There wasn't much going on in terms of weather or other people on the Pacific coast of Costa so anticipating a bit some sunshine and friends we decided to make the move over to the Caribbean coast, to Puerto Viejo in particular. We rolled into Rocking J's, the wild hostel we'd been hearing about everywhere http://www.rockingjs.com/ . This place is insane, basically like a compound of tents, hammocks, some dorms and private room, a bar, restaurant, 2012 bunker, all of it covered in bright tile mosaics and painting done by the crowd this place attracts. It was actually kind of off putting at first because the whole hippy thing was just so in your face and not exactly what we were expecting. Fortunately though, that evening a few like minded travelers grouped together and we fired up a game beer pong which turned into Canada vs the World flipcup, which turned into $1 shots of the local hard alcohol (disgusting), which turned into a dance party at a nearby bar called Tasty Waves.
Had a pretty fun night and met a bunch of people from all over the world like Australia, Murica, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, and who knows elsewhere. This was pretty awesome because we hadn't really met any other travelers yet and that always makes things more fun. When we showed up we were told about people being held up and robbed by guys with machetes in the forest, one guy was even cut when he tried to chase the bandit down. Still, we braved the wild road (not actually wild at all) and road some bikes to the Jaguar Animal Rescue Centre. I'm going to have to do a separate post for that since I took a bunch of great photos on my real camera and cant really find anywhere that has a computer with a working usb port and fast enough internet to handle large photos. Still, it was cool as hell. We got to see some spiders, snakes like boa constrictors and vipers, got to play with howler monkeys and spider monkeys, saw sloths, green tree frogs, falcons (saw one get fed a live mouse), an owl, two ocelots, and all sorts of other cool animals I've never seen before. I totally recommend seeing this place to everyone who travels through Puerto Viejo as it was definitely one of the highlights for me so far.
We rented surf boards one day an attempted to surf some small Caribbean waves with little success. I did manage to stand up a couple times though so it was worth it, don't expect a surf career from this guy anytime soon though.
From Puerto Viejo we headed down to Panama to check out the islands of Bocas Del Toro. After a long wait in line at the border, we were sitting in a shuttle bus waiting to get going when our two Aussie mates J-Rod and Jim randomly rolled up. We teamed up with them and ended up staying at the same place in Bocas called Aqua Lounge. Aqua is by far the coolest place I've ever stayed at http://www.bocasaqualounge.info/ . Basically it's a hostel/bar that's built on the turquoise water... There's a set of swings and a trampoline set up right beside the water, dedicated beer pong tables, free pancakes every morning, and some of the biggest parties in Bocas. Soo basically heaven for me. One day we went on what was supposed to be a snorkel trip to 5 different islands but turned out to be more of a boat tour and one hour of snorkeling.. We still saw some cool fishies and coral as well as the most beautiful beach I've ever seen. Once again I'm sorry to say that I'll have to do a separate post for the snorkel tour because all the photos are on my Gopro... Other than that we spent our days at Aqua Lounge jumping off stuff into water all day and all night, playing beer pong and flip cup, and taking advantage of $0.50 happy hours with our Aussie mates and other pals from around the world.
I have a lot more photos to add that actually have some thought behind them soooo stay tuned for when I find a better computer!
Hammock City at Rocking J's
A cute baby mammal of some sort with a long tongue.
Green tree frog
Cahj bikes.
Puerto Viejo
A very small example of Rocking J's
Not uncommon at Rocking J's
Evan walking across no man's land into Panama
Daily pancakes at Aqua Lounge
Aqua Lounge
Typical Aqua Lounge activities with Jeff
Sunset from Aqua Lounge overlooking Bocas town.
Panama has some weird money called Balboa's which look like toonies but are only worth $1. They use American currency for everything else.
