Rickey's Film Corral: Rounding up Moves You Were too Damned Lazy to See

[Rickey's in-depth analysis of the various cinematic offerings currently showing at a movie theater near you. Rickey will use his critical skills to weed out the dreck from the moderately watchable, thereby saving you money and vastly improving your quality of life. Don't say we never did anything for you, OK?]

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Erika and I saw this one overseas in San José (there’s very little to do in San José other than avoid being mugged) and paid roughly $5 for two tickets to an evening showing. Even that small amount felt like a rip-off. This movie isn’t just offensively dumb, it’s mean, manipulative and violent. Now, unfortunately, I’m on the record as having enjoyed the first Transformers movie for what it was: a mindless fun flick showcasing large robots punching each other. But this one expands upon everything that was bad in the first movie and runs with it full tilt. We’re talking terrible acting, overwhelming use of indiscernible CGI, shoddy editing, and a runtime that extends about 100 minutes too long. Want to save yourself ten bucks at the movies? Try eating paint chips while staring at a poster of Megan Fox—you’ll get pretty much the same effect.

Granted, nobody was expecting director Michael Bay to craft a modern day version of “The Seventh Seal” from a Saturday morning children’s cartoon, but still… something feels very unwholesome about watching flag draped coffins of U.S. soldiers being escorted off a plane by giant robots in a military base somewhere in the Middle East. Kitsch I can take, but perverted patriotism is another thing altogether. And the less said about the movie’s insinuation that the Obama Administration would attempt to negotiate peace with a villainous race of alien robots the better. Oh, and what are your feelings about paying to see a minstrel show in the year 2009? Because this movie features two gorilla shaped robots with gold teeth who “don’t read too good” talking jive to each other. It’s a pretty shocking thing to watch, especially when you consider that Steven Spielberg, the director of “Amistad,” and the upcoming biopic "Lincoln” is the executive producer on this film. I honestly can’t come up with a single reason to recommend this movie to anyone, and I liked “Armageddon” for crying out loud.

Brüno. (I just want you to know how difficult it was to get an umlaut symbol to appear in this post). Well I suppose that this movie attempts to push your buttons in a better way than the previous one we just reviewed. If you consider Sasha Baron Cohen attempting to lure Ron Paul to bed more sublimely enlightened than an alien robot humping Megan Fox’s leg, that is. Brüno operates in the same way that Borat did: it attempts to mine comedy from the conceit of an outsider illuminating our inner prejudices. The problem is that Cohen targets some very low hanging fruit – talk show audiences, a group of redneck hunters, Paula Abdul – and the movie comes off more as a series of cheap shots than a witty social commentary. While it’s true that all good comedy is born from a certain degree of derision, I feel the same way about this movie that I do about some of Andy Kaufman’s stuff: going to an extreme length to rile up and upset people just isn’t all that funny. Also, there’s serious full frontal male nudity in this one. Regardless of how enlightened you may consider yourself to be regarding alternative lifestyles, nothing can prepare you for the first twenty minutes of this movie and the sight of a singing dancing penis. Nothing.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Every year, I get dragged to one of these films about children magicians brandishing wands and saying funny made up words. I agree to this because sitting through these movies morally entitles me to pick the next eighteen films we watch together. This installment of the Potter franchise focuses on some sort of magical book, a talking sofa, and children magicians falling in love. Yay. Between these movies and “Twilight,” I’m seriously concerned about one day having “the talk” with my bewildered progeny and needing to explain that adolescent romance doesn’t necessarily include spells, potions, or general supernatural tomfoolery.

Bottom line, if you liked the last few Potter films, you’ll probably like this too. They’re all kind of a blur to me at this point. You’d think that after six semesters of sending their kids to this Hogwarts place, the parents would’ve sued the pants off anyone associated with a school that subjects it’s students to trolls, giant spiders, dragons, and similar outlandish dangers. (I’m assured that all this will be resolved in the upcoming “Harry Potter and the Order of the 2nd District Court”). Also, they’d better hurry up and make the final movie because the kid playing Ron Weasley looks like he’s about 30 in this one.

On the Docket !

[These are movies that I haven’t yet seen but after watching the last one, am COMPLETELY ENTITLED to see because they are undoubtedly incredible and cannot possibly be any worse than that Transformers train wreck that I convinced Erika was totally worth seeing. Ahem.]

District 9. A sci-fi action movie about aliens arriving on Earth then being rounded up in a ghetto in South Africa? Shot in documentary style by a newcomer director that nobody has ever heard of? I’m telling you, there’s absolutely no way this can fail. I am dead serious about this.

Public Enemies. This one shouldn’t take too much arm twisting to convince the Mrs. to go see. She gets to see Johnny Depp play the charming John Dillinger and I get to watch a slick Michael Mann movie about a bank robber. A win-win situation if I’ve ever heard of one.

500 Days of Summer. Hey look, the kid from “3rd Rock from the Sun” has resurfaced! That alone has me intrigued for this indie love movie. As does Zooey Deschanel. Yes, every now and then, I am capable of picking a sentimental date flick…

While You Were Out...

