It was in completely spontaneous of me to run off to Costa Rica without telling anyone, but a buddy of mine calls me up and basically begs me to go with him – it really didn’t take that much begging, I said I would go if he paid for my ticket and I wouldn’t have to pay him back for 6 months or so, deal! So 2 days before embarking to Central America we got our tickets and arranged to meet in the airport, a very risky move.
Like all things done hastily, my friend soon realized his passport was expired, so I begged a road tripping buddy of mine from Detroit to book a flight and take a wek off of work at a days notice. There aren’t many people that could buy a plane ticket to an odd country at less then 24 hours notice – money isn’t the issue – its the pure insanity of doing that, I spoke of volcanoes and monkeys and half naked women on the white sand jungle filled beaches and he readily agreed.
My other friend than took my advice and visited one of these “heimishe” passport guru guys who charge you a couple hundred bucks for an expedited brand new passport (he got his the same day) makes you wonder about the efficiency of government institutions. So he told us we should meet him in the airport the next day – a bad idea without internet or cell phones. We waited several hours and after everyone from his flight left the baggage claim we left and headed out with our tiny 4×4 rental car to the Arenal Volcano which can be seen spewing lava at night.
Costa Rica is awesome, its got cloud forests, rain forests, jungle, volcanoes, tropical beaches and some really animals. It also has dirt cheap hotels called cabinas and absolutely no kosher food. We stayed as cheap as $5 a night and we thought we were kings when we stayed for shabbos at $26 a night.
The highlight of my trip was getting robbed, I know it doesn’t sound like much of a highlight, but monkeys, crocodiles and toocans (the fruit loops bird) were cool, surfing with the jungle as my back drop was awesome even though I got burnt to a crisp, staying in a nice hotel for 5 bucks a night brought out the true Jew in me. Watching the midnight sky be lit up with lava spitting out of a volcano was something and hiking through the jungle to waterfalls was simply amazing as well. Oh and meeting up with our lost friend in some random bar in the beach town of Montezuma was very hashgacha prutus – but being robbed simply takes the cake.
My buddy and I were off enjoying the beautiful brown skinned ladies of Monetzuma, a hippie surf town on the tip of the Guanacaste peninsula on the pacific side of Costa Rica, we had just bumped inot our lost friend in some random bar after we had had some drinks and we went back to our rental car to grab our gear to put in the hostel.
My friend Danny opened up the car and immediately let out some expletives, we both remained calm, the thieves who had broken in (not too hard in a cheap car without power locks) had been nice enough to relock the car doors when they were done taking all our stuff that was in any sort of bag. I started running through my inventory, shit my tefillin were gone was my first thought, then my cell phone, camera, very expensive back pack, camel back, favorite belt, wind proof fleece and oy my 1.8 pound sleeping back that was the size of a medium challah. Danny lost his camera and Ipod (full of local Detroit music which is not readily available), thank the Lord my 160 gb Ipod which was filled to capacity with music and mussar was in the car and out of the pack, my glasses, sneakers and extra pair of sandals were saved, as well 2 t-shirts and my headlamp were all outside the pack.
This was Thursday night, I was bummed, what if kept coming into my mind, but it was gone and there were no police (whom I didn’t trust anyway) in the town. Costa Rica doesn’t even have an army and the police already stopped me several times, including one almost speeding ticket which I begged my way out of. So we went to sleep and every few hours I would recall another item lost forever. However I was most bummed about my tefillin – for Jewish as well as sentimental reasons, would these people have any use for them? They were my bar mitzvah tefillin which was very sentimental, I can’t even afford to buy a new pair of tefillin, figured I could ask for donations – my paypal account is frumsatire@gmail.com if you want to donate so I can get a new pair of tefillin.
The roads of Costa Rica are truly insane and were half the fun of the trip. We rented a four wheel drive vehicle which was super fun to drive, good thing that all of us drove stick, the car was a dream, to drive just because of its high clearance and short wheel base, but the roads were still rough. Only 20% of the roads are paved in Costa Rica but the unpaved roads aren’t like the unpaved ones in America, In the US I barrel down dirt roads at 60 miles per hour, in Costa Rica everything takes 3 times as long as you’d expect from the distances.
The country is the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined, twice the size of Israel, not very big. 20 miles can take an hour or more, even on paved roads which aren’t much better. You know what happens when half the road washes out, instead of filling it in or making a fence around it, they place a low curb around it which cant be seen at night. We drove roads with land slides on the road and simply drove over or around, it was quite harrowing.