We're been on the Nicoya Peninsula for a couple of days now, started off with a casual bus ride from San Jose and across a ferry to a little ocean town called Montezuma. Montezuma is tiny! It only has two paved roads and you have to take an ATV or 4 wheel drive vehicle to travel any of the other roads outta there. We showed up, found a nice lil place to stay on the beach, then hopped in the ocean, did cahj things and then that night while we were sleeping the craziest rain storm I've ever seen kicked up and lasted all night, and the next night (wasn't too quiet on the tin roof). We originally went there with the goal of hiking up to a couple of waterfalls where you can apparently jump off one and ropeswing into the other but this rain storm caused a bit of a flash flood soo we couldn't walk up the river too far, still tried though..
We kinda ran out of things to do there so we hopped on another bus to Santa Teresa. Showed up in another tiny little dirt road town, not exactly sure whether we're staying in Santa Teresa or Mal Pais but it's still sick regardless. We're staying at a pretty nice place called Mal Pais surf camp, it has a pool, open air bar with pool and ping pong, howler monkeys running around, and most importantly, it only costs $10 a night! We've just been spending the days getting worked by waves in the ocean and staying super casual like usual.
I know the formatting of this post is all weird but ill fix it once im on a normal computer, not my ipod. Also hopefully I´ll be able to upload photos from my real camera and gopro once I find a computer with a usb port.
Montezuma
The main road into Montezuma
Cute lil cafe in forest.
The flooded river brought a bunch of dirty silt down with it into the ocean.
Evan, just waiting for his not so traditional French Toast (a few extremely small pieces of plain toast and butter)
Just rolled into our little hostel in Alajuela, Costa Rica! Travel day went without a hitch but my debit card doesn't seem to be working... Which is weird because it's worked everywhere else in the world. It's not an adventure till something goes wrong I guess! Looks like we're heading to a place called Montezuma on the Pacific Coast tomorrow. Not sure how to get there but we'll figure it out.
Colorado
Just a great meal in Texas
Layover life.
Sunset off the non sunset side of the 757 over the Gulf of Mexico
Im leaving to Spokane in an hour where I'm catching a flight bright and early tomorrow morning, so like a typical Jeff I started packing about an hour and a half ago.. All good to go for 7 weeks now, maybe I'll toss out a blog post from an airport on the way tomorrow.
Haven't posted anything here since February... Sorry.. The only excuses I can dig up seem to be my severe case of procrastination and the fact that I don't really enjoy writing (dont ask why i have a blog). One would think I'd have a way better handle on this terrible habit after doing the majority of my High School courses online. Oh well, I'll just start where I left off in February when I was still a teenager. Beware, this might get long.
Waaay back in February I was taking some classes at Selkirk College and skiing almost everyday (obviously). We went through a big high pressure pattern combined with a really stable snowpack for a week or two in the middle of feb so I spent a lot of time skinning to earn some turns in our unreal back/slack country.
Record Peak on my 20th Birthday
Panorama from the top of Grey Mt.
Big Tuna having a little nap in the Credit Union after the Karaoke guy gave us a ride back to Rossland from the Crown...
A rat I dissected in Biology
A failed attempt to ski Old Glory with Colston
Then the snow came back.
In March I headed out to Lake Louise for the Smith Optics Freeski Competition. I hadn't skied in one since 2009 when I was still a Junior but I figured it would be rude not to go check it out and say hi to all my friends in the Rockies. Zimmer and I left from Rossland, picked up one Mr. Siggers in Fernie then proceeded to Golden to stay with my good friend Brenna (and her cats) for the night. Yes, we stopped at every single Tim Horton's on the way.. (it was "roll up the rim to win" season...)
Yes, the three of us drank a lot of coffee.
Brenna's kitty, named Daisy I think?
Daisy hangin on Siggers
The next morning we came across good hombre Jayden Starnino at nowhere other than the Golden Tim Horton's so we drove over to Lake Louise together and checked into the little hotel room where we were all staying.
It was small.
We decided to go ski a lil and make sure the venues hadn't changed too much in the past few years. they hadn't.