Yeah, I’ve been lax with new material. I will now attempt to fabricate lame excuses for this. Turns out that returning to one’s job after a month hiatus doesn’t leave much time for blogging. And then there are the errands. The endless errands. (Those Netflix movies don’t just return themselves, you know?) But most importantly, the wifey and I are starting to search for a dwelling of some sort to purchase. We’re busy, got it? Also, we’re pretty much looking for excuses not to sit in a poorly air-conditioned apartment and write out several dozen heartfelt wedding thank you notes. Ugh. I do have several key updates worth mentioning however:

After much deliberation, we’ve decided to start talking in the first person (the editorial voice remains remarkably intact however). You’ll notice a noticeable increase of the use of pronoun “I” here at RwR. In order to better demonstrate this, here’s an example of how this will work, derived from a real life situation:

Under the old system: “This morning, while brewing his cup of coffee, Rickey bumped over his coffee press and spread shattered glass and hot coffee all over the kitchen floor. Rickey nearly scalded his genitals off.”

Under the new system: “This morning, while brewing my cup of coffee, I bumped over my coffee press and spread shattered glass and hot coffee all over the kitchen floor. I nearly scalded my genitals off.”

Because let’s be honest here, if you’re going to discuss the topic of horrific genital scalding, it’s far better to do it in the first person. Do not be alarmed by this first person speaking development. Change can be a terrifying thing, but fret not: I’m just as capable of blogging like an ignorant pompous schmuck in the first person as I was in the third person.

Judging by the modest uptick in Google hits (I can’t decide which keyword search I like better: “Rickey Henderson shirtless” or “Rickey Henderson batshit crazy”) something rather noteworthy happened to Rickey Henderson over the weekend. You’d think that after three years of pilfering someone’s good name, I’d take the time to honor their induction into Cooperstown, but you also forget how much of a magnificently lazy bastard I am. Maybe I’ll get around to writing a proper HOF speech in a few days, but I’m concerned it would deteriorate into one of those cliché life story speeches about how Rickey single handedly liberated a small Brazilian village using only a paperclip, some string, and his moral fortitude. As always, your input is greatly appreciated.

I am unmoved by the Mets’ current two game winning streak. After a month entirely removed from baseball, it’s difficult to get excited about an injury ravaged team with a lineup that I can only identify 12% of. I am however quite concerned that they’ve decided to steal one of my trademark maneuvers from this past softball season:
Damn you Francoeur, the “curl into the fetal position to avoid the ball” is MY MOVE, not yours. 14 RBIs in 12 games does not excuse you from this blatant theft!

I do however, approve of the Mets organization’s decision to foster a bit of off-field drama. It livens things up a bit when your VP of player development tears off his shirt and challenges minor league players to a fistfight. Who wants to watch a timid and mediocre team anyway? If you’re going to screw up, at least make it fun. Make it big. Hats off to Tony Bernazard for acknowledging the 2009 Mets season as what it really is: one massive episode of “Hell’s Kitchen.”

I, for one, was absolutely delighted by the Erin Andrews scandal and the resulting media uproar. For an entire week, we get to listen to the lunacy of sports experts telling us “Look, I don’t care what your reasons are, you SIMPLY CANNOT bore a hole into a locked hotel room and take photos of a woman undressing!” Uh, thank you very much professor. Way to take a stand there. Your Peabody is in the mail.

Rickey's Costa Rica Travelogue Part VII: Manuel Antonio

Our final stop in Costa Rica was a beach town named Quepos, home of some of Costa Rica's nicest beaches. Upon arriving in town, we wasted no time and headed directly for the Pacific shore. I found the waves to be most excellent, usually towering above my head. Tons of surfers at this beach. And then there was me, just kind of bobbing around and doing some bodysurfing. Later on, I haggled with a beach vendor who consented to rent me a boogie board (don't knock it--it's a lotta fun). Erika quickly retreated from the sea once she realized that waves were twice her height.A word of caution: the riptides were ridiculously strong--so powerful that a coast guard boast was sitting about a hundred meters off shore routinely fishing people out who got sucked out and dropping them off back on the beach. But hey, on the bright side, no sharks were sighted.
The next day, we made for a nearby park known as Manuel Antonio. It was much more remote and less touristy than the one at Quepos (the park officials only let a few hundred people in per day) and as an added bonus, it's chock full of monkeys. Monkeys that, according to the locals, would steal our belongings if we left them unattended. I eagerly looked forward to this possibility, for it was the final item on our Costa Rica travelogue checklist: to engage a simian in hand to hand combat. I estimate that I could take no less than 23 of them on at once before they overwhelmed me.

With this in mind, got into the park nice and early. This view awaited us:We set up our beach towels a few feet away from this fellow. Behold, the Lizard King:He hung out the whole time, watching us and sunning himself. Thinking whatever it is that lizards think of in their tiny lizard brains. We stayed by the beach, frolicking in the Pacific for quite some time and quickly achieved our most severe sunburn of the entire trip. You know, one of those "it hurts when I blink" sunburns. And still no monkeys or monkey attempts to abscond with our belongings. These little guys had most definitely let me down. To say the least, we were disappointed.