My Spanish improved quite a bit, we had some drinks with a guy in a truck with Minnesota plates who told us about how crazy border crossing was in a Foreign truck, he was the classic hippie who moves south of the border, it was hilarious.
We were at a gas station outside of San Jose, the capital city and there was a women with a skirt and hat on with a guy in black pants and t-shirt and a baseball hat pumping gas, we heard hebrew and we pounced, they had driven from Panama where they were on shlichut and we had a chat.
We finally got to eat some real food at the glatt kosher Burger King in San Jose(I have no idea how they support it), I should mention that San Jose is a city of over a million people and there are no street signs , thats right in Costa Rica there are no street signs and besides for the main roads, no road numbers as well. Getting around is quite the experience. We ended up having to ditch our shabbos plans because of that reason and ended up at this Couple who works for Aish on the Monday night before our flights.
Besides for losing $1500 in stuff the trip was great, I have absolutely no photographs of the trip and in fact have nothing to film videos on anymore and am flat broke. I am dead serious about donations, I know some of my readers have some dough and the better mood I am in the easier it is to crank out posts on a regular basis.
I was actually going to name this post “I got robbed in Costa Rica and all I got was this post” but it wasn’t really true, I have some great memories and stories to tell.
Now you know for next time not to leave any stuff in the car.
My first time on your blog. Am wondering whether your blatant appeal for money would be surprising to a seasoned reader. I find it to be sad. Sorry, sad is an understatement. Pathetic.
Are you a putz in real life or do you just play one on the internet?
Why didn’t you call up Chabad of Costa Rica?
http://www.chabadcostarica.com/
Moderation? What’s up with that Hesh?
Why am I putz asking people for donations so I can buy some new tefillin.
I never had a blatant appeal for money before – I use subconscious methods for that like flashing poor kids with flies flying around their faces in very quick intervals in my videos and in my posts I speak of the poor meshulach who has to resort to credit card machines – but really it was a subconscious plea for readers to empty their pockets so I could pray to the lord without having to wake up and go to shul so I can borrow tefillin.
Ha ha, better to be upfront when asking for cash. Maybe the guy/gal would have been less “sad” if you had used a more subtle approach.
I spent a month in CR back “in the old days” when I had more free-time. Only someone between jobs and nearly broke can do that! We went during the rainy-season cuz the flight was nearly free.
Bummer you got ripped-off, but that can happen anywhere. Great story.
sorry about the robbery, i feel for you. but sounds like you had a great time though.
‘but really it was a subconscious plea for readers to empty their pockets so I could pray to the lord without having to wake up and go to shul so I can borrow tefillin.’
There’s another alternative – you could spend some of your own (not other people’s) hard earned dough and buy a pair. Wait, sorry, that would mean less money to spend on wine, women and song (or sex, drugs and videotape). So I take it back, that was never really an alternative, was it?
To Should I be Surprised:
How is he a putz? He left the car locked and the luggage in the car. Should he have schelpped the luggage around the beach? Theft can happen to anyone.
As for the appeal for money, Hesh writes great posts, and it’s not like the money is for alcohol and girls – it’s for tefillin for G-d’s sake!!
If you lied to us about why you weren’t bloging, why should we trust you about your allegedly stolen tepillin. And just how much do you need for new ones. Will you stop schnorring then. Are you asking you real life friends for $$$ to.
Costa Rica is awesome – I wastold that the Burger King is not up to the Kashrus standards of a “yeshiva” type guy. There was a restaurant is San Jose where they shechted their own chickens – that place was really tasty and real fresh!
wow. some people really need to get their priorities straight. why does it matter to you if he needs money??? GET OVER IT. if it really bothers you so much, go do something constructive with your time and stop leaving rude posts.
and what the hell is a putz?
WHY do you need one of those heimishe passport guys? I would never give them the satisfaction of getting my business! What a ripoff. Believe me, you can get a passport in one day without their “help”.
is the penis in yiddish slang, like shmuck, (remember when Schumer was insulted when someone called him that?)
On a more serious note, the first time i went to Israel, i left my tefillin in my first cab drive from the airport, which was a omen, (which i failed to see then) as how f***ed up my stay in that country will be. I did get to go through the lost and found in Jerusalem, and got to see how the cops raffled off all the leftover items that ppl didn’t pick up. Never found it.
OH, Hesh, we missed you. (well some of us)
I got to do a write up on thecooljew heshy gets robbed in costa rica! Its got some hummer to it but I feel very bad about the teffilin thing! Hashem should help you recover!
awesome! I’m totally jealous!
One of the things I really wish I had money for was more travel..I’ve barely been anywhere except Israel a bunch of times, and Canada once. This summer I somehow finageled my future in laws into paying for a cruise around the Mediterranean- we got a cabin without a window, but I get to visit 4 countries! (Italy, Turkey, Croatia, Greece and Sicily). I am so so so excited!
Meanwhile, I have a friend who lives in Costa Rica, she’s doing the peace corps there. Maybe I should go visit sometimes…sounds awesome and cheap!
And thanks for reminding me to go renew my passport! 🙂
#2, Hesh provides us with hours and hours of entertainment for free. I’m sure that there are many many people who want to show their appreciation and help Hesh who works hard and gives so much to his readers. If I had any money I would buy the tefillin. He’s not asking you to do it so calm down.
If I didn’t have little kids I would send you my Bar Mitzvah teffilin, which I never use.
Consider reporting it to the Montezuma cops now, you never know, the culprits might get busted later and your stuff could be found.
hesh, i was also in costa rica a couple of years ago on a surf trip. i was in tamarindo. i am sorry your tefillin got stolen. i think would break down if anything happened to mine. first talk to your local chabad rabbi, he should be able to get you a pair through the chabad tefillin bank for about 100 dollars. let me know what happens. ill help with some money. if its 100 bucks from chabad.
What lessons can we learn from this? 1) never go to a country with no government. 2)if you do, always look for a chabad.
should be suprised
Whats your problem.
“1) never go to a country with no government.”
People get their stuff ripped off from cars in countries with governments all the time. US, Israel, anywhere.
It would be cool to integrate an iPod into teffilin, if it weren’t heretical, I suppose. iTeffilin ™.
Spinoza, If you turn off the screen you can use it as a mirror to check the placement of your shel rosh. ;-).
Hesh, I hate to say this, but who leaves all their stuff (including precious items) in a car in a third world country?
Mordy, you can use the camera for that. Brings new meaning, though, to “I’ve got to take a call.” Of course the ringtone would be the Sh’ma.
Heshy,
Look at this website for the next time you are in Costa Rica: http://www.centroisraelita.com/
It’s in Spanish, but there’s an English version listed on the bottom.
“If you lied to us about why you weren’t bloging”
How exactly did he lie? He just said he was taking a blogcation. Is he required to keep you updated of everything? Besides, Heshy is known to go on trips on a whim.
I feel so special because I don’t even know you and I actually knew you were in Costa Rica. All these other people didn’t know… Welcome back, Frummy Satire, now make us laugh!
Oh, wow, I just read the rest of that post. I’m so sorry. I’m not one of your readers with dough (well, you know what I do for a living so…) but, I hope that things get better and you get some new tefillin. Yes, I’m sure whoever took it has NO clue whatsoever what it is. I don’t want to think about what someone would do to it.
That’s enough of a bummer to put a damper on the entire trip. Freakin’ 3rd world countries…
How much are you planing to spend on new tefillin?
i feel for you man. i recently misplaced my tefillin but got them back.
Well I got $30 in donations so far and I got an email from some guy whos brother in law is a sofer and may be able to do it cheap
sorry to hear you were robbed. I hope you’re able to get some new tefillin soon.
Do guys share tefillin, if someone doesn’t have a pair, or do shuls just stock house tefillin for people who forget theirs?
You know … I’ve always wondered if second hand tefillin are sold anywhere? I also need new teffilin – I am afraid to have mine opened and checked because in most cases, opening them and exposing them to the “elements” (well, the unfolding and the air) causes them to become pasul. My theory is that as long as the cases stay closed, and as long as nobody messes with, or unfolds, the parchments, the ink will remain where it belongs. I also love my current teffilin, my grandfather a”h got them for me (first grandchild, etc), and they are very nice. They have nice soft straps, completely unlike the hard straps that are sold today.
Also, before going anywhere on a trip, always let as many people as possible know that you are going, and where you are going. “Jewish geography” really does help at those times, maybe a place to stay for shabbat, maybe someone else going at the same time, maybe some insight regarding kosher, or insight regarding places to go and things to see. And maybe even a shidduch once in a while 🙂
You can have mine;)
Mark,
Though tefillin don’t need to be checked, it has becaome customary in many sects to check them often. Chabad checks once a year.
Here is a quick story about checking tefillin. My brother had his checked by the original, very reputable sofer that wrote i, 13 years after his bar mitzva for the first time, when he was 26. To his horror, the sofer realized he missed a letter, so it turns out that my brother had never used kosher tefillin until he was 26. The sofer wrote him a new set, free of charge.