearty FUCK YOU!!!!! with both fingers to all you dirty rotten asshole tourists who wouldn't lift a finger to help another person, even if they looked like they might just be your cousins kids, stranded on the side of the road in a foreign country. I absolutely respect a persons right to choose not to pick someone up for a variety of reasons, but after the tenth Range Rover with two or three waspy ass, gringo muddafukkas actually waved and smiled at us, or honked and waved, then drove by with an empty back seat, I was almost ready to step into the road, make the fuckers stop, then steal the fucking rental car and leave them duct-taped to a palm tree on some obscure beach for the local cops to get to deal with and really give these assholes a reason not to stop. In reality, I just waved and smiled, like I always do, flashed a peace sign for them to see in their rear-view mirror to say "Thanks anyway, drive safe now", but lets not dismiss the theraputic benefits of writing sometimes. It did raise an interesting new point in that people don't seem to trust members of their own "race" who are stuck somewhere and need help. Weird. Serious spastic tangents at 3 in the morning on my last day of this trip to Latin America. In ten hours I need to get on a plane to back to the United States, and I still need to get some sleep, and this is all still a fucking tangent from the ride from jaco to Alijuela. In the spirit of getting some sleep while it's still dark outside, I'll summarize that ride with the first thing that they said once they crammed us into their van. I asked them if they were students, down on vacation for the easter weekend, and the one sitting next to me yelled "NO, Somos alcoholicos!!" followed by a loud round of cheering and yelling from the group. Good, good kids who got us safely back to familiar waters.
Once we were safely settled at Arilapa, i started researching the bites, which were all quite painful, based off of a very distinct pattern of symptoms that all the bites had followed, letting us deduce that Arielle had picked the spider up and gotten the first bite, then it got into the tent and bit me three times on the left leg one night, and twice on the right leg the next night. All my research pointd to a spider with necrotic venom, which causes the cells and tissue around the bite to die while preventing the build up of dead cells into scabs, thus creating a wound that basically eats itself away into a small hole that slowly oozes out the puss and blood. This is even less fun than in sounds in writing, i promise. The family of spider typically associated with necrotic venoms is the loxosceles family, of which there are two spiders that live living in Costa Rica and Panama. This family is the same family as the brown recluse of the American southwest, and i think that they are called reaper spiders down here, but i have been unable to find any pictures of the actual spiders i'm looking for to confirm or disconfirm my theory. when my foot started swelling up on easter sunday my friends quickly talked me into going to a hospital, where a doctor said that yes, the spider bites were probably recluse spiders, and turns out the cream that the pharmacist gave me did nothing for the infection in my foot, which was made worse by the presence of the potent venom. he prescribed me an antibiotic that would combat both the infection and the venom, and advised me to keep them clean. I have been using a combination of oregano oil and fresh Aloe vera, as well as lots and lots of neosporin, and the combination of herbal supplements and antibiotics seems to have worked for both Arielle and My bites/infections. The last few days we have been weeding the crap out of the gardens at Arilapa and trying as hard as we can to repay the wonderful hospitality that they have bestowed upon us every time we have been here. That, i think is the last i'm going to write until I make it safely home stateside later this afternoon. Thanks to anyone that made it this far, stay tuned for pictures, they will be coming in the next few days with an update on the whole situation. And remember when you read this that every single morning of your entire life you wake up with the choice to change your life, today. Pura Vida!!!!!