Feeling that it was time to make our exit, we packed our belongings and began to head out at around midday. Suddenly, a rustling was seen in the trees above us. This could only mean one thing: monkey business was afoot.Monkeys: so much like us and yet so untrustworthy. It's a well-known fact that they've been plotting against us for quite some time. I'm warning you, long gone are the days when monkeys would jovially wear ties and smoke cigars for our amusement. Just look in this guy's eyes and tell me he's not working things out.We encountered three distinct varieties of monkeys, these capuchins being the last. I'll admit, they are exceedingly cute. Almost cute enough for me to momentarily forget that monkeys pose a clear and present danger to Western Civilization. Almost.Sadly, the opportunity to wrestle a monkey did not present itself. Park regulations prohibit feeding the monkeys, so I'm pretty sure that engaging in fisticuffs with one of them is off limits as well. Fine, be that way park rangers. Just don't come crying to Rickey when Costa Rica is ground zero for the simian uprising.
The next day, we departed Quepos and drove North to the airport in San Jose. Driving along, we paid a toll for an incomplete highway that we had to exit two miles later. Apparently the highway project was behind schedule but the toll booths were finished right on time, so the authorities figured, "hey, let's open 'em anyway!" This sort of planning isn't uncommon in Costa Rica, a country badly in need of their own version of Robert Moses. This is what passes for a bridge:Rusty steel girders supporting wooden planks. And tractor trailers are driving over this. This is actually high tech compared to some of the other river crossings we were subjected to. I feel so much better about driving across the crumbling Tappan Zee after this. You don't really drive across the bridges in Costa Rica as much as hold your breath and make a mental checklist of places you want to see before you die.

We spent out last night in Costa Rica in a hotel outside of San Jose. San Jose is... well, the it's the capital of Costa Rica. A big poor city in Central America. Our decision not to spend much time there was a sound one. That evening, while outside smoking, I heard 5 or 6 popping noises in the distance. Suddenly, the hotel guard's radio starts going off and he starts talking loudly into it. Not having any knowledge of Spanish, I just tell myself that he's saying "it's those damn kids playing with firecrackers again" and I mosey inside. Then the sounds go off again. This time four quick shots followed by one more a few seconds later. I'm pretty sure it was gunfire. We don't sleep much that night. The following day, we got the hell out of San Jose, dropped off the rental car, and made for the airport.
What did I miss while I was gone? Ironically, it rained more back home than it did in Costa Rica, the Mets are in an injury plagued tailspin, Michael Jackson and pretty much everyone everyone else is dead, and I'm pretty certain that the Riddler is lurking in the comments section of this blog.

[OK, anonymous, I figured out that another word for tiered crown is 'tiara' but I can't rearrange the letters into a recognizable name, let alone figure out the consonant swapping thing you need me to do to learn your identity. Stop freaking toying with me damn you!]

Rickey’s Costa Rica Travelogue Part VI: The Monteverde Cloud Forest

We know, you’re wondering where Part V of the travelogue disappeared to. You miss it dearly. Well you see, after a soul-searching discussion with Mrs. Henderson, it was agreed upon that posting a deranged swimsuit calendar spread of myself on the internet might have been somewhat of a poor decision. Needless to say, rum was involved at the time. As you can see, the decision has since been rectified. Those responsible have been sacked. If you were one of the individuals who saw the post in all its beefcakey glory, please be sure to send us the bill for your psychotherapy sessions and we’ll gladly reimburse you for your expenses.

Moving on…

Arenal was tough to leave behind. We spent our last day there once again hanging out in the springs and relaxing.When we get back home and start looking for a house to purchase in the Tri-State area, I fully plan on asking if it has pools heated by underground volcanic vents. This might lengthen our search somewhat.

Exiting the spa, we saw a guy petting something that looked like a large wooden log. Then the log moved. Quickly realizing that we were looking at a giant snake of some kind – some sort of python or boa colored black with diamond markings down its torso – we took a few steps back. The dude, who happened to work at the spa, told us he’d found this massive snake trying to eat one of his chickens at his home, so naturally, he did what anyone in his situation would have done: he adopted it as a pet. Uh, cute.

A brief aside: one time back in college, after a few too many libations, I stumbled out of my frat house and saw a stray cat in the back parking lot. Not being altogether lucid, I figured I’d bring the cat inside and adopt it as my own. It was generally (and quickly) decided by my fellow brethren living in the frat house that that was an exceedingly bad idea and the cat was cast back outside. End of story.

And yet THIS GUY, this crazy Costa Rican bastard, thinks it wise to adopt a massive wild serpent that he caught swallowing one of his chickens. I quickly decide that the time has come to depart Arenal.

From Arenal, we headed back around the lake, and drove southeast to Monteverde, home of Costa Rica’s famed cloud forests.
We passed by many wind farms—occasional urban sprawl aside, Costa Rica prides itself for being a very green country. I approve of this. I'm certain that Thomas Friedman also does.

Lush countryside abounds. (by the way, did you know that you can click on any of these images to vastly embiggen them? yes mom, I'm talking directly to you).
We drove up and up and looked out the car windows at high elevation cows dotting the countryside. Behold, the Chuck Yeagers of the bovine family:
Have I mentioned that the beef here is delicious?

