Monday, July 18, 2005
Irgh…ahhh…gahhffpp…ick!
I’m trying to find positive things to talk about. I really, really am. I’m ignoring the daily crack whores and the homeless man that I have to step over on the way to school, just to spare you all a lot of the true horror of San Jose. But I can’t ignore today’s adventure.
So, this was Saturday. The big “hurray it’s not a weekday walking through crack whore’s neighborhood!” day, and our itinerary included a trip to a rain forest to ride zip lines over the canopy. You know, pretty birds, being high in the air with the nature of the rain forrest, monkeys, etc. Riiiiiiiiiiight. Here’s what the brochure should REALLY say.
First of all, we get there (after an hour and a half tour bus ride with seats that flatten your ass to a flatness you didn’t think possible) and you have to then ride in a twenty person boat down the “Snake River” for a half hour. Oh, and did I mention that we were SHARING our tour bus and had to stop at FIVE hotels to pick up people? Which took an HOUR and a HALF. But I digress….back the adventure. So, after dousing myself with 100% Deet, I’m ready to delve into the rain forest and the “Snake Reever.” I’m hoping to see iguanas everywhere, and toucans, and other brightly colored birds, and monkeys etc., etc…..Please insert snickering little munchkins laughing from the forest because they know more than me here.
The Snake River was nothing more than the Guadalupe River in Texas, except it’s a little bit wider, and we DID see one sleeping crocodile. And two iguanas. And a turtle. Ooooooh, a turtle!...And like, five monkeys, which were so far up in the trees that I’m not sure how the tour guide spotted them in order to point them out to us, unless he had stapled deceased monkeys up there earlier in the day. “Howler monkeys,” he said, though they were dead quiet, which lends more support for the stapling theory. Not much for a half hour boat ride through a rain forest. We eventually arrived at the canopy joint and I hadn’t taken one picture, NOR have I seen one damn snake, thank you.
We have to get harnessed up for the zip line, one if those rock climber, total body get-ups, with straps wrapped around your butt, up your crotch, separating your boobs, etc. Nice and snug. Then they hand you a helmet. “Dad would be happy I’m wearing a helmet,” I think. I put it on, and in about 1.4 seconds my brain suddenly says, “RETREAT! Back up! Back up! Whatever you just did, make it stop!! For the love of all that is HOLY!!!” What my brain was referring to was the overpowering odor that my nose had picked up on emanating from the helmet. Good God, I have never smelled such a putrid stink before in all of my life, and it was WRAPPED AROUND MY HEAD. Please imagine, if you can, the foulest smell that could possibly come out of someone’s ass, and then magnify that smell by a million, and then get a big handful of the smell and spread it all over your face. You’re close. The sweat and stench of who knows HOW many previous canopy zippers was imbedded in those helmet straps, and a trip to the bathroom and subsequent washing, WITH SOAP, did nothing. For the love of God, I wondered how I would manage for TWO HOURS with this shit on my face.
So, yeah! Off to a ten minute horseback ride to the starting point. I lift my assface onto my horse just a moment after I had watched it lovingly run and bit another horses’s ass. (Yes, ass is today’s theme!) Mind you, I’m remembering back to the day when I was around 13 years old and I’m on a trail ride with my parents just like this, one horse following the next, and my horse kept putting his ears back in pissed off mode, and suddenly my 13 years flew by quickly as I was bucked into the air and landed on my ass. Mom was bucked, too, and literally broke her back, so I guess I shouldn’t complain. But here I was again, same sort of follow the leader horse ride, and my horse doesn’t just put his ears back every now and then. No. He’s got them back the whooooooooole time. And I have four pictures to prove it. Ah, when will the joy end?
So I manage the ride with Grumpy, and we’re at the first platform. We have to climb 60 feet into the air, all while the harness straps are causing crotch wedgies and my thick gloves, which of course, also smell like ass, are making it hard to grab the ladder. At least everything was super detailed in the safety department, as you are constantly being clipped and double safety-clipped on every part of the zipping and climbing. But, of course, I guess the actual ZIP LINE could break as you’re flying through the air at twenty miles an hour, in which case your safety harness is total crap, but I left that one up to the Universe to decide. Hell, I had ass on my face, what the hell did I care if I crashed 60 feet to the ground?
Now, did I mention that the rain forest is freaking hot? Well, it’s sweltering. It’s hahhhhhhhhhht. So we’re all sweating like ass pigs as we trudge through this adventure. The zip lines consisted of five ladders, nine platforms, and eight zip lines. Every time the seven of us, plus two guides, did a zip, we then all had to wait on the next platform until everyone was finished and a guide started first on down the next one. So, you know about the ass faces. Well, let’s imagine all of our bodies starting to stink like hell, too, and then all nine of us crammed onto a roughly five by eight platform in between each line. EIGHT times. EIGHT little platform parties. I don’t know what the hell I used the Deet for, there’s no way a mosquito was coming near us.
So this zipping took freaking two hours. One of the girls in the group actually had a mini- heatstroke and had to sit and have water poured on her, etc. while we all waited in our ass-state on the platform. In my head I’m thinking, “Just push her down the zip! The air will cool her off more than baking ass stink is going to help!” But I kept my mouth shut.
FINALLY, it was over, and I didn’t see ONE damn colored bird or snake or monkey or shit the whole damn time. And I was looking for them, mind you. Every time we were baking asses on a platform, I was hanging off to one side trying to breathe clean air while looking for SOMETHING to take a picture of.
When we got back to the outdoor pavilion place to get un-harnessed, I rushed to the bathroom and washed my face three times. Gawwwwwwwwwwwwd it was gross. Our lunch was there at the pavilion thingy, and then we had to take the boat ride back to the bus, and then the hour and a half ride home, re-flattening our asses.
