Fun and Wild

A few nights ago, I paid money ($39) for dinner and a soak in a hotsprings at the Baldi Hotel (I actually stayed in the Hotel Amistad for $25 dollars!) The Baldi is as ostentatious as you can imagine, but it has lots of hotsprings. And the thing that caught my eye at the tourist information booth when I saw the pictures, is that they have water slides that empty into the hot springs! Really? Water slides at a thermal hotsprings? I drove out there, paid my $39 dollars, ate my dinner a little too quickly, and changed into my bathing suit and started wading around and around and around. People, sidling up to bars, kissing in the shadows, laughing and talking in groups.

Baldi

I, skulking past them, looking for what? Warmer water? A pretty girl? No, the frigging water slides. Eventually I asked, and found they were even farther up the hill. Up I went, and there they were, three giant water slide exits into a giant thermal pool.

I casually slip into the water, a bunch of overweight 50-year old frenchies wading around socializing. I sidle over to the three slide exits, two of them covered tunnels, the third open. Where are the laughing 20-year olds? I saw a bunch down lower. Cmon, isn’t anyone going down this thing? Nope. I asked the apparent guide of the frenchies, is the water slide closed? No, he said, relieved (He was bored to tears, I found out later). You want to try it? Sure.

So up we walk. Up and up. Now it’s been a few years (actually a couple of decades) since I last went down water slides, and they were much smaller than this one. The man, who was a Tico (slang for Costa Rican), LOVED water slides. Oscar was his name. I asked him about this one. Well there is one easy one, one medium wild one, and one really really wild one. Sounds like the set up of a joke, doesn’t it?

Cool. What do you mean really really wild?

Well my first time down it I thought I was going to die.

Oh. Why?

Because it (and the easy one) is completely covered, and especially at night, is pitch pitch black inside. You can’t see the turns coming.

Ok. I’ll go on the easy one.

So, picture yourself me. Here I am, kind of wandering around impulsively doing things till my Russian colleague (Leonid, more later) comes with his molecular biology stuff. Always wanted to see this volcano and here I am about to ride a water slide full of its heated water. In the dark. In a country far, far away, where I know almost no one, and am traveling completely by myself.

But what the hell, right? It’s just a water slide. People don’t die on it, or it wouldn’t be here. So Oscar goes first, and then I go. Seated. Slick new swim trunks on (less friction). My first sensation is that it is just such a rush to accelerate. I can see the first turn and lean into it. Nice. And then the lights go off. Pitch black. I kind of guess which way to bank, and I guess wrong. Almost slam my head on the side of the slide.

Not a video game.

Suddenly steeper, faster. I instinctively lie back, holding my head off the slide bottom. Survival mode. The next few turns scared the piss out of me, no idea where I was, just banging from side to side. Skipped out the exit into the pool of frogs, and just about puked.

Oscar was laughing. How’d you like it? Uh, it was a little much.

You have to get used to it, he said.

So, I went back up, and got used to it. Tried the medium one. Open, so I could see. Very fun. Then I tried that one again, only this time facing down on my belly like superman. Very cool. Like a big body surfing wave. Tried the covered medium one belly down. It was fun too. But I walked away from that scariest one. Why?

Because Costa Rica isn’t like California.

In California, they try to generate fun and wild from a platform of boring safety. They build an illusion of fun and wild. The jungle ride, magic mountain, the matterhorn. All are carefully engineered, with emphasis on careful. Cause if they screw up; if somebody gets hurt; they get sued, big time.

But in Costa Rica, where it seems nobody gets sued, they take very scary things, like boulders shooting down a mountain, and build an illusion of safety. Somebody built a scary water slide. It isn’t safe. It is fundamentally wild. But they present it as if it is a California water slide.

Two more examples tomorrow.