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http://www.quadmagazine.com/quad/features/article/0,24942,1616058,00.html
The day I got to Costa Rica I got a horrendous e-mail telling me that my best friend of 12 years passed into the next dimension. I was devastated. She and I were inseparable because she was the coolest dog ever. Upon receiving the news that my buddy Witkin was dead, I wanted to go immediately home and stay in bed for a month to mourn. I was miserable. I loved that dog so much. So there I was, freshly on the soil of Costa Rica, an off-road adventurer’s paradise, and I just wanted to turn around and go home. Instead, I sucked it up and met with one our drivers for the trip, Marco. It worked out that he also had a bad case of the “dead pet blues.” His pet Willy the sloth had recently passed away, so we bonded over our dead friends and hung out most of my stay in Costa Rica.
OK, let me start over. I embarked on a trip to Costa Rica to meet up with the guys from H-Bomb Films. They had set up a big show there and I was set to ride some wild trails on a quad and to photograph some of H-Bomb’s riders who were participating in a freestyle show. Flying form Chicago to San Jose, Costa Rica, means no direct flights. I got a last minute call from BC with H-Bomb Films that the two flying ATV brothers who were set to perform, Caleb and Colton Moore, had problems getting their quads’ shocks onto their flight. Something about the miniscule oil residue was a possible bomb agent or something. So the Moores missed their first plane and I met up with them later that night in Miami. They looked tired and Caleb was looking nervous. How was he supposed to pull a backflip in front of 26,000 Costa Rican quad fanatics without a decent A-arm and shock? Both of the Moores were pretty quiet. I figured they hated me already. Everyone hates photographers—even I hate myself for being a photographer, running around and stealing people’s souls and all.
When we arrived in Costa Rica, our driver seemed slightly bummed. He told us a story of how his pet sloth recently died. Since I had just learned that my best buddy was chasing Milkbones in the sky, the driver and I became good friends. He brought us to a sweet hotel called El Rodeo and there we met Manrique Mata, the organizer of the freestyle event. We were wiped out from traveling (because being suspected of smuggling terrorist shocks onto a plane is tiring) so we went straight to sleep.
The next morning, reading the e-mail about my dog again, I immediately started looking for flights home. After some thinking, though, I figured it would be better to ride quads in Costa Rica than to stay in my bed and cry for weeks. If any of you call me a pussy for loving my dog so much, I will kill you. To take my mind off my drama, that night the entire crew of MX freestyle guys, the ATV-jumping Moores, Wes Miller and BC from H-Bomb, Manrique the organizer of the X-Knights freestyle event went out on the town. A gentleman aptly named Mad Mike Jones guzzled a bunch of Imperials, which is Costa Rican barley pop, and thought it would be a good idea to crush glasses in his hands. Turns out that was a bad idea. Oh well, live and learn. Later that night the whole crew went out to the infamous Del Ray. I probably should not talk about this part since the Del Ray is a fairly well known place to do…things for money…legally. I opted to stay in bed. My own bed. Alone.
The next morning, all of us got up early (and some of us never went to bed). We headed out to the football stadium, otherwise known as a soccer stadium to us Yankees. This place was bigger than I thought. I asked Manrique how many people the stadium held, and he told me it had a capacity of 26,000 and that the place was sold out for tomorrow night’s freestyle event. The entire country was going nuts for this thing—it was a really big deal.
We walked around the arena as the ramps were built and being put in place. The bikers got to practice first as the quad guys got their machines put together at the last minute (hey, we have four wheels compared to dirt bikers two and so, therefore, it takes us longer to get prepped). Marco Picado, our driver/tour guide hooked up Caleb with a set of shocks and some better tires. Where did Marco get that stuff? Well, it turns out Marco is one of the fastest ATV racers in Costa Rica, not to mention his father owns the biggest TV station in the country. Caleb started to feel better about doing a backflip on his quad in front of all those people.
Caleb and Colton spent most of the day directing the work crew to get the kicker jump set at the perfect angle. Caleb finally got to give the jump a test and totally skied, nearly clearing the entire landing, and slamming into the kicker jump on the other side of the landing. It was rough. I thought the dude was dead. I thought, “Who am I going to take pictures of for the rest of the week?” Maybe this is why people hate photographers—we’re selfish like that. The A-arm on his quad was mangled and Caleb looked mangled, as well. Unfortunately, his mom was there to see the whole thing. Poor mom. A few minutes later Caleb got up and pulled himself together. Whew. Both his mom and I were relieved.
The whole crew went out again that night. The Moore’s mom had a few drinks (and rightfully deserved them after watching her child slam into the ground). I stayed home to morn some more. Ms. Moore and her sons had a little problem getting back into the hotel that night. The security guard was on point and did not want to let mom into the hotel. I think the security dude was stressed out after all the stuff that happened the night before… But what did he expect to happen when a bunch of dudes who jump off huge jumps on heavy motorized vehicles all get together? There’s obviously going to be shenanigans involved. Anyhow, the security guard thought Mrs. Moore was a sex worker and didn’t want to let her into the hotel. Of course, the H-Bomb guys and the Moore brothers got really upset. I am surprised the security guard didn’t get a good beating for pretty much calling the Moore’s mom a prostitute. They got things squared away with him and then they all went to sleep.
Feeling slightly worse than good from the party the night before and nervous, the crew went to the stadium early so Caleb could practice on the jump again. Since the quad he was riding the day before got trashed, we only had one quad left and Colten, Caleb’s younger brother, got the shaft and had to give his brother his quad. This is where being the younger sibling always bites you in the behind—he was not going to be able to jump in the show, but he actually handled the situation well.
There were tons of news media crews and cameras everywhere. The major TV station, Channel 7 was there, every newspaper pretty much in the country, and other smaller TV stations were all clamoring to capture the freestyle freakshow on film. There were even kids trying to sneak in early to get autographs. We felt like rock stars. And by “we” I mean they felt like rock stars. I was still just the photographer.
Caleb, still licking his wounds from the day before, practiced on the kicker and pulled off a few tricks, but was not allowed to try a backflip until the actual event. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing, but I was willing to hang around to find out the answer. The house was packed, the Costa Rican pit girls were smoking hot, and half the riders were hung over but didn’t let that stop them from putting on an incredible show. The crowd was insane—they went nuts for any trick.
Caleb came out to ride between the MX freestyle heats and hit the jump for another test. The crowd went nuts. They loved seeing an ATV airborne. Then it happened—Caleb hit the ramp, moved to the back of his seat, tilted his head back and did a HUGE backflip. The crowd went even nuttier and gave Caleb a standing ovation. Caleb was now a bonafide Costa Rican rock star. After all the bad luck he had previous to the jump, he pulled it off. A bunch of dudes ran up to Caleb to congratulate him while the security guards were earning their pay by trying to hold us back.
The crowd was chanting something in Spanish. If I paid more attention during Spanish class, I would have understood what they said… But I didn’t, so I didn’t. Caleb doesn’t know Spanish either, but he knew what the crowd wanted and gave it to them. Even the dirt bike guys were going nuts. Caleb earned the respect for ATVers everywhere. Thanks, Caleb.
During the pandemonium, some TV journalist asked to interview me. I guess I look like some ripping freestyle guy. I declined, but kicked myself in the butt later. I had my chance at 15 minutes of Costa Rican fame. I could have told him that I have been secretly pulling off double backflips on my quad. The girls would have loved me.
The next day, the X-Knights freestyle event was all over the news. Every newspaper and TV station had its own recap of the event. Everyone voted Caleb’s backflip as the best jump of the event.
Once the craziness of the freestyle event was over, some of the guys flew back to the States. The H-Bomb guys and Moores stuck around to enjoy more of what Costa Rica had to offer us. We went to a sweet little animal rehabilitation center where Caleb fed a crocodile out of his hand. Colten played with a monkey while I tried to spank it for being bad. It was a change of pace from the previous days and was cool to hang out with some exotic animals. The next day, on kind of an animal kick, I looked really hard for a scorpion. There was a bet that I wouldn’t let the scorpion sting me in the huevos. I really wanted to show how tough I am since I was pretty much crying about my dog for the first part of the trip. I couldn’t find one (which I’m pretty sure I’m thankful for) so later that night I drank an entire shot of hot sauce. BC said he would give me 20 doll hairs to do it. I thought he said dollars. BC sucks.
