A Series of Unfortunate Drinks

A spicy blueberry margarita. Sounds awful, but the night before was delicious. There were four of us. One was having a birthday. The one with blue hair. 

The resort was fancy and strapped on the side of an active(ish) volcano. The kind of place where the plants are perfectly manicured and the drinks are $20 each. There was even a raccoon-like creature scavenging the breakfast area each morning. We named him Scott.

The blueberry margaritas tasted like battery acid. An undrinkable, $20 beverage to kickstart the birthday evening. So far, so bad. 

Strike one. 

The fancy resort called us a taxi to town which was a few miles from the volcano. Smart, I thought. Make the town as far from the volcano as possible. The fancy resort recommended a restaurant, so we loaded up in the taxi and headed out. The birthday girl loves potatoes. And wine. 

We arrived at the restaurant which was eerily empty and seemingly vanilla. There were a few tables scattered across the parking lot and racks of wine along the inside walls. We did not order the wine. 

Strike two. 

The birthday girl ordered a dirty martini. The CEO ordered a strawberry daiquiri. The FROL ordered a spicy margarita. I ordered nothing…waiting and see how horrible or wonderful each of theirs tasted before choosing my poison. You never know about random places in random countries. 

The dirty martini arrived and was decent. The olives predated Jesus Christ and tasted like embalming fluid. The spicy margarita was served up like a martini and undrinkable. The daiquiri, well, daiquiris are disgusting regardless and generally consumed by midwestern housewives on cruise ships.  This one tasted like a melted strawberry pop tart. 

“A dirty martini like hers on the rocks…with ice,” I smiled at the skinny, kind waitress who weighed 23 pounds and could not be any older than 12. She wore a typical black waitress outfit and a huge smile. 

My drink arrived. It was served, with ice, in a martini glass. Odd but fun I guess. It was gin. The birthday girl’s was made with vodka. I understand most martinis are gin but gin is garbage across the board. 

The last time I drank gin was at the dive bar I owned five years ago. I threw up in the parking lot. We were having a grand reopening party and had hired two girls to wrestle in oil. When they arrived, late, they asked for 10 gin shots. 

Ten. 

I watched each girl crush five gin shots in a row so they could loosen up for the wrestling match. Never in my entire life have I ever seen or heard anyone order a gin shot. Straight up. Warm. 

So I tried one. Say yes to adventure. Bad idea.

Anyway, my martini was undrinkable.

Strike three. 

So, I ordered a bottle of $25 wine for the table. The first win of the night. You can’t spell wine with win.

The town was dead because of the pandemic and Monday night so we wandered around until we found a place called Lava Lounge across the street from a few hostels. Any bar near a hostel should have lemon drops and low-end booze. Perfect.

The three ordered one of the signature cocktails. A vodka drink with lemon. It tasted like the Dead Sea.

Strike four.  

The blue-haired birthday girl was fed up and simply ordered a shot of tequila and a vodka water. Forty seconds later she was drunk and happy. 

Homerun. 

Cheers to the birthday girl, fun friends, Volcano Arenal, Costa Rica, weird drinks, and good times! 

Pura Vida!

Trey

Mexican Coke

“Do you have Mexican Coke?” Garrett asked the Mexican waiter in Mexico.

“Yes”

There were three of us. Well, three of us and a half billion mosquitos. The thing is, between 4 pm – 7 pm in Holbox Isle, Mexico two things suck…the WiFi and the mosquitos.

We are living in Tulum, Mexico for the month. It is hot as balls in Atlanta and hot as balls in Mexico, so we choose to be hot as balls in Mexico. We also negotiated an unbelievable deal on a massive Airbnb house with a private pool for less money than a shitty apartment in Atlanta. Life is an adventure or it’s not. Más or menos.

This past weekend we decided to venture up to the small island of Holbox for a couple of days. Rumors suggest it is the next Tulum. There are no cars on the island and around 2000 people. There are dusty, small, lumpy roads overrun by 4-wheelers and golf carts with mudding tires. It has an artistic village feel with calm, white beaches. It is a beautiful paradise. Well, until it rains.

It rained. Hard.

I was working out at a basketball pavilion in the center of town when a massive rainstorm hit. Gale force winds blew through the city and the streets turned into muddy lakes. Motorbikes and golf carts trudged through 3 to 4-foot mud puddles I assumed were made of rain and sewage.

Later in the afternoon we ventured out to find some food. We skirted the streets trying to avoid the massive amount of water in the streets. Don’t drink the water.

We found a little rooftop restaurant up a long set of stairs. Nobody was inside other than the waiter and the cook. The menu was impressive. Grilled meats and fresh fish. Under normal circumstances I assume it is a popular, high-end restaurant. However, the island has been closed for the past four months due to the Coronavirus. It opened on July 1st. It was July 9th. Needless to say, most of the businesses were still closed and there were very few tourists, the only revenue for the island.

