some scientists have dedicated their whole life researching the theory that every person has an identical twin somewhere on the planet... this is brendans
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Chapter 3
Welcome to the 3rd installment of the trek to Costa Rica..... You ready for it??? Alright here we go!!!
Since the last entry we have traveled from Manzanillo, Mexico to La Libertad, El Salvador and inbetween we have.... Hold on let me look at my trusty little notebook here to remember.
- Danced the night away with Guadalajaran smooth girls and "Chilo" boys in Manzanillo, along with Mexi slang, dancing horses, our first hotel, 4 tacos, a partridge, and a palm tree.... Minus the partridge.
- Journeyed to the city only know as the place where we got all of our shit stolen, had a lightning filled sunset surfsesh, chilled with our Guatalajaran lookalikes, and of course.... got a lot of our prized posessions robado off the top of our car.
- Items to include: 4 sufboards, 2 pairs of flippers, 1 surfbag, 1 80s dayglow wetsuite, 1 skim board, 1 80s GNU epic snowboard, 1 fish spear, and a little piece of my heart that will always remain in the town now known as the "Place where all of our shit got stolen."
- Brendan, Josh, and Jim stay in a cozy little beach town called Nexpa while Ian makes a 5 hour drive to retrieve his laptop which was left at an internet joint 2 1/2 hours back up north
- Drive through Acapulco, the metropolis of mexico, in search of Walmart ( I know what your thinking... it's wicked convenient though). Go in with huge list of things to get, and emerge with a bunch of beer, and Pina Colada in a 2 Liter bottle which we thought was the most amazing thing since sliced bread, even though sliced bread really isn't that amazing... but the Pina Colada was
- Driving, Driving, Driving, Puerto Escondido, Surfing, Body surfing, Amazing Sunset, lots of babes, Ian chats the night away with french girls in Spanish which both only speak "un Pocito" which resulted in lots of picture drawing, hand signals, and in the end turned out to be one of the best games of charades in the history of mankind.
- Thanksgiving Day..... prepared for the amazing feast which included...... A gnarly surf sesh at the oh so elusive Barra de La Cruz, a mustache showdown, a leaky box of wine, a locked gate, a removed fence post, a plastic chair thrown at our car, lots of cursing in spanish ( directed at us because of the fence post if you didn't pick up on that), a military checkpoint, a packet of cookies, a coke, and a cozy bed under a bat infested bridge close to the Guatamalan Border. This we are Thankful for.
- Cross the border into Guatamala only to realize that we have been in Mexico illegally without a permit for the past 10 days..... pero no es una problema, 20 bucks will fix anything in Mexico.
- Cimbed 9000 vertical feet through winding jungle roads in Guatamala, overheating the 4 banger 4 runner only once suprisingly.
- Stayed in a little place called San Marcos....... Ian gets a tour of the town on a 12 year old's motorcycle, we eat some street tacos, and Ian gets chased and spanked by a bunch of kids in devil costumes (Don't worry, it's Guatamalan Tradition).
- Journey to Lago De Atitlan in Guatamala, take a ferry to a town bordering the lake called san pedro where..... We rent dirtbikes, Ian wrecks his dirtbike, Brendan and Rammy have a showdown in the middle of town instigated by Brendan "spilling beer on Rammy's 2pac shirt in Manzanillo" all resulting in a torn pair of Brendan's boxers, known in middle school as an "ultra Wedgie"!!!!
- Finally find a tienda that sells Fireworks or bombas. Learn that Guatamalans don't like boom booms (aka cherry bombs) going off at night by their houses as we found out when testing out what we were looking to purchase only to be confronted by an angry Guatamalan with no shirt and a pistol stuffed in the front of his pants.
- Searched for surfing in southern Guatamala, none of which is to be had so........ We had an epic floaty sesh in the ocean, and organized a quaint little pool party outside of our bungalow. The next morning we loaded our car up on to the "ferry" which was actually a floating platform big enough to squeeze 2 cars onto, powered by a 15 hp motor.
- Spent 4 hours trying to get through the Guatamala/ El Salvador border
- Found a surf/ camp spot next to the house/shack of an extremely nice El Salvadorian family after having one of the shocks fall off our car, Rammy gets his surfbag stolen, El Salvadorian family's father hunts down thief in the morning with his machete, and thief brings back surfbag.( Rammy still had to pay him $10 american to get it back.... Ya, it's as weird as it sounds).
- El Salvadorian's family's kids play with our floaties, and light off our boom booms (aka cherry bombs) in the morning. A girl from the town hits on Brendan by telling him she wants to "buy his eyes", Brendan contemplates and kindly declines.
And that takes us up to La Libertad where we currently reside. Over the next 10 days We'll be making our way through the rest of El Salvador, blow through Honduras, and finish the final leg of the trip through Nicaragua into Costa Rica. Stay Tuned!!!
