Diagnostic essay first draft

Costa Rica

This past May I took a trip of a life time to the Central American country of Costa Rica, but it was anything from beautiful as one would think of when talking about a mountainous tropical coastline. This is exactly what my uncle and I thought when we started planning this trip four years ago when I was in my 9th grade year of high school. But little did we know what wait for us in this anything goes type of country.
Before I start you must know something about my uncle and I, we are essentially the same person except 20 years apart. We like a lot of the same things, and usually agree on almost everything, so I guess you can say we are pretty close. As I said, “Almost everything”, including surfing, the one soul reason for enduring on this tropical surf trip. Now to the surf trip, now that we have gotten off the plane in San Jose airport in Costa Rica, this is when it was time to kick back, relax, and get a beer, cause as we all know there are no drinking ages in 3rd world countries. We immediately get surrounded by 50 taxi guys, 2 of them instantly grab our board bags and say follow them, now this was weird cause I had arranged for a taxi driver prior to arriving, so something was wrong. Some how one or another these two guys knew exactly who we were and grabbed our bags to take them to our taxi van. As soon as I met our driver I knew we were in good hands because he was American, at least I’ll be able to communicate with him, I thought. Our driver Adrian turned out to be a really nice guy and definitely got us in the right state of mind, by stopping at the nearest Cantina, so we could pick up some beers and a spliff, for the 3 hour drive we had ahead of us. So we were now officially on vacation and on our way to our lush tropical paradise; or so we thought. 3 hours and a 6 pack later we arrived at our hotel, only able to see the bugs flying around our heads and the path way to our bungalow. Our bungalow contained two bunk beds, a small TV, toilet, and the occasional cock roach that would run across the floor, very basic and weird. The next day I finally got a good look at my so called tropical paradise, it turned out to be the most disgusting and nasty beaches in Costa Rica, especially because the waves were so big, the size was causing all of the river mouths to open up allowing raw sewage, trash, 20 foot tree trunks, and also did I mention crocodiles to go out to sea and come ashore. The most disgusting things I remember seeing on the beach were hypodermic needles, tooth brushes, medical bands, and a full trash bag. This only the beginning, it turns out that the waves were huge the whole trip, I would say at least 10 feet, 20feet a times, which basically means keeps the hell out of the water if you don’t know what you are doing. This didn’t help the fact that I was already freaked out about the debris on the beach. After surfing and getting use to place for a couple days there were a couple things I had picked up about the locals and the environment I was in. First of all don’t do anything fast at all, because if you do, you will definitely be sweating profusely by the end, this is because it is so damn hot everyday, you can actually see the humidity coming off coast line in the morning. Another thing is when ever you decide to buy something, you never under any circumstance just go and pay for it, you simple ask someone how much first, then go and calculate your money and then take it up to the counter, if not you will get robbed or at least charged more money. Costa Rica is just like any where with a different language if you know the language you will be a lot better off and not taken for a “gringo” or American. Costa is one of the hottest places I have ever been and the only way I found to cool yourself down was a cold cerveza (beer), because forget about trying to order anything with ice or cold, because the only thing that is cold is the beer.
Almost done with the trip it was time to make our way into the town of Jaco for a little night life. Little did we know this place is the last place you want to go to at night. My uncle and I found ourselves a nice little bar on the beach after a short and annoying walk through the town of drug dealers and crack heads. This bar turns out to be in the center of town and right next to the police station, pretty safe spot you would think. This is Costa Rica and anything goes, this bar turns out to be the biggest drug and prostitute bar in Costa Rica. After one hundred attempts by drug dealers and prostitutes for some business, my uncle and I had enough of Jaco. Luckily I was in a good state of mind to be able to handle all those people I thought to myself, cause if not I think I might of gone crazy. All in all after a week of surfing perfect waves and discovering a tropical waste land, completely opposite of a tropical paradise, I was ready to get back to United States soil.
Costa Rica was a lot different than my uncle and I thought is was going to be. But as strange and disgusting this 3rd world country seemed, it was a very interesting and unusual trip that most people would never want to experience. This trip should me what it is really like in 3rd world countries, and how good we actually have it here in the United States. I learned that we take a lot of things for granite here in the United States, such as toilets, and have been a lot more environmentally friendly ever since I’ve been back.