West Coast Attitude

Today we are one day shy of six weeks, the half way point of our trip to Costa Rica. We found one computer where we have been able to update pictures, but only got some up on facebook before we got cut off, and so once again, pictures are forthcoming. That said, the story so far: Puerto Jiminez was an exciting place. we did stay out our two weeks, and stayed for that time in a small tico house near the ocean. We worked from 7 until noon monday through saturday doing trail maintenance in the Herrera Botanical Gardens of Puerto Jiminez. In our free time we had two sea-kayaks, a 25 hectare biological preserve, and a jungle pirate companion from south Florida to keep us busy. The gardens offered us the experience of watching whole troops of white face and squirrel monkeys from as close as 5 meters. Arielle also began harvesting the roots and vines we cleared from the trails and has been using them to weave dreamcatchers that she has been gifting along our travels. We got to see a little bit how local life works on the Osa peninsula, and learned tons about the local flaura and fauna from the Willy Wonka-like Tom. After our two weeks though, we decided that we were ready to move on, so for Arielle´s birthday, we headed north again to the beautiful Arilapa.
Arilapa is a place that we did not write nearly enough about on our last post. Nestled high in the hills surrounding Alijuela, one of San Jose´s suburbs, this bed and breakfast completly embodies the local expression Pura Vida, roughly translated as the good life. Though not posted on many of the conventional travel listings, Arilapa constantly has a flow of travelers coming and going, primarily in or out of the airport which is only ten minutes away. The very enigmatic owners have created one of the most welcoming places we have ever seen. A few of our friend are currently living there, and we were hoping to go on a river trip with them for Arielle´s birthday. Though the river trip didn´t work out, we made a new friend who offered us a place to stay for a week if we would help him build a fence on his new property. He also told us about a couple who is building an organic farm right now, and looking for volunteers. In exchange for our help, he gave us a week of surf lessons and a room in the beautiful house that he and a friend are currently renting in Uvita, Puntarenas, Costa Rica. The week of working and surfing led us right up to the Envision Festival being held in the beach town of Dominical. Put on by a group based out of San Fransisco and Boulder, this four day festival contained interactive workshops on yoga, meditation, chakra work, sustainable agriculture, organic farming and permaculture, building with bamboo, as well as art and music across a wide spectrum of genres. Our three favorite acts were Bluetech, based out of Hawaii, Future Simple Project, based out of Boulder, CO, and Random Rab out of San Fransisco. We were able to slide into a volunteer position that gave us an all-access pass for the weekend in exchange for 20 or so hours of work, involving greeting, parking, carrying stuff, tickets, setup, and breakdown. The festival was a very incredible experience where we met hundreds of amazing people and made contacts all over the world. Lots of whompy fun electronica and reggea and all kinds of good stuff on the beach in Costa Rica. Today we have been running around making friends, cleaning up the festival grounds, and trying to be helpful wherever we can. Tomorrow we start work with our new friends, Shantel and Roguer, a beautiful couple with two beautiful children who are in the very beginning stages of building their organic farm. We are super excited about the experience, and will be working for them in exchange for room and board for as long as they need us. Hesitant plans right now are to spend the rest of March in this area, then spend April traveling around the northern part of the country, then fly back in May for a few weddings in CO before heading up to Alaska. Or maybe the east coast, or maybe somewhere else entirely... who knows. Once again, pictures to come, but there are some on facebook. Thanks for following, more to come.
Pura Vida
James and Arielle

At home in Paradise

Today we moved into the cozy little beach bungalow that we will be living in for the next two weeks. This living situation comes with the new job we got doing trail maintenance in the botanical gardens in Puerto Jiminez, CR. We are still out on the Osa peninsula, which is one of the most beautiful places either of us has ever seen. Just today we have already seen Whiteface monkeys, caimains, dolphins, turtles, scarlet mackaws, a stingray, and wild chickens; and it is only 4:30. Unfortunatly, we are writing this on the same computer in the same internet cafe that will still not mate with our camera, so no pics yet, but they are coming, i promise. Over the last week we traveled out to the far end of the Osa to meet Lana at her Luna Lodge. Unfortunatly, she did not have room for any volunteers, but she was kind enough to show us the hospitality of her lodge for a night. It is truly a beautiful place, nestled in the mountains overlooking the Pacific ocean, next to some of the last primary rainforest left in the country. If you ever have a few thousand dollars to spend on a weekend of yoga, this is the place to do it. After we left the lodge, we camped for a few nights right on the beach, and spent a few glorious days doing absolutely nothing but sunbathing, reading, playing with the hermit crabs and coatamundi (tropical raccoons) and eating coconuts off the tree. Everything is falling beautifully into place, and we are super excited to start work tomorrow in the gardens. Our new boss Tom is an old head from the states who was ranked 2nd in the world in warhammer (superdork, we´re stoked!). we are planning on working at this place until Arielle´s birthday when we will go sea kayaking with dolphins. Hope everyone stateside is enjoying all the snow for us, shred that pow baby!!! More to come, thanks for checking in.
James and Arielle

Strangers in a strange land

Well we made it! after several long days of traveling, we find ourselves in a little internet cafe in Puerto Jiminez, waiting on a bus to take us across the Osa peninsula to Carate, where we will make our way up to Luna Lodge, our first destination. This country truly is a lush jungle paradise, and we are very excited to make our first connection. Our first two nights were spent at the Arilapa bed and breakfast in Alijeula, a very beautiful little oasis of paradise located in the middle of the city. we have takin a bunch of pictures already, but this computer does not have any way for us to get them on here, so once again i must say pictures to come... we are feeling very excited, though certainly a bit overwhelmed. this is the farthest out of our comfort zones that either of us has ever been, and mi español needs a lot of work. more to come, thanks for following.
James and Arielle

The Next Level

Over a year has passed since I last wrote on here, and quite a lot has happened. Most importantly, I met my girlfriend, Arielle Watkins, while hitchhiking up to Crested Butte for dinner one night. I had been standing on the side of the road for about twenty minutes when a girl walked up and stuck her thumb out thirty yards or so in front of me. At first, I was a little annoyed, especially when a car pulled over for her in the first few minutes. Surprisingly, she called out for me to come take the ride because I had been there first, and I quickly ran up to the road to oblige. As it turned out, the car was only going to CB South, and I turned down the ride, not wanting to get stuck in the middle. Arielle had the same thought, and so we stood and talked until a tow truck came along and picked us both up. Not seeing any reason to fight with fate, we started dating almost immediately, and within 6 months she was living with me. Before I could even make it a full year in my apartment we had bought a Subaru Loyale(named spaceman spiff) and taken off for California, intent on finding the trim work that had eluded me the previous year. This time, we hit gold. Green gold. After following a very loose trail to Whitethorn, CA, we found ourselves parked on the side of the road waiting for our friend Henry to pass by so we could flag him down and seek employment from the people he was working for. About an hour into our second day, Allie, our new friend-to-be came riding by on a bike, and asked us what we were doing. We asked if she knew Henry, and she said that she did. She rode back to the farm to send him out, and we had made contact. The next two months were something of a neon green and purple blur that found us at three different outdoor farms in three different counties trimming California cash crop number one, cannabis. Because some of the things that happened over those few months may or may not have been completely legal, details have been omitted. The moral of the story is: quick cash is never what you thought it was going to be, and money makes monkeys of us all. Also, California is a very silly place, where the rednecks smoke pot, the hippies carry guns, and the only thing holding the whole place together is the wingnut on every corner. We did meet a whole plethora (i love that word) of very interesting people, made a ton of new friends from around the country, and saw all kinds of crazy cool shit, so the trip was by no means a loss. Especially because it was finally able to pay for some plane tickets to take the "world journey" back online. After spending the holidays with friends and family around Colorado, we are flying to Costa Rica on the 31st to go do some backpacking around Latin America. We will be volunteering through the WWOOF program in Costa Rica, and other than that, plans are still pretty loose, which is just the way we like it...

On a semi-related side note, Chase is still up in New England, doing some very cool, very Chase things. He may or may not be posting in the near future, but he is doing quite well, and we are hoping to go spend some time up there in the summer when we get back. Also, Arielle will probably make her debut soon, and we are sure to have tons of exciting adventures and pictures on the way, so please feel free to keep checking in. Sorry it has been so long, but I'm super excited to be back, and ready to start taking things to a whole new level in 2011.
Peace, love, and happiness to anyone that reads this, and anyone that doesn't.
- The Gonzo Nomad

A New Beginning All Over Again

I'm not sure if anyone is even reading anymore, we kind of let this thing drift off, and I'm sorry. Our grand adventure to backpack around the world has been put on hold. Chase found some incredible opportunities that could not be passed up, and after traveling alone for a few months I decided to discontinue my rambling as well, at least for now. I feel now more than ever the desire and the need to start maximizing my potential, and the life of the tramp had become distinctly unsatisfying. I made it safe to California, though it turned out not to be quite the lucrative venture I had anticipated. It was, however, quite a finish to an amazing summer. From Gunnison and Durango, I headed up to Grand Junction, where I caught my last real golden ticket of the summer. After two beautiful Crested Buttians got me to I-70, i only waited twenty or so minutes before I was picked up by Bill. Bill was a 77 year old Virginian who was making his annual pilgrimage cross-country to see his family in Nappa county. We traveled together for two days through the barren, desolate wastelands of Utah and Nevada, cruising at high speeds down "America's loneliest highway," Route 50. After he dropped me off outside Sacramento, I was picked up almost immediately by a very friendly Californian who got me the rest of the way to highway 101 while we talked about Carl Jung and true love. I spent the next three weeks bouncing up and down that highway like a pinball on crack. I went as far north as Arcada, and as far south as Santa Cruz, and couldn't for the life of me find what I was looking for. I think that was because I didn't really know what I was looking for. It sounds kind of silly, but I guess I was looking for the American Dream; this great golden opportunity that would drop wealth and security in my lap and get me to that point that I should always have been at, if only I'd just had the money. Fat chance, I know, but I was so sure it was out there waiting for me. California is a strange place though, and I found myself out of place even on the road. Everywhere I went, hordes of street kids occupied town parks and highway sides. There was even a line at the on-ramp in Garberville, with some 5 different groups of kids waiting to hitch, while dozens more hung out in the shade and waited for the heat of the day to pass. It was strange, because all my rides were great, but anytime I would get where I was going, I would feel strange and need to move on. I felt almost no connection to these kids that were doing the same thing as I was, only somehow completely different. Then one night, after pursuing a tip for some work from a friend to Lake Port, CA, I met Molly McCloud. She actually stopped me while I was walking up the road looking for a place to sleep, and after a few minutes conversation, she offered me a place to stay. I think we both fell in love, briefly, with the idea of each other, and we had a very strange, very interesting couple of days together. She ended up being the last straw though. After several weeks of confusion and chaos, the emotional roller coaster she ran me through left me completely burnt out. From Lake Port, I bolted straight for Colorado. I am now in Gunnison, CO, my home. I have decided to return to Western State College to finish my degree and get it behind me. After two years now of drifting somewhat aimlessly, I am very excited to be putting my talents and efforts towards some more intellectual pursuits, concentrating and focusing inwards once more. I would like to thank everyone very sincerely for taking such wonderful care of me and providing me my path. I am currently working on a novel of my travels and experiences, and I hope to see that project finished in the not too distant future. Many of you will be in this book, and I thank you for all your inspirations. I also have some very interesting plans for this site in the future, so don't forget about it completely. I would love to keep in touch with everyone that cares too, my e-mail address is james.holzer@yahoo.com. I have a facebook and myspace at the same name, and if you e-mail me, i will give you my cell phone, which is turned back on again. Though my travels have taken a temporary break, my journey continues to take me places I could never have imagined, and I am constantly held in awe at the splendor that is life. And it is a fleeting thing, life, so make sure to cherish it always, and take advantage of every single moment. Thank you for sharing my journey with me, see you next time.
- James Holzer, The Gonzo Nomad.

