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Written by Emily
20th-21st April -our last days in Costa Rica, a.k.a The Time We Went Too Far
Before you judge, you must understand that the events of these few hours were powered solely by intense hunger, lack of money and vengence. They have absolutely nothing to do with ammorality and lack of respect towards others. Honestly.
Basically, after one too many trips to the Auto Mercadao, spending unexpectedly large amounts of colones, followed by heftily lacklustre meals cooked in the bustling, oven-less kitchen in Casa Yoses, whereby we had to fight on a nightly basis with a Norweigian man named Bernt for possession of a gas ring, we had become what can only be described as pissed-off. The taking of things too far began with this fateful conversation:
Me: ´Rach, I really can´t be bothered to spend any more money on food.´
Rach: ´I really can´t be bothered to cook any more food´.
Me: ´Err.... O! We still have a bit of cheese left over in our skanky fridge bag...´
Rach: ´Em, we can´t just have cheese for dinner.´
Me: ´Yeah, but isn´t there some communal spaghetti festering around in the kitchen somewhere?´
And so with the dream of half-cooked spaghetti and hardened grated cheese in our hearts, we made our way to the kitchen. Shockingly, the kitchen was empty, no-one was in there, not even fancy-eyes receptionist getting himself nice and drunk on Cahuita Rum as usual, or even serial stove-hogger Bernt.
Excitedly, we began to gather ingredients, starting with the communal (i.e. not contained within a plastic bag with someone´s name scrawled on) spaghetti. As I pulled a handful out of the packet, i became aware of a concerning greasy secretion that was coating the top ends of the strands, but in the absence of any other dinner options, i did not let this deter me. Following this, our discussion continued:
Me: ´I don´t know if that´ll be enough pasta...´
Rach: ´Hmmm, yeah, I´m pretty hungry...´
Me:´I´ll add more.´(Throws down another handful)
Rach: ´Maybe more?´
Me:´Well, then there won´t be enough left for another portion.´(Pauses to consider) ´We´ll just have all of it´.
And so, to Rachel´s unbelievably over-salted boiling water, we added the entire packet of spaghetti, and hastily diposed of the evidence. Next job, grate the mouldering, week-old cheese. After a progressively more and more irritable rummage in the most festering depths of the fridge, I found no cheese. At first, my mind was angrily recalling our first night in Casa Yoses, whereby we had purchased a wealth of treats the trusty Auto Mercardo and stowed them in the fridge unprotected, only to find the following morning that our shopping in its entirety had been consumed. But then I realised it was tuesday, and as a casual sign stapled on the wall next to my head confirmed ´Every tuesday non-labled food will be thrown away´.
After I had informed Rachel of this concerning new development in our quest for dinner, we discussed what action to take next:
Me:´Well, I guess we´ll just have to go to the Auto Mercardo after all then, or have some mega bland pasta times...´
Rach:´Yeah, I guess so...´
Me: ´Or, we could scrounge in other people´s bags?´(proceeds to shove around various plastic bags, bottles, jars and general fridge debris) Óooo! Check it out!´(Holds up a barely-used jar of ´Ragu Cheesy Pasta Sauce´)
Rach: ´Em, I´m pretty sure that´s Bernt´s...´(We both grin at each other, and I carry the jar over to the cooking pasta).
Once the pasta had almost reached al dente perfection, Rach proceeded to unashamedly empty the entire jar of sauce into a bowl and shove it in the microwave. This dialogue followed:
Me:´I love how we use the whole jar of it. Skanks.´
Rach:´Yeah well It´s only Bernt. I think it might be a bit boring though, are you sure there´s nothing else?´
Me:(Searching through the fridge contents) ¨Er let´s see...condensed milk, a mouldy avocado, fermented orange juice, some of Gina´s almonds in water and argh!´ (Retracts hand abruptly) ´I don´t know what the hell that is! O wait, there´s someone´s grated parmesan?´
Rach:´Whack it in.´
This packet was then also swiftly disposed of, and whilst Rachel served up our stolen goods, I entertained her with a robotic impression of Bernt storming about the kitchen, searching for his missing pasta sauce. The meal was surprisingly tasty, but over far too soon, and quicker than Bernt can steal a gas ring, we were back in the kitchen, searching for more unclaimed snacks.
Presently, we came across a drawer of nutritious goodness, containing some un-stale brown bread, and a peculiar German brand of Nutella. This was hungrily combined, in such a ravenous whirlwind that before we knew what we had done, the enitre jar was empty. Upon this i commented, ´ I love how not only do we steal other people´s food, but we consume it in its enitrety and throw away the packaging´. Rachel then informed me of a tub of Nesquick milkshake powder that she had seen in another drawer earlier. I hunted it down and mixed up two glasses. Before downing mine, i commented, ´I´m not even hungry any more!´. At this point we noticed that there was just enough powder left for two more glasses.
Rach: ´So, should we finish it?´
Me: ´Well, i think we´ve come too far now...´
Rach: ´O, ok, i´ll put it back.´
Me: ´No, i mean we´ve come too far to back out!´(Mixes up two more glasses and throws away yet another empty piece of packaging) .
As if this sorry state of affairs wasn´t enough, the taking things too far continued into the next day, whereby Rach and I were supposed to fly over to good old Peru at 4:55pm, but had to check out of Casa Yoses at 11, giving us some sweet time to kill with our mega backpacks to lug around. Taking massive liberties and advantage of our friendships with all the receptionists, we managed to fester around until about 2pm, and then realised that there were two nights that we had not yet paid for. This dialogue followed:
Me:´Rach... I have a skanky but good idea.´
Rach:´What?´
Me:´Well, I have loads of colones coins left, and you can´t change coins up anywhere, so i thought, if we put all our coins together...we could pay for some of the accomodation...?´
A few minutes later, and we were emptying my bag of money onto the counter of Casa Yoses. A pile of literally about 200 coins cascaded out, in front of the bewildered receptionist who looked like she was about to cry with dispair. It took two receptionists HALF AN HOUR to count out our payment, but eventually, it was done, and off to the airport we crusied.
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