Life in Puerto Viejo

I Love a Parade!

No, it was not Gay pride or Santa Claus Parade. Local Costa Ricans take their Indepence Day Celebrations seriously.

No Parade is complete without a band...

Months of Practice, Roberto prepares the kids for the event.

Getting hitched at The Banana Azul

We hosted our first big event at the Banana Azul.  We had a wedding of over 100 people.  The bride was from Spain and the groom is a local guy.

Ceremony was on the beach and festivities were at the hotel.

Local bands played well into the wee hours of the morning and a shuttle bus kept people going and coming from Puerto Viejo all evening. 

There They Go Again...

The latest scandal with the US senator arrested in a public bathroom for tapping his foot and allowing it  to touch another mans foot under a stall wall has got to be one the most hilarious media shows going yet.   According to reports he never actually had sex, touched anything or even said anything that he was interested in illicit sex... but he was arrested and a 30 career of the one the most classic cases of Republican hypocrisy was down the drain.

Just when you thought the Monica and Bill side show during the Clinton reign was long over, Americans and American media seemed just crazed over anything that seems remotely resemble anything outside what is classified as pro-creative sex.  It is so hard to imagine that news stations would have endless hours of coverage over something like this.  It all just seems so crazy, that you really feel that there is no hope for the world.  America is at one of it's saddest states in my time on this earth and here they are going ga-ga over the possibility that someone might have sex in a public bathroom.  What about the terrorists? 

Last time I was in Miami airport (no not in the bathroom), they announced security level was elevated to orange.  I did not know what to do.  I looked at boarding pass to see if there was colour-coded instructions.  There were none.  So, then I thought, I will just look for people wearing orange uniforms or something.  There were none.  In fact, apart from the announcement, no one seemed to blink an eye or skip a step except me.  Do you feel safer now?

You know... I have had some real enlightening experiences about public sex since my move to Costa Rica.  No, unfortunately, I have not seen gorgeous gay Latin men fornicating in a bathroom, public park or anywhere else.  But I have seen heterosexuals having sex right out in the hammock on the beach in front of our hotel (it was a local tico holiday weekend).  I was shocked and thought that no... they aren't really doing that.  So, I asked the gardener if they were having sex out there and he responded to me quite matter factly, "of course they are".  I thought that I would have had the dignity to do it in the bushes.

That same weekend, there was another couple spotted having sex on the beach.

Most recently I even had a Costa Rican chapter of a local swingers organization inquire about renting the whole hotel for a "group take over".  I had know idea what she was talking about.  They looked like bird watchers.  Then she was wondering about the lack of privacy and would staff be offended by their presence.  It hit me over the head like a ton of bricks.  Not only were they going to swap partners, they were going to do it publicly.  I felt like Barbara Bush trying to not look like a prude and dis way from looking at our hotel as a candidate for their event.   

Maybe the religious right should be afraid.  Since Gay men are notoriously known for multiple partners and public sex, they are now teaching straights on how to spice up a boring monogamous long-term relationship.  Where will it all end?

Personally, my greatest fear would be that the other guy in the next bathroom stall would be non other than Karl Rove.