The Birth of Team Tricycle

With the others gone, that left Liz, Elise and me, a trio dubbed from very early on as Team Tricycle. Three wheeled, unstable, childish, and it takes a lot of effort to make us go anywhere - some cruel folk would say we were well named. However, from the outset we had high hopes for our week together. First of all we would practice healthy living. We all agreed that for the past few weeks we'd eaten far too much, drank far too much and failed to do any sort of exercise. This was to end now! It was time for salads, fruit, mineral water and maybe even some yoga! Secondly, we were going to learn how to surf. Almost every other beach we'd visited on this trip is described as a "surfing hotspot" in our guidebook, so we felt it was high time we became experts. And finally, Elise was going to learn about money (Liz, of course, is a lost cause). Up until now, Elise had been spending money left, right and centre on whatever she wanted. With my help she wanted to learn how to budget properly, and stick to a sensible amount of spending each day.

The last resolution went out of the window almost immediately, as Elise couldn't withdraw any money on her cash or credit cards. Some more was being transferred into her account the following week, but until then I basically had responsibility for all of Team Tricycle's cash. Likewise the second resolution we decided to hold off on for a couple of days, as it didn't really feel like the right kind of "vibe" to go surfing just yet. However, we slipped into healthy living right from the outset. The first meal we had after the others left was a salad for goodness sake. There may have been quite a lot of steak and cheese in it - but it was still definitely a salad. Also - at this meal no alcohol was consumed! Unless you count one beer each, of course.

Working on the success of our first meal, the next day we got up, ate a light breakfast of several rounds of marmite and toast, then hit the beach. Once there, we ate only fruit for lunch, and even considered playing frisbee for a while. We were doing so well until mid-afternoon when we decided to pay another visit to the all-you-can-eat sushi bar. We missed Greg so we brought along a melon to make us a four again - though to be fair the melon was more of a Karen De Caux substitute rather than anything else ...

Still, in healthy living terms, sushi is pretty good for you ... even if you do eat so much of it you feel like you're going to burst, then wash it all down with a few vodka oranges that you've kept in a bottle under the table to avoid paying the extortionate drinks prices. Still pretty good for you ... right? OK, so the no alcohol thing wasn't going particularly well, but on Day 3 we excelled ourselves. We got up, went to the beach and I relaxed as the girls went sarong shopping (which actually took a very long time as neither Liz nor Elise could decide which sarong they wanted, and they ended up having to run away from a man they'd promised to a sarong from but had changed their minds at the last second - but I digress). We then took some "arty" photos of said sarongs (and of course the melon) before playing a bit of frisbee (exercise!)

After that we made our way back to Quepos, and rounded the day off with some salad, and a bit of yoga. Yes that's right, I said yoga. I actually quite fancied seeing what all the fuss was about. True, I don't think I would have even considered going if Greg had still been there, but spending every waking minute with two girls tends to affect a man's reasoning after a while. In any case I did it ... and surprise surprise I was the only guy in the class.

In all honesty ... and I am now properly going out on a limb here ... I really enjoyed it. I certainly had some misgivings at the beginning, when we were all "finding our centre" and the instructor was banging on about the energy of the stars and the moon whilst some hippy music was playing. Good lord at one point we were all supposed to let out a communal "Ommmmmm..." and I had to concentrate very hard not to collapse into fits of laughter. I also had to make sure I didn't make eye contact with Liz or Elise or I might have exploded. Ten minutes later however, and we were being asked to perform a series of complex and strenuous manoeuvres which put the body in all kinds of weird and uncomfortable positions. An hour and a half later and we were all sweaty, knackered, ready for bed - but also relaxed and feeling good. Now that's what I call clean living.

So Day 3 was definitely a success. the following day we considered going surfing, but sacked it off in favour of a canopy tour. There would be plenty of waves elsewhere we reasoned, but not many chances to fly through the jungle at high speed on a zip line. The phrase "Canopy Tour" doesn't quite do it justice I feel.

Firstly we were kitted out in gloves and a ridiculous looking hat and harness combo. Next we were led up a big hill through the jungle. On the way our guide pointed out a couple of green poison dart frogs, and our old friend the deadly fer-de-lance snake. The frogs can give you a nasty rash if you touch one, but the highly venomous fer-de-lance is really quite dangerous, as Liz and I knew well from our time in the Belizean jungle. So, naturally we got up close and took some pictures:

OK, so in all honesty the guide got the one of the snake - I for one wasn't going anywhere near that thing. Fortunately nobody got poisoned, and we all made it to the first zip line platform without any minor discomfort or death. Our guide then ran through how it all worked. There were 14 zip lines through the canopy of the jungle, each with a platform at either end. We were to be attached to said lines my means of a pulley, which was in turn attached to our harnesses. We would then shoot at high speed from one platform to another, braking (if we felt the need) by putting pressure on the zip line with a gloved hand. It was brilliant, as you can no doubt imagine.

The best of the lot was zip line number 8, which was one of the longest at over 400 meters long. We had to hike up another big hill to reach the platform, but when we did we were almost out of the canopy. The subsequent ride therefore was mainly above the tops of the trees, looking out over the Costa Rican jungle. Truly breathtaking. During the tour we were also lucky enough to spot a troop of monkeys, out for their breakfast.

And that was it for Quepos. We'd done pretty well with our clean living for the first four days of Team Tricycle (apart from the odd sushi slip up) but could we continue the good work in our next destination ... party surf town Dominical?