The waiter, who I assume was the owner as well, was delighted to see us. Finally, some business! We were the only people in the restaurant. We asked what he recommended. He said the steak and fish of the day. In excitement, he brought us the fresh fish in Saran wrap to preview in hopes we would order it.

Ilene ordered first. Empanadas. I was searching the menu for something light as well. I have a rule, albeit a terrible rule, that I never eat fish when I travel internationally. It scares the shit out of me. So, I ordered the empanadas. So did Garrett.  

 “Tres?” the owner asked.

“Sure,” we replied.

He brought us some free bread. I swear to God it was the best bread I have ever had in my entire life. A naan type grilled bread with buttered cocaine or something. Red Lobster biscuits be damned.

Clearly, I asked for more.

Eventually he brought us our three empanadas. Total. Not three per person like a full order for normal humans but three total. In other words, one order split three ways. Ilene had a water, I had a water, and Garrett, well, had the Mexican coke. We had ordered the cheapest thing on the entire menu. By accident.

The waiter thought we only wanted three total. I felt like an asshole.

We had just ordered the cheapest thing on the damn menu plus asked for extra free bread. The man had been without business for four months and here we are ordering 152 pesos worth of food. That is $7.

SEVEN BUCKS DIVIDED BY THREE PEOPLE.

In an effort to save face we left a sizable tip.

I still feel horrible.

Many people think it is reckless for me to be traveling right now during the pandemic. They might be right. However, it’s what I do. Travel. I am also spending money in a country that doesn’t have stimulus checks and PPP loans. A country where if you don’t have money, you don’t eat. I am hopeful that I am putting money in the hands of suffering people. It is not much but it is something.

If you are ever in Holbox, Mexico please go visit our friend at La Parrilla de Juan. He has the best bread in the entire world and I’m sure some delicious fish.

Trey

 www.iamtrey.com

SNEAKING INTO NIGERIA

December 4, 2017

“Princess”

That was her name.  She was 22, skinny, and had a sophisticated wig.

It was Thanksgiving night and I was in a shady nightclub in the capital of Benin, West African. I was with my buddy Garrett. There were exactly zero other customers. Princess wasn’t a waitress, but rather a guest relations ambassador. I guess. She sat down, ordered drinks on our tab, and stared at us. 

Before the nightclub, we had dinner with a blond nonprofit worker from Washington DC who was bored out of her mind and thankful she met us.  She wouldn’t shut up about a Pangolin in Zimbabwe. Do you know what a Pangolin is? Hell no you don’t.

The Pangolin is a scaly creature that looks like a, well, Pangolin. It is the most endangered animals on the planet apparently. All news to me. 

Side note: she informed us there is a man assigned to a Pangolin in Zimbabwe that must carry it around in a pouch every day visiting various ant hills so it can eat. This dude covers something like 50 miles a day carrying a scaly anteater looking varmint. Every day. 50 miles. To eat ants. I bet he hates that Pangolin. And ants. 

Where am I going with this? To Lagos, Nigeria of course…

I was sipping Whisky on the rocks because the local beer tasted like bile and nobody in Africa could make a vodka soda. Princess drank whisky as well.

Garret told Princess our story about arriving in Ghana and making across West Africa to Nigeria.

Princess told us she was Nigerian. This was good news.

Princess informed me that she had two brothers; One is a bottom and the other a top.  As dumb as I am, I finally realized she thought I was gay and was trying to pawn me on one of her brothers.  Flattering. Happy Thanksgiving. 

Fast forward to the Nigerian border with Benin…. actually, no, let’s not.

I woke up the next day with a decent hangover and no idea how to get to Lagos, Nigeria.  To add to the situation, nobody in the hotel spoke English. Nor did they like English speaking white skinny guys.

Princess and one of her brothers showed up in the lobby as I was checking out. She wasn’t wearing her wig. Her brother had the greatest teeth I have ever seen. I felt like hell. Garrett had apparently given her our Hotel name and Whatsapp number the night before.

Long story longer, I negotiated a deal with the brother to take us into Nigeria and guide us around for the weekend.  Nigerians love money. Gay guys love me. I love not getting kidnapped in Nigeria. Synergy. 

I had read, regardless if you have your visa in order, everyone at the border wants a bribe. If not, they will search you for hours, detain you, yell at you, plant drugs on you, search your phone for incriminating photos, and simply make your life a living hell. No worries, I had a gay Nigerian guide who I gave a stack of money to make those who needed to be happy, happy. His job was to prevent us from ending up in a Nigerian prison or duct taped in the back of a van. 

Garrett, myself, Princess and her brother loaded up into a taxi and headