The fair has come to town

“Looks like some carnival lost a good act.” – James Gleason

There is a pier along the water in downtown Quepos; I had heard this was where the farmer’s market was held, but the entire time I have lived here, the farmer’s market has been held behind the bus station. During the day you sometimes see a few locals sitting along the pier, and at night that is where the drug deals are allegedly made… but other than that I haven’t seen any other happenings along this pier (it is not the gorgeous view you are envisioning, rather those views are closer to Manuel Antonio). That was until the fair came to town.

We first noticed this fair during one of our regular walks to the internet café. Initially, we weren’t quite sure what they were putting up, as this fair seemed to be assembled piece by piece and took well over a week to set up. Please don’t let the length of set up time give you any grandiose ideas about the size or offerings of the fair...rather I think the delay was probably in part due to one-lane bridges and overall just due to “Tico Time.”

We continued to watch the assembly process for about a week and once we saw the rides go up, we knew we were in business. Unfortunately, this time of year it rains most nights, so for a week we made attempts to go with no success, but on the first non rainy night, we ceased the opportunity.

When we arrived, we walked up the steps to the pier, where we entered a bar… not because we have drinking problems, but because it was set up as the entry way to the fair. I liked this place already… though I don’t know if the bar entrance sends the right kind of “family fun” message… I don’t think I have ever had a beer at a carnival before.

Here are Linda and Kurt kicking off the night with a beer. I am pretty sure some of the people sitting in the bar never made it any further… however, we knew there was excitement to be had.

After getting a beer, we began to walk through the fair, realizing what a generous term that was. There were numerous stands set up (all selling the same cheap crap), a cotton candy booth, some small rides off in the distance and games involving alcohol. That is right, pretty much every game at the carnival involved bottles of liquor, either as a part of the game, or as a prize… or in some cases, both. I thought carnivals were supposed to be for kids… guess “family fun” was really not their intended message. Which frankly is alright by me, I don’t have kids…though am strongly considering stealing a Tica baby before my return home.
The first game we came across was pretty straight forward, and very similar to drinking games played at bars in the States. You throw dice, add up your total, and win the prize with the corresponding number… which was money, liquor or no prize at all.

As you can see from this picture, this game requires very little in the way of materials… and I am pretty sure this guy just packs up his little box and catches a ride to the next fair with someone else…which allows him to drink the remaining bottles of alcohol… which he is able to keep because he is a cheat.
Kurt was the first to go, threw his dice and we began to do the math. As we were adding the dice in our heads, the “game master” quickly scooped them up and announced a number…which was coincidentally a number with no corresponding prize. We were pretty sure that wasn’t the correct number, but couldn’t prove it (or argue well enough about it in Spanish, though, not surprisingly, Kurt gave it an earnest effort). Turns out the dice game was a rip off (surprise surprise), but that didn’t stop us from playing again. No sir. Linda went next, and we made sure the game master (read: thief) didn’t touch the dice until we were able to count them, at which time Linda won 1 million colones (about $2). It was then my turn where I won nothing…which as you will see became a pattern for me over the course of the night. Onto the next game…
The second game we played surprisingly did not involve liquor bottles, just some crappy stuffed animals (similar to carnivals in the States) and a couple of cans. All you had to do to win was knock down all of the cans… easier said than done as I am pretty sure a couple of the cans on the bottom were nailed down to the plank. Kurt hit those cans pretty hard, and they did not budge. The conspiracy continues….
The next name was the ring toss. While this game is at most carnivals in the States, it is usually made up of soda bottles, not in Costa Rica my friends. In Costa Rica your ring toss game involves…. drum roll please…bottles of liquor.

And as with the last game, this game seemed to be a little “rigged” as we are pretty sure the rings that we were given weren’t really big enough to fit over any bottle. We asked for a demonstration to prove that the rings actually fit, however our request was never honored. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop us from playing, nor did it stop Kurt from really cheering Linda on. Guess he really wanted her to win a bottle of liquor that he could buy down the street for about $5.

After our lack of success with the ring toss, we moved onto a game that I don’t really understand. I had never seen this game before, though Linda said that when she was little, they used to play this game at the church carnival. I didn’t realize gambling was a part of church, had I known, maybe I would have gone more often.

So, for those of you who, like me, have never seen this game, here is the deal…in this game, there are a bunch of coins on a platform that continues to move back and forth. You drop money into the machine in hopes of “pushing” the other money forward, thus winning the money that drops down through the hole. Sounds simple, right? Well maybe at the church carnival where the people aren’t trying to rip you off. Whereas, at the Quepos fair, money is piled up so much in the front that it is really heavy and pretty much impossible to move forward far enough to drop into the hole… we could have just as easily handed the man a dollar and walked away… the outcome would have been the same, minus the frustration.

The final rip off game of the night, was a dart toss. I am pretty sure I don’t need to explain to you the object of the game, but will tell you the rip off scheme behind this one. When you get up to the game, they hand you the darts (of which there are 3) and tell you that to win all you have to do is pop a balloon. If you are successful in popping one of the balloons, you win the correlating amount of money attached to the balloon.

Being the expert dart player that I am, I hit a balloon with my 2nd dart and was thrilled… I was actually going to win 2 million colones. As I started to celebrate, the guy explained that I had to hit the balloon on the other side of the bill as well…meaning you must hit 2 balloons on the same bill for anything to happen. Not how he originally explained it… you got it, ripped off once again.
After giving all of our coins to the Ticos (while I am complaining about being ripped off, we couldn’t have spent more than $5 between the 3 of us), we walked further along the pier to the kids rides. Wow. Let’s just say that if I do steal a child, I am pretty sure I will not let them go on any fair ride except for the merry go round.

You would not believe how shaky this ride looked. As the "ferris wheel" goes around, those carts swing in circles. I was just waiting for someone to be thrown into the water.

But this ride was the scariest of all... while my Spanish is not quite good enough to read the local newspaper, I am fairly confident the following day's headline read:

"Four Children Killed on the Octopus Ride"

Every time they tried to "close" the carts, it was a difficult task... and required a lot of body weight. When the ride started, I was just convinced the "mouth" would open again and bodies were going to be on the ground.
Please look closely at this boy. If you click on the picture and open it up, you will notice a little yellow chain that was supposed to be his seatbelt.. there was no way that was going to hold him in. As he was sitting at the top (in this picture), waiting for the other children to be loaded in, he was smart enough to spread his feet out, which I am convinced was the only thing that kept him from falling out.
Now if you look to the top left of this picture, you will see one arm... the arm of a little girl who couldn't have weighed more than 40 lbs soaking wet. As her car was spinning around, she was grabbing for dear life onto the side.

This is pretty much the only ride I will allow my stolen child on... and only if I am standing right next to her.

As we did not want to watch young children die, we decided to head into the bar on this end of the fair; seems as though you can’t get out of this place without having another drink. Welcome to the Hotel California.

Here are Katie and Pete, the honeymooners and our neighbors at Las Palmas. More about them in the Caribbean blog...

As we were heading back down the pier after stuffing our faces on some fried noodles and churros, I saw a stand, that for $4, would engrave your name on a fake silver necklace… which instantly got me thinking about how we could take our “team uniform” to a whole new level. As soon as I saw this, I ran up to our “coach” to tell him that instead of the fake spray on tattoos we had previously considered getting, I thought the necklaces were just what we needed. He immediately agreed.

We walked back to the stand, picked out our necklaces and the engraving began. On the front of our necklaces we had “Las Chusas De La Suerte” (the name of our team)…
and on the back, Kurt got his high score engraved. That is right people, Kurt scored a 170 one night and now has the highest score on record at Bobby D’s. I bet his mama is proud. And while Kurt encouraged me to get my high score engraved on the back, I refused, and told him that I didn’t want to “limit myself.”

That's right... 170! And don't you forget it (which actually is impossible to do with the amount he talks about it)
Here is Kurt "presenting" Linda with her necklace. What an honor.
And the presentation of mine. Could we be any trashier?

And while I may be trashy... I am also proud...

Our new team necklaces. Bobby D is going to love them... or think we have gone too far.
Our evening at the fair ended like all other nights at Tico bars… with a little karaoke… and a lot of laughs…it is amazing what people will do after a few beers… and this time I don’t mean Kurt. But you will have to wait until the next posting for the tragedy that ensued…

And realizing that this carnival happened back at the beginning of July, and I am only now blogging about it, makes me realize that I will be telling stories about Costa Rica until December… because I have so many stories waiting to be told. Either that or I better blog every day for the next 3 weeks.