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
overdue update
gettin outta cali and we saw some hills made of sand.
when we stopped at the hills made of sand we noticed a small billow of steam from under the hood. a hole in one of the coolant lines!
duct tape - check
zip ties - check
water from the local construction workers water truck - check
back on the road - nice!
we purchased a snowboard in san diego for 40 bux at a garage sale. the sand conditions looked good so we dropped in and shredded a few sand turns.
after a whole day in arizona registering our car we drove into mexico at night. this is us finally in mehico the next evening. our mighty stallion in the background. first glimpse of ocean.
we wanted to eat in the tiny town near the beach and found a brightly decorated restaurant/house. we asked the lady if they served dinner and she quickly yelled something in spanach that we didnt understand and went back to watching her television program. an old lady hobbled out of the shadows of the small dwelling. she looked at us, then everyone looked at a tiny kitten playing on the floor. she said "gato pequeno." jim said "si." then the old lady walked away. we stood there for a sec . then we walked away too.
this is our official map which was lost shortly after the pic.
we drove for about 30 hrs straight.
needed sleep so we tried to find the beach to camp.
got lost in several small towns which seemed deserted.
found 1 guy still awake. abraham.
showed us to the beach where we camped.
in the morning the small townd were bustling with locals.
they smiled and waved.
we waved too.
at the gas station there were girls dressed up who had music playing. (not quite sure what there job was there but they were nice and giggled a lot) we introduced them to T-Pain and they liked it.
after quite a bit more driving we heard about a local surf spot from a very mexican guy who spoke broken english and liked to say faaked a lot. he gave us directions to the spot where the waves had allegedly faaked him up. after driving for a while we ended up in a dirt field. atter finding more locals we were steered in the right direction and found a beach with sand. in the sand we promptly got our 4runner stuck for about an hour before retreating back to the dirt road. our supposedly 4x4 vehicle only spun 2 tires. no 4x4= bummer.
in the lagoon near the car ian and jim went exploring. bats flew overhead and crabs "caibas" scampered around in the shallows. after a splash they turned to see a wet and unhappy bat swimming towards shore. ian saved it and dried it off by the fire before it let out a few sqeeks and took off happily from his shoulder. 
after the fire died we camped under the palapas.
this is the first thing we saw when going down to the beach to surfin the morning. a local had just pulled it up on shore and it was still alive.
we surfed anyways. brenden caught 1 wave, ramy belly surfed a couple, ian dislocaed his shoulder twice and jim went hunting for fish but they got away. so we all played on our floaties.
jim "diego" captured a magnificent coconut.
crazyiest road of our lives. the old 200 coastal highway. no longer in use. 2 lanes overgrown into less than 1 and turns tighter than brendans flexed abs. where the old 200 hist the beach resides an abandoned hotel and some of the coolest coast any of us have ever seen.
diego, uno, y jesus trickey explored the abandoned hotel.
while juan chan cast into the surf and caught some dinner.
our camp fire!
a daily dose of karate kick!
"chory" ghetto rigs the four wheel drive. 4x4 se funcionar!
kids at the disco like karate kicks too!
Monday, November 12, 2007
prelude to EPIC adventure: Scene I
The team assembeled in Los Angeles, California last week to work on character development and motivation for Scene I. During this EPIC 2-4 day period of serious group introspection we accomplished the following things (not necessarily in chronological order):
-Bought a 1991 Toyota 4Runner with 175,000 miles from Oscar.
-Bought 4 pairs of 40s at a Kwik-e-Mart in Compton, LA.
-Walked a lot
-Drove around a lot
-Ate fried chicken at the Soul Food Express with 40s at hand.
-Ran through an enormous fountain ending with very disappointed security guard.
-Watched Point Break and talked about it a lot.
-Watched Eagle vs. Shark and multiple episodes of FOTC... Movie was EPIC.
-Drank Beer, ate cookies and watched EPIC surfing with the Rad owners of Bird Rock Surf Shop in La Jolla.
-Chilled with amazing hosts who added witty conversation and pancackes/pizza beer.
The first night the team headed to hipster headquarters to destroy some LA nonchalance with over-the-top white/yellow boy Krumpin... Here's a little taste of a mid-song power pose...
The next days the crew undertook the tiresome task of procuring props and materials for Scene I. We bought some new off-road tires to add some EPICness to the ride which at this point has been deemed "Doug". There was some neat street art next to the tire joint...
Continuing with the progression of the plot the team headed to San Diego for futher inspiration. In between the hours of intense round-robbin monologue battles the crew did some martial arts training (foreshawdoing for potential DOOM/love vs. Mexican bandito death matches). Here a snippit of an EPIC karate kick... i promise you we did not photoshop this... Brendan is just that raw.
Sometime during the endless brainstorming a new theme was developed. It's basically a charitable champaign involving Brendan flexing. He titled it Flex Across America - Changing Lives One Flex at a Time. 
"Bro that picture is EPIC... I look pretty ripped."
While most of the team retired to some reading Jim continued his training with some EPIC off the wall back flips...
The final day was spent doing some "CHILL" body surfing and meditating on EPIC vibes for the journey. With most of the pre-trip details ironed out the crew is ready to head South... hopefully we didn't need starch.
Thanks to Katie, Tyler, Mo and Jeff for being amazing hosts. Stay tuned as the story unfolds.
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