We got some locals to build us a big kicker jump on the beach that night. We thought we could do a really cool photo shoot the next day to showcase the beauty and tranquility of the Costa Rican coast. Unfortunately, we were the talk of the town by that time (wasn’t sure if it was the backflip all over the newspapers and the TV or if it was my legendary hot sauce shooters), but the entire town showed up and ruined the photo shoot. By the time we got to the site, there were nearly 200 locals just hanging around the jump waiting. We tried to explain to them that they couldn’t stand under the jump or in front of it. Without speaking much Spanish, this was hard. So I just started yelling at people and giving the universal motion of “get the hell out of the way” by waving my arms to one side. Some kid came up to me and said, “Tranquillo, tranquillo.” People like to be mellow in Costa Rica. No hostility. Heck, they don’t even have an army. Tranquility is hard to convey when there’s hundreds of people standing around chatting us up.
Finally people sauntered out of our way, so our crew started hitting the sand kicker and the crowd went nuts. The landing totally sucked and Colten hit a tree twice, and that encouraged us to get out of Dodge. That was perfectly fine with me because I was taking photos from a rusted old cherry picker truck. As I was shooting, I leaned to one side and the whole basket shifted and almost dumped me out. It would of hurt to fall 20 feet from an old cherry picker. I used the universal hand signal for “get me the hell down from this piece of crap” by waving and pointing my hands downward. The photos didn’t turn out, but some kid asked me for my autograph and I finally felt like a rock star.
The following days of the trip were left open. We could do anything we wanted. One day we rode a sweet track in the mountains near Tambor and Guanacaste and ended up on the Montezuma beach. It was dusty as hell. Marco told us its better to go riding in Costa Rica after rainy season so that the dust doesn’t invade every nook and cranny. It was good advice that would’ve been useful before we embarked on the trip, but I’ll save it for another time. We also went on a canopy tour, which had us above the forest canopy. Since humans can’t fly, the best way to do this is by taking a long steel cable and fastening it between to points (sometimes a miles apart). You get saddled into a harness, attach it to a pulley, and zip! Away you go! You just glide across the sky while checking out the scenery. I asked if I could do it naked, but the tour guys were afraid they would get fired. Sissies.
When it was time for the H-Bomb dudes to leave, they invited me to hang with them in Argentina soon. I guess that don’t really hate me. I feel special now. We had bonded after all the good times we had and the things we learned while traveling abroad. For instance, we learned that Costa Rican time is different. Not only time, but distance, as well. “Seven miles” to a Costa Rican really means 50 miles of bendy pothole infested roads to us Americans. Going out for a quick bite to eat means eating for 15 minutes and waiting to get your order taken and then another two hours to get the check. Seriously. You need to take things slowly in this place. But the H-Bomb guys didn’t take anything slowly. They almost killed me after a week of partying.
On the last day of my trip, after the dudes were all gone, I hung out with Marco and he showed me the windiest place in Costa Rica. You can jump off the cliff there and the wind will blow you right back up. Seeing the country from the top of a mountain was killer. I contemplated riding my ATV off the cliff to see if it would push me back up, but Marco advised that I not do that. Seeing as he was the local and I was the tourist, I trusted his advice. Because of that sage wisdom, I was able to board a plane the next day and go home.
Looking back on my trip to Costa Rica, I am glad I decided to stay. It would have been no use to stay at home and mourn my dog while lying in my tent for weeks (I sleep in a tent because I let my ex-girlfriend keep my bed). Getting to hang out with great people and riding ATVs reminded me how important it is to have fun… And it reminded me of how many adventures I have been on with Witkin. She would want me to be out in Costa Rica exploring new land. I am not too proud to admit that I still cry sometimes when I think about my dog, but it helps to sit back, think of the good times, and just say “Tranquilo!”
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