California or Bust

First off, sorry again for the long delays in posts. It has been a very pleasant couple of weeks now running around Colorado, and I just haven't made the time to sit down and update. Last we spoke, I was eagerly awaiting Yonder at Red Rocks, and then planning on heading out to Burning Man with Chase. As per usual, life did not go "according to plan." After some serious discussion, Chase and I decided not to attend Burning Man this year. After months of looking forward to it, we realized that we were really not anything close to prepared to go spend a week in the desert living the way we have been living, and so we made other plans. Chase returned to Massachusetts to pursue some leads that he had established there, but I'll let him get more into that himself. I ended up staying in Colorado and bouncing around the state for a while waiting for a Ween show at Red Rocks. Quick note, Yonder was amazing, as predicted. We got a pretty good family crew together for the show, and the Yonder Mountain boys threw the fuck down! To top it all off, at the end of the night, they gave copies of their new CD away to everyone in the sold-out crowd. The next week, I saw my first Ween show, also at Red Rocks. It was another great show, and I got to see a bunch of friends I hadn't seen together in some 3 years. Afterwards, we all caravaned up to the Macy house in Conifer to shoot pool and drink beer all night. Thank you again to Mike and Julie for letting us use their beautiful home while they were away celebrating their 25 year anniversary. Right now, I am in Durango getting everything ready for my return to the Pacific, and soaking up as much Rocky Mountain sun as I can. I have spent the last few weeks trying to figure out exactly what it is that I am going to do with myself. My journey does not seem to be moving with quite the inertia that it was at the beginning of the summer, and I have been doing my best to figure out why. While I was in Gunnison, there ended up being some family issues that I needed to be present for, and while I was around, Gunnison did it's best to get back under my skin. Right now I am torn pretty equally between returning to Western State College for the spring semester or continuing the journey despite the loss of my traveling partner. In the 4 months that have elapsed, I have already learned a very great deal about myself and the role I will play in the changes to come, and I feel like getting stationary again for a little while to reflect and be productive could finally be a good thing. I also feel that if I decided to, I could still fan the flames back up and carry this thing as far as it can go. Either way, tomorrow I will be heading out to California to pursue some work. I made several connections on farms around the state, and am going to try and go make some money for the fall harvest season. Hopefully, by next week sometime I'll have found someplace to hang out for 6 weeks or so and make some money for the winter. I have finally found my own personal yoga practice, and am looking forward to some good hard farm work and some time to delve inward for a little while and figure out my next step. It was really cool, because after getting stuck in Gunnison for two extra days, the first person to stop took me all the way from Blue Mesa reservoir to Durango. I jumped in his car, and he asked me where I was going, saying that he didn't really know himself. He was on vacation, and hadn't been through that part of Colorado in 25 years, since his stint at Western State in the 70's, and asked what the drive to Durango was like. After telling him a little bit about Ouray and Red Mountain Pass, he got real excited, and he even ended up letting me drive his cool Pontiac G5 over the mountain. This one ended up being a little bit more journal entry than anything else, so thanks for sticking with me. More to come...