I want the power, just for one day, to design a Costa Rican vacation brochure. Just one.
V
So, this was Saturday. The big “hurray it’s not a weekday walking through crack whore’s neighborhood!” day, and our itinerary included a trip to a rain forest to ride zip lines over the canopy. You know, pretty birds, being high in the air with the nature of the rain forrest, monkeys, etc. Riiiiiiiiiiight. Here’s what the brochure should REALLY say.
First of all, we get there (after an hour and a half tour bus ride with seats that flatten your ass to a flatness you didn’t think possible) and you have to then ride in a twenty person boat down the “Snake River” for a half hour. Oh, and did I mention that we were SHARING our tour bus and had to stop at FIVE hotels to pick up people? Which took an HOUR and a HALF. But I digress….back the adventure. So, after dousing myself with 100% Deet, I’m ready to delve into the rain forest and the “Snake Reever.” I’m hoping to see iguanas everywhere, and toucans, and other brightly colored birds, and monkeys etc., etc…..Please insert snickering little munchkins laughing from the forest because they know more than me here.
The Snake River was nothing more than the Guadalupe River in Texas, except it’s a little bit wider, and we DID see one sleeping crocodile. And two iguanas. And a turtle. Ooooooh, a turtle!...And like, five monkeys, which were so far up in the trees that I’m not sure how the tour guide spotted them in order to point them out to us, unless he had stapled deceased monkeys up there earlier in the day. “Howler monkeys,” he said, though they were dead quiet, which lends more support for the stapling theory. Not much for a half hour boat ride through a rain forest. We eventually arrived at the canopy joint and I hadn’t taken one picture, NOR have I seen one damn snake, thank you.
We have to get harnessed up for the zip line, one if those rock climber, total body get-ups, with straps wrapped around your butt, up your crotch, separating your boobs, etc. Nice and snug. Then they hand you a helmet. “Dad would be happy I’m wearing a helmet,” I think. I put it on, and in about 1.4 seconds my brain suddenly says, “RETREAT! Back up! Back up! Whatever you just did, make it stop!! For the love of all that is HOLY!!!” What my brain was referring to was the overpowering odor that my nose had picked up on emanating from the helmet. Good God, I have never smelled such a putrid stink before in all of my life, and it was WRAPPED AROUND MY HEAD. Please imagine, if you can, the foulest smell that could possibly come out of someone’s ass, and then magnify that smell by a million, and then get a big handful of the smell and spread it all over your face. You’re close. The sweat and stench of who knows HOW many previous canopy zippers was imbedded in those helmet straps, and a trip to the bathroom and subsequent washing, WITH SOAP, did nothing. For the love of God, I wondered how I would manage for TWO HOURS with this shit on my face.
So, yeah! Off to a ten minute horseback ride to the starting point. I lift my assface onto my horse just a moment after I had watched it lovingly run and bit another horses’s ass. (Yes, ass is today’s theme!) Mind you, I’m remembering back to the day when I was around 13 years old and I’m on a trail ride with my parents just like this, one horse following the next, and my horse kept putting his ears back in pissed off mode, and suddenly my 13 years flew by quickly as I was bucked into the air and landed on my ass. Mom was bucked, too, and literally broke her back, so I guess I shouldn’t complain. But here I was again, same sort of follow the leader horse ride, and my horse doesn’t just put his ears back every now and then. No. He’s got them back the whooooooooole time. And I have four pictures to prove it. Ah, when will the joy end?
So I manage the ride with Grumpy, and we’re at the first platform. We have to climb 60 feet into the air, all while the harness straps are causing crotch wedgies and my thick gloves, which of course, also smell like ass, are making it hard to grab the ladder. At least everything was super detailed in the safety department, as you are constantly being clipped and double safety-clipped on every part of the zipping and climbing. But, of course, I guess the actual ZIP LINE could break as you’re flying through the air at twenty miles an hour, in which case your safety harness is total crap, but I left that one up to the Universe to decide. Hell, I had ass on my face, what the hell did I care if I crashed 60 feet to the ground?
Now, did I mention that the rain forest is freaking hot? Well, it’s sweltering. It’s hahhhhhhhhhht. So we’re all sweating like ass pigs as we trudge through this adventure. The zip lines consisted of five ladders, nine platforms, and eight zip lines. Every time the seven of us, plus two guides, did a zip, we then all had to wait on the next platform until everyone was finished and a guide started first on down the next one. So, you know about the ass faces. Well, let’s imagine all of our bodies starting to stink like hell, too, and then all nine of us crammed onto a roughly five by eight platform in between each line. EIGHT times. EIGHT little platform parties. I don’t know what the hell I used the Deet for, there’s no way a mosquito was coming near us.
So this zipping took freaking two hours. One of the girls in the group actually had a mini- heatstroke and had to sit and have water poured on her, etc. while we all waited in our ass-state on the platform. In my head I’m thinking, “Just push her down the zip! The air will cool her off more than baking ass stink is going to help!” But I kept my mouth shut.
FINALLY, it was over, and I didn’t see ONE damn colored bird or snake or monkey or shit the whole damn time. And I was looking for them, mind you. Every time we were baking asses on a platform, I was hanging off to one side trying to breathe clean air while looking for SOMETHING to take a picture of.
When we got back to the outdoor pavilion place to get un-harnessed, I rushed to the bathroom and washed my face three times. Gawwwwwwwwwwwwd it was gross. Our lunch was there at the pavilion thingy, and then we had to take the boat ride back to the bus, and then the hour and a half ride home, re-flattening our asses.
I want the power, just for one day, to design a Costa Rican vacation brochure. Just one.
V