Once we arrived in Monteverde, we got an interesting tour of a coffee plantation. Mmmmm, sweet sweet nectar of consciousness.... The process by which you enjoy your morning cup of joe is elaborate and fraught with labor concerns, but the bottom line is that if you want to do it properly and humanely (like they do here) then coffee is ridiculously hard to obtain. And hot damn, does it taste good. Needless to say, roughly 95 pounds of Costa Rican coffee beans are returning home with us to the U.S.The next day, we spent a full morning hiking around a biological preserve. They call this a cloud forest for obvious reasons: it’s a lush environment that thrives in the upper atmosphere. Back in suburbia, a homeowner would give his right arm to have just one of these massive trees sitting on his front lawn. Here, there are hundreds of millions of them, and if anyone so much as thinks about hacking off a limb of one of these beauties, they’ll incur a government fine too large to even fathom.

This is for good reason. I’m just going to let these pictures speak for themselves. Please note that the lens flare/glare is entirely intentional and in no way a reflection of my mediocre camera equipment. (argh, I need an SLR). Anyway, National Geographic, eat your heart out.
Stunning. Hiking through the jungle, we weren’t simply exploring a rainforest, we were also in the clouds. The wind was strong but warm and the air was thin. Immense billows of clouds drifted through the trees. The temperature felt about 60 degrees, a welcome change from the 90 degree heat we’d found in Costa Rica’s lower elevations. These are only a handful of the pictures I snapped and they don't even come close to capturing how incredible it was here.

After a while, we finally reached the summit. Apparently it's kind of a big deal up here. Something about a continental divide of some sort...Later on in the hike, the oxygen deprivation finally got to me and I found a walking stick and did my very best Gandalf impression. Behold the alarming photographic evidence that will almost surely prevent me from attaining gainful employment should I decide to switch jobs:You shall not pass! (just be glad I'm wearing a shirt this time, OK?)

We debated doing the zipline thing again in Monteverde, but our hike kind of wore us out. Later, our decision to shun the ziplines was validated by an intense rain that lasted all afternoon. Rain pelting the face at 45mph probably doesn't feel all that good I'm guessing. Trapped inside in the hotel room, we did what any red-blooded Americans staying in a hotel room with a fireplace would have done: we started a fire, a damn good one. Marvel at three years of Boy Scout training finally paying off!Please note that these photos do not portray the aftermath of smoke flooding into the hotel room and us spending 30 minutes attempting to fan the fumes outside using pillowcases. Good times all around.

Rickey's Costa Rica Travelogue Part IV: The Quest for Arenal

Editor's note: fair warning, there is absolutely no way this post could ever be as entertaining as the last one. The only way we could top it would be by driving back to that farm, piling the farmer and his family into the car, and taking them with us for the rest of the trip.

The same day we came upon that washed out road that prevented us to getting to Mal Pais (I remember Erika saying "just so we're absolutely clear, we ARE NOT driving through that") we turned North and drove to the Arenal region, home of the world’s most active volcano. Along the way, we enjoyed a pleasant and thankfully uneventful drive through some of the country’s seemingly endless scenic areas. We drove around Lake Arenal to get to the volcano and marveled at this sight: I swear, I'm really a very mediocre photographer. This country just makes it too damned easy. Anyhow, upon arriving in the Arenal region, we found out that the place we wanted to stay was completely booked, and ended up crashing in a place called Linda’s, a mountain resort overlooking the volcano. That night, we feel asleep in our hotel room watching glowing red lava trickle down the side of the volcano. Sometimes lava rocks came tumbling down the side, leaving smoking trails as they went. Even from our distance of 10 kilometers away, we could still hear them crackle and tumble. They snaked down the side of the volcano like fiery caterpillars. Some as big as school buses, traveling at 70mph. It’s times like this when I’m kicking myself for not splurging on a digital SLR.

When travel guides say that you’re paying for the view, they had places like this hotel in mind. We could feel the mattress springs, the food wasn’t great, and there were tons of bugs in the room. But hey, you can put me in a 50 gallon barrel full of hissing cockroaches, and if I get to wake up to this view, then it’s well worth the $102 we paid for the night.The following morning, our adventurous nature got the better of us yet again and we went for a grueling hike in the Arenal Volcano national park. It took us a few minutes to realize that the fine gray dust that fell through the trees and irritated our eyes was volcanic ash.The sound of lava boulders rolling down the volcano was even closer than we'd heard last night. There were bugs like you wouldn’t believe, but the foliage was awesome. Birds and lizards were everywhere. We hiked up to a lava flow and walked around on it for a bit. I saw some sort of gopher-like creature dart across the trail in front of me. Must've been a jungle gopher. Hiking for those two hours, I saw a greater variety of shades of green then I’ve ever seen in my life. Just spectacular stuff.
Around midday, we collectively lost our minds and decided to go zip lining in a nearby preserve. This is the obligatory "before" picture. As you can see, things are relatively calm. The "after" picture shall go unpublished because it features me rigorously chain smoking in the parking lot. I heartily approve of any activity that requires one to look like this much of a doofus.

What zip lining entails is taking a sky tram up above the tree canopy, then flying high across a series of valleys on high tension cables held up by pulleys. You’d think that after the mud incident, we’d be toning things back a bit, but not so much. See, if we’d been terminally marooned in that awful mud patch, it wouldn’t have made much of an impact. People would just assume that we’d become agrarians or that the earth has simply swallowed us up. But plummeting to our deaths on a zipline suspended 800 meters above the tree line on a harness moving at 50mph? That would most definitely make the next installment of ‘When Shit Goes Wrong” on Spike TV.