So we found a....
Megan Gunning!
And took her to the Chateau
The next day was qualifications and I did the exact same line as I did as a Junior competitor there in 2009.
The main feature on the Quali run.
As it would turn out, I ended up in 5th place after the first day which I was pretty pleased with after not competing at all for 3 years, and for my first old person comp, and for skiing without an ACL or MCL.
Zimmer was right at the top of the next page too in 10th place I believe. Unreal for his first Freeski comp ever with over 50 competitors.
Me, Jay, and Siggers watching Zimmer drop into his run in the Finals.
Just skiing and wrecking skis like usual at Lake Louise
There's my run from finals. It looks really mellow but you have to remember we're skiing on a slope that has been skied a couple of times each by over a hundred people in the few days leading up to it, making for some super firm conditions. Factor in that a fall up top would result in tumbling over a couple hundred vertical feet of sharp rocks and hopefully people can understand why it looks like we're skiing so slow and going so small.
I ended up moving up into 3rd place though! Felt great to be back on the podium even if it wasn't on top.
Medal and shot ski trophy.
Mine and Siggers' shot skis.
I was stoked so I gave my hair a lil trim into mullet form for mullet March.
We had to celebrate so obviously I brought my flip cups to the bar. They got taken away soon after though..
This guy fell off the bridge and got stuck.
The next morning we packed my rig back up and hit the road to the nearest Tim Horton's.
Which happened to be in Banff where Zimmer put on a parkour show.
Instead of driving home the fast way through Radium, Invermere etc. we decided that there would be far more Tim Horton's to stop at if we went through Calgary then the Crowsnest. So we did. Aaand us rural BC kids managed to get pretty lost in the big city..
We found the Apple store though.
Then got out of the hell hole that is Calgary no where near as fast as I would have liked. What would normally have been a casual 6 hour drive ended up taking a much less casual 15 hours due to our little detour through Calgary, numerous stops at Tim Horton's, and by far the worst driving conditions I've ever seen on the Kootenay pass. If Tim Horton's didn't exist I'd probably still be driving.
Managed to get home alive, make it to my 8:00 class the next day though, and continue on with my winter.
Skied the ol beast that is Microwave just about everyday.
Dug out my tramp for my first bounces since September of 2010.
I always have fun on closing weekend.
And what's more fun than skiing in minimal clothing?
Skiing naked obviously.
We skied a top to bottom Link's Line including the bowl jump and stupid chute. The chair lift loved it.
Ski season wrapped up so I did a bit of touring to get some turns in. Mostly just ended up doing typical Rossland stuff like lighting fires doing backflips off little bumps around the hill.
With and without clothes..
I've actually really wanted to do a naked backflip on skis for a long time. But unfortunately when the air is warm enough to handle skiing naked, the snow is in melt-freeze cycles and falling on those little ice crystals results in some serious wounds to any exposed skin. But I finally sacked up and gotter done. Probably the pinnacle of my skiing career right there.
And here's a little POV edit I put together from a couple days of skiing this winter. It's far from being up to par with my usual work but it is what it is so check er out!
Climbed some less traveled hills around Rossland/trail.
Did more naked stuff in cold lakes.
Started working for a local contractor. This was a nice sculpture in the trailer.
I found some girls to put the shot ski to use.
Did a quick solo trip out to Sunshine for their Slush cup on May long weekend.
Then the next weekend Raine, Marshall, and I decided that it was about time that we did our first solo skydive. We took a nice casual drive out to Vernon, leaving Rossland around 10pm. Obviously we took a mandatory stop at everyone's favourite strip club in Kelowna - The Cadillac Lounge for a cahj beer and dance before continuing to our scenic sleeping spot next to Okanagan Lake where the three of us managed to get somewhat of a sleep in Raine's lil Celica..
Cute morning view.
We headed on over to the Vernon Airport bright and early to meet our instructor and go through the solo jump course. The course basically teaches you all the things that can go wrong and all the ways to deal with each situation. Skydiving is actually really safe if you know what you're doing. It would take a whole combination of errors/failures for you to hit the ground without one of your chutes opening.
Since we're all full of brains, we finished the 6 hour course in about half the time, and were allowed to jump after lunch..
Top Gun.
Then we jumped! Unfortunately we couldn't bring GoPros or cameras of any sort in the plane or for the jump, but let me tell you.. it was one of the most exhilarating things I've ever done. The only scary part is really climbing out of the fuselage and onto the landing gear to hold onto the wing while flying. Think of when you stick your hand out the window while driving on the highway. Then imagine climbing out of your vehicle onto a wing... It really isn't that hard but it sure takes you by surprise. After that just letting go of the wing you're hanging off is a piece of cake. Well, in theory it is anyways.. I ended up upside down somehow, with a nice little twist in my chute lines, it was cahj though, I just spun right out of it. I was really surprised at how much fun it is to fly an open chute, it's really like you're flying! I soon found out that you can get fully sideways in turns and do cool spirals down to your landing zone. It was one hell of a time let me tell you that. I think everyone should go at least for a tandem jump if you aren't into the solo thing, it was very worth it.
That was definitely one of the bigger highlights of my summer but I'm not done this post yet...
Raine and I on a midnight cruise in electric shopping carts in an American Walmart.
Yes, chocolate wine exists and it does magical things. Tastes kinda just like wine mixed with chocolate milk and baileys..
That's a rainbow, if you didn't know.
Sunset in Ladysmith on Vancouver Island
At the end of July, a sizable crew from Rossland headed out to Kimberley for their annual Julyfest (Beerfest). We arrived in Kimberley with nowhere to stay so of course we set up camp (beerpong/flipcup table) in the overflow parking lot for a nice looking Church, conveniently located within about a block from downtown Kimbo. Many games of flip cup were played with complete strangers who happened to be walking by which let us meet a lot of cahj people.
That's 1.5L of beer.
Some kids.
Most of the stories from that weekend should just never see the light of the internet for various reasons. But I can tell you that somehow a few of us managed to end up riding a train in the parade through all of Kimberley. That was definitely sweet as.
Parade chillin.
My new cat and I
We somehow made it out of that little slice of heaven alive and out of jail so you will certainly see me back there next year.
Back in Rossland I...
Took a cahj trip to Wilson Falls with a Jessie. (Ask her about a magical place called mudfoot beach)
Swam in tailings ponds on the back of Red.
Marsh drank outta my shoe.
I ate a messinator, yes it's just as good as it looks.
This Jord laced into one too.
Climbed Old Glory one morning with Brodie, Dane, and Marsh.
Shot a startail photo.
Ran a few km up Record Ridge to shoot a photo of this sunset.
Then Nathan came to town!
So I taught him how to drive standard.
He has a sick 360 degree film camera.
We went to Nelson one ill fated evening..
And met some nice homeless fellows.
Their names were "Steve Beers" and "Billy the Kid"
We drank beer.
I won't go into details but basically one of our posse came out of this night with a fractured skull and I had to sleep at Steve Beers' house (a park bench).
The next morning we did some lake stuff at my Grandparents' place on Kootenay Lake.
"the Lake"
I water skied for the first time in 5 years and Raine was pretty stoked. So was I.
Then Nathan left but we still did fun things.
Like the natural waterslide.
And fishing
Then all my friends left to go to school and I stayed behind to work for a couple more months before I head off to Costa Rica for 7 weeks with Evan. Just took my first Malaria pill and I'm leaving in 4 days. Stoked!
That's where I'm at now, definitely left out a bunch of stuff from this post but it's way too long as is. Sorry for taking so long to update this but check back regularly for updates from Costa Rica and some of the stuff I have lined up for the wintaaah! Feel free to follow me on both Instagram and Twitter while you're at it, @JCAmantea for both.