So we signed the waiver and away we zipped down a series of 6 lines, each one more terrifying and exhilarating than the last. You know that unsettled feeling you get when your plane takes off or lands? This is similar to that feeling ...if you were hanging on to the wing of the plane. One line was over a half mile long. My mother will most likely have a heart attack when she sees these pictures.Just so we’re all clear on this, that posture you see me in is actually SOP for this crazy activity. In order to slow your 50mph approach, you do that air-braking thing to slow down and prevent yourself from slamming into the poll. Do it too early and you’ll get stuck in the middle of the line, dangling helplessly above the trees. The only thing holding you up is the high tension zipline, extending hundreds of meters and tied around a tree at each end. I shudder to think what kind of insurance policy a place like this has.

We capped off the exciting day with a trip to Fortuna, a funky little town that’s very gringo friendly, and grabbed a bite to eat at a local café. Erika even made a new friend. Sure he looks cute, but when Erika didn’t give him a bite of her food, he swiped his claws across her back and sulked off, no doubt to sew his wild feline seed. Even the cats in this county are dangerous. Such is the plight of the third world--in the absence of a Latino Bob Barker, nobody thinks to neuter or spay their pets.

That night, we checked in to a neat joint on the other side of the volcano called Montana De Fuego. Lava flows aren’t visible on this side of the volcano, but the digs are much cushier.

We started off the next day by timidly venturing into the car rental agency to discuss the possibility getting some sort of replacement car. Perhaps even one with functioning breaks and the ability back up, two features sorely missing on our Grand Vitara. Now I completely expected them to hold my balls over an open flame for the variety of mechanical problems that this car was experiencing following the mud incident, but no, they simply swapped us out for a new car and assured us that our rental deposit wasn’t in jeopardy. No questions asked. Life is good.

It's... ...A NEW CAR!!!We spent the afternoon at Arenal’s other big attraction: the hot springs. We found this amazing spa/hotel simply known as “The Springs” that takes sulfuric water heated by volcanic vents and pumps it out into a series of pools, ranging in temperature from 90 to 103 degrees and chock full of minerals and all sorts of good stuff. The rules here are simple: you sit in the pools and under soothing warm waterfalls, letting yourself get massaged by the force of water for an undetermined amount of time until the worries of the world are erased. Now I’m not one to make dubious medical claims, but had FDR vacationed here instead of Warm Springs, there’s a good chance his polio would’ve been cured and he’d be President of the United States this very day. This stuff is that good. Imagine sitting in a warm soothing bath for 6 hours—it’s phenomenal, and yes, it definitely does aid the circulation and help to reduce stress levels. If I was any more relaxed, I’d be back in the womb.We’re definitely going back tomorrow, because honestly, this is how a honeymoon is SUPPOSED to be, right?

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Mal Pais...

So let me tell you how this happened. Let me tell you how WE spent our Fourth of July. We checked out of Villas Sol in the morning, picked up our rental car from Liberia, and started driving south to Mal Pais. The paved roads were scenic, lovely, and very relaxing. Then the GPS told us to go on to some gravelly roads, which we did. They were still marked, but pretty hairy and bumpy, even for a 4WD vehicle. Then the GPS told us to go on an unnamed road, simply called “unpaved road,” which again, we did.We went up and down and were jostled around but the scenery was phenomenal. We were completely on our own in the jungle. This was the real Costa Rica, we told ourselves. Ever see that Eco Challenge show on the Discovery Channel where they race Land Rovers through the jungle? That’s exactly what this was: exhilarating. Would you be surprised if I told you that Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” was blasting through the car stereo? Probably, not, right? (it was).
And then, somewhere about 50 kilometers South of Jicarel, at around 5PM, we got stuck in the mud. The worst mud I’ve ever seen in my life. It was my own damned fault—the 4WD was engaged, but I didn’t have enough momentum to make it up that lousy soggy hill. And I don’t just mean a little stuck, I mean the entire right side of the car was sinking into a pool of reddish clay mud and the car was tilting at a 30 degree angle. A trickle of mud was running down the road, making digging out the car pretty much impossible.

Now let me tell you something about being stuck in the mud in Costa Rica—it isn’t like back home. There, you pull out the cell phone, make a call, and a bit later some schlub shows up and pulls you out. Things were a little bit different for us. All Frommers says about getting stuck in this part of Costa Rica is “good luck asshole.” We were absolutely in the middle of nowhere, rural Central America, 50 kilometers from any vestige of civilization sitting in an immobile rental car, we speak barely any Spanish, our phones don’t work, nobody was coming, and oh yeah, it’s getting dark and we’re in a freaking jungle. Suddenly, that “charming and rustic” side of Costa Rica that you’ve been searching for doesn’t seem all that great.

Now by the sheer grace of god, we just happen to have gotten stuck right in front of a farm. So I yell for help. A farmer and his wife and child approach us. So does their pig. I remind myself to stay respectful and that I am not only a stranded traveler, but also an ambassador for my country. I also try to remember the Prime Directive from "Star Trek."

Now our basic Spanish is absolutely worthless, and to make matters worse, the farmer, his wife and kid speak an entirely different dialect. Using hand gestures, it is communicated to us that the farmer will attempt to pull our SUV weighing a bazillion pounds out of the mud using his horse. Shockingly enough, this proves fruitless. We try digging out, the farmer and I taking turns shoveling while Erika is up to her knees in mud scooping it out with her hands. We’re completely covered in mud. The pig comes over and watches us. That fat bastard is the only one enjoying this.

When it finally dawns on everyone that our medieval era equipment isn’t suited to remove the behemoth from the muck, we decide to split up. I convince the farmer to let me borrow one of his horses while Erika waited inside to their small shack with the farmer’s wife. Yes, you're reading this correctly, I left my wife as collateral for a horse on our honeymoon. Erika spent the next few hours awaiting my return while I rode 4 kilometers down the road to get help. Before departing, Erika asks me “can you even ride a horse?!” I coolly nod yes, say ‘hiyaa’ and head off down the darkening road to get help.

Yeah, it turns out I have absolutely no idea how to ride a horse. The bastard is all over the place and naturally, he’s been trained to respond to a Spanish dialect of which I have absolutely no knowledge. If not for the farmer riding next to me guiding the horse, I’d probably have ended up in Venezuela. I would have had time to enjoy the scenery and the sun setting behind the mountains if I wasn’t freaking out of my mind about the variety of bad shit that can happen to some jackass gringo riding a horse down a dirt road in the middle of the jungle at night.

Now I’m separated from Erika at this point and wasn’t around to witness her awkwardly sitting in a tin roofed house with the wife and son who she has no means of communicating with. There are Winnie the Pooh and Jesus coloring books. There’s an outhouse. There’s a wood-burning stove. Erika washes off her feet in a barrel of rainwater. The pig comes into the house and is yelled at and chased off a stone hurled by the wife. Apparently, this pig has a knack for getting into trouble. Somehow, the wife asks Erika if she has kids. I’m assuming that the insinuation here was something along the lines of “you morons need to get your shit together before you even consider spawning offspring.”

Meanwhile, the farmer and I get to the house of a guy with a pickup truck and things are starting to finally look up. This fellow not only can tow us out, but he speaks passable English (a shitload better than my Spanish). And so we hop in his pickup and head back to our car, my spirits decidedly lifted. Then HIS car breaks down. So he tells me he’s going to get another one from a nearby farmer and that I should hoof it back to our car. Alone.

So it’s completely dark at this point and I’m walking solo for about a kilometer trying to find my way back to the car. The moon is out, but it doesn’t do very much to light up the road. The jungle makes weird noises. Things rustle. I hear monkeys in the trees making hooting and growling noises. It's pretty intense stuff. Fortunately, I'm carrying an extra pack of cigarettes with me.

Finally, I find my way back to the farmer’s house and call for Erika who comes out, looking very relieved to see me. Now I’ve got to give credit where it’s due—the girl really kept it together the whole time. She’d later tell me that she was seriously freaking out, but you wouldn’t know it looking at her. While stuck in the mud for three hours, in sweltering heat with flies buzzing all around us, I learned more about Erika and her determination than I did during an entire year of wedding planning. She’s an incredibly strong person and I'm a lucky bastard to have her. I would have taken some photos of this whole ordeal, but in situations like this, you’re usually more interested in resolving the harrowing experience rather than snapping a few photos for the blog. Sorry folks.

As promised, the guy from down the road shows up with a new truck, we hook it to our car, put both of ‘em in reverse, and give it a shot. Erika guns the engine while we push from the front. No dice. The car still doesn’t budge. We try pushing, rocking, pulling, pretty much everything. Mud goes everywhere. The car headlights make it seem like it’s raining mud.

Suddenly, everybody looks at me with a “what now?” expression. I honestly have no idea. If possible, I’d rather not spend the night stranded in the jungle. All I can think of is ask the guy to back the truck up and have it pull our car in drive rather than reverse. I guess the phrase “more torque!” popped into my mind. So we do it, and holy fucking shit, on the first try, it works. Our car pops free leaving a massive crater of mud 7 feet deep where it was trapped. We are officially un-fucked.

The only way I have of thanking the farmer and his friend with the pickup truck is a few thousand colones. Was paying them for their help rude? Probably, but it was the only way I had of thanking them. The farmer’s name is Renaldo and the pickup truck owner’s is Freddie. If they hadn’t been around to help us, we would have been absolutely screwed. Money and internet praise is the only thing I can offer as a means of thanks to these kind generous people.

After much handshaking, we hop back in the car, pretty much in shock at this point, drive back the way we came, and navigate the dark bumpy road until we find a tiny hotel in Playa Coyote to crash for the night. The hotel manager sees us caked head to toe in mud, is horrified to hear our story, and brings us water and food. Ice cream and flan never tasted so damned good. We wake up the next morning, walk out to the deck to this view:
Pretty damned miraculous if you ask me. Having regained our courage, we make a second effort to drive to Mal Pais, using a hand drawn map provided by the hotel manager. Things are looking good until we stumble upon this:
Well, OK, that’s a naked dude bathing in a river. Erika took that photo, not me. Apparently she's unfamiliar with the belief held by many folks around here that photos steal their souls. But just 10 feet to the left of the guy bathing, we saw THIS:
See that small dirt area on the other side of the river? That’s the other side of the road. What I estimate to be a 6 foot deep river stands between us and Mal Pais. Now I’ll freely admit that I’m a bit of a crazy guy. I bite my fingernails a lot. I walk up stairs two at a time. Sometimes I wear my socks two days in a row. But there’s harmless crazy, and then there’s the kind of crazy that tells you it’s a good idea to ford a 6 foot river in a car that has a 3 foot engine block clearance. 4WD SUVs don’t cut it on these roads, you need a goddamned Sherman tank to get around this country.

There’s another way to Mal Pais, but it’s on equally poor roads and lest we forget, this is the rainy season. I loved the idea of big surf in Mal Pais and having a free place to crash for four nights at our friend's place, but I know when to call it quits. So we got the hell out of this part of Costa Rica. We’re driving North to the volcano in Arenal. Looking at the map, the roads are paved there. They’d better be anyway—I’m no mechanic, but I’m guessing there’s only so much more a rental car can take.

Rickey's Costa Rica Travelogue, Part III

You’re probably wondering: why the hell is this prick blogging from his honeymoon instead of doing, ahem, other things? Well first off, the afternoon rain provides ample time for writing, and secondly, I’m doing all this mainly so I can remember this, not you (the rum down here is alarmingly plentiful). And with that cleared up, we move forward to…
Day 5. Marvel at rosy fingered dawn! Or is that sunset? I'm actually not completely sure (this goes back to the rum comment above).

The morning is consumed by a timeshare presentation. In order to snag two free days of comped meals and drinks at Villa Sol, the Hendersons have subjected themselves to something just a few steps removed from water boarding: a timeshare pitch. Jimmy, the guy who runs the presentation is nice enough. He’s animated, engaging, and quite topical. But let me tell you something about Jimmy: he’s undoubtedly stuffing Columbia’s national export into his nose on a regular basis. The dude fidgets, he wipes his nose constantly, and he bumps over a cup of coffee in the middle of his pitch. He’s making me nervous just looking at him.

A brief aside: one summer, I was looking for work and remember applying for a job selling CutCo knives door to door. I passed the initial exam with flying colors. When the regional manager in charge of new hires called me into his office, told me I’d got the job and started cutting through a beefy piece of leather with a CutCo knife to demonstrate the effectiveness of his product, I knew that sales just wasn’t for me. But hey, somebody’s gotta do the job I suppose. Today that somebody is Jimmy.

Because I was feeling frisky, I decided to turn the tables on Jimmy's timeshare pitch and ask him a bit about HIS background. He’s a Boston ex-pat who was born into a family restaurant business, then worked for Four Seasons for a while and was dating an occupational therapist. Now he’s single and hawking timeshares at the humid ass end of the universe. Jimmy has most definitely come down in the world. I feel a little bad for the guy saying no to him repeatedly after a 90 minute presentation (he even makes a little sad puppy dog face after we reject him) but hey, I’m pretty conservative when it comes to plopping down 80K for a timeshare that I’ll rarely use. I'm weird like that.

After being thoroughly tested, we head for lunch and enjoy some good eats and drinks. The salsa down here is a green tangy sauce that is absolutely incredible. I’ve been pouring it over rice and beans, eggs, toast, and pretty much every other solid food I can find.

Then we make for the beach in the afternoon, plop down in a nice shady spot and relax. After some soothing time doing the dead man’s float in the Pacific Ocean, I head towards land, decidedly hungry. A guy on the beach is selling ceviche for 5,000 colones. Having no idea whatsoever what that equates to in dollars, I gladly pay him and walk back to Mrs. Henderson with a Tupperware container of raw marinated seafood. She is at best apprehensive.Sweet fancy moses, is this stuff good. It consists of octopus, clams, some sort of raw fish, all marinated in lemon juice, cilantro, and hot sauce. I plan on putting this in a blender and feeding it to my unborn kid. Two doses and they’ll be lifting aircraft carriers above their head.

Then thunder sounds in the distance and we hastily head back from the beach to the hotel bar. Once there and having consumed many more drinks, we forge what will undoubtedly be a life long friendship with a verbose lady from Staten Island. She has flesh eating disease (a minor detail that she tells me after I’ve shaken her hand) and loves to gripe about pretty much everything in her life. It’s funny how listening to somebody else bitching makes you feel instantly better about yourself. The best I can tell her is that she should be very happy with her tap water back home.

After watching all we can bear of the Mets/Yanks Sunday night game on ESPN Deportes, we’re heading off for dinner. The beisbol world is too much with us. Same goes for this resort too. We’re pretty much counting down the days until we hop back in a rental car and start legitimately enjoying Costa Rica again. Don't get me wrong, it's nice ...just a little to sterile for us, you know? As much as we love staying in a highly regimented resort that’s governed more strictly than Leavenworth Penitentiary, we think that the more rustic funky parts of Costa Rica appeal more to us. On July 4th, we’re heading further south to a tiny little town on the cost known as Malpais. The surf at the beach down there is strong (it’s where they filmed “Endless Summer 2”) and the locale is wonderfully remote. It’s inhabited by absolutely no one and we’re fortunate enough to know somebody who is letting us use their beach house there. Coordinating the details via email, we're informed that someone named Preston will be staying at the house with us. I assumed that Preston is some sort of monkey butler, until I read that he also likes to surf in the mornings. Still, he could definitely be a surfing monkey butler, which is undoubedtly the coolest kind of monkey butler of all.

Day 6: To the fellow resort-goers, our rallying against the time share pitch has reached an almost evangelical tone. We watched the bartender, with no regard for secrecy, water down the booze by pouring equal parts water and no name brand rum back into a liquor bottle. We’re just a few steps removed from ordering t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “never submit.”

Amenities at the resort are plentiful. Cigarettes cost less than $2 in USD. If you run over somebody in your rental car, you’re not obligated to stop. You just drive to the rental car company office and report the incident. Life here in Costa Rica is cheap. Several hundred years ago, the locals dropped to their knees and bowed down before the conquistadors who weighed anchor in their gulf. Three hundred years later, this area is pockmarked by beach resorts. Go figure.

To their credit, the Costa Rican government will only allow you to purchase an acre of land if you also purchase an acre of land in the rainforest and agree not to develop it for 100 years. I like that ethos. The founder of AOL wanted to buy some land down here and is finding it to be cost prohibitive. As of now, he still is reluctant to close the deal. Good riddance—there should be some places on this planet that are still wild, untamed and not governed by rampant greed.

Days 7-8. (I think... I've pretty much lost track of time at this point) Here’s where things get rather interesting. We go snorkeling in the morning. I get the hell stung out of me by a jellyfish.(At least I hope that's a jellyfish sting and not the onset of flesh eating disease). While lounging in the pool, I’m asked to join an impromptu volleyball game by a resort staff member. Choosing to ignore the fact that this is the same guy who just hours earlier led us on the snorkeling tour that resulted in me getting by jellyfish, I say yes, I’d love to play some volleyball, and enter the game.

When it comes to be my time to serve, my competitive streak takes over and I’m completely dialed in. I toss the ball up, push off and smack two rockets to the other side. Both of ‘em are perfectly places spikes, landing between a terrified 13 year old girl and a listless old man whose mind clearly isn't in the game. There may have even been some spin on the ball. I am officially dialed into this game. Ancient spirits of evil, transform this decayed form to Volleyball-Ra, the Ever-Living! Behold, Rickey in action:
Yeah, I’m a pasty white dude. Leave me alone. And hey, if you had a weird looking mole surgically removed from your back three years ago that resulted in a scar that looked like you were involved in a vicious knife fight, you’d be piling on the 60 SPF sunscreen too.

On the third serve, I get even more cocky and push off way too hard on my toes. Instantly, I feel something give. It feels like a tear in my right leg, like a piano cord snapping. I’ve seen enough Mets hobbling off the field to know what this means: some sort of leg injury has transpired. Yes, you're reading this correctly, I have managed to hurt myself playing pool volleyball. Hotel staff are dispatched to pick up anti-inflammatory medicine and I get to spend the rest of my time here gimping around and smiling sheepishly whenever somebody asks me how my leg is feeling. But on the bright side, while spending the next few lying days on my ass recovering, I get to make friends with the local wildlife:Now that's one big bastard of a bug. While lounging by the beach, we also race hermit crabs. I call the big one "Pinchy."

Anyway, the leg injury seems to be just a pulled calf and not a complete tear, so I should be good as new for when we head down to Malpais on Saturday. I'm able to put a little more weight on it now and feel like a full recovery is iminent. I have no idea if there's any sort of internet connection at this place in Mapais or not, so if we go into radio silence, you'll know why.

Cheers,
~Rickey

Rickey's Search for a New Outfielder

You’d think that being on one’s honeymoon in Costa Rica would exempt them from worrying about the Mets. And in anyone else’s case other than Rickey’s you’d be absolutely correct. But no, we wanted you to know that despite being roughly five feet from the sun, the Mets are very much still on Rickey’s mind. In fact, while vacationing down here in Costa Rica, Rickey has been conducting a thorough and exhaustive search for a replacement outfielder for the New York Mets.

Now despite being completely removed from the tri-state sports buzz, we are just barely up to speed enough to know that Carlos Beltran is woefully injured. Some anonymous mook is playing in left field. And not having any idea of that the recent box scores are, we’re pretty certain that Gary Sheffield is NOT performing up to the expectations that Mike Francessa has piled upon him:

“He’s a solid hitter. A solid hitter. He’ll get you 25 home runs, no problem. [30 second pause] He’s a solid hitter. I’d go to war with this guy any time.”

Yeah, thanks Mike. So Rickey has been searching around down here in Costa Rica for a new outfielder. After much foraging, we think we’ve finally found out candidate. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Pepe:Rickey’s not totally sure if this is a cow, or an ox, or some sort of water buffalo, but goddamnit, this magnificent bastard has intangible baseball talent. Once Rickey figures out how to smuggle a 1,276 pound land mammal past U.S. customs, we are officially in business.
The scouting report on this wondrous beast tells us that he’s surprisingly nimble footed, and should have no problem stretching singles out into doubles. He’s a bit sluggish tracking fly balls in the outfield and has yet to figure out how to hit a changeup, but we’re confident that a few weeks in AAA assignment should straighten out these minor issues. Also, there’s a slight issue involving Pepe wanting to gore Luis Castillo on sight (apparently Castillo resembles a rodeo clown that Pepe faced a few months back) but frankly, we don’t see much of a problem with this.

As an added bonus, just think of the money this will save the Citified grounds keeping crew. This guy trims the field for em! And hey, if things don’t pan out, he makes for a delicious tenderloin! Pick up the phone Omar, this is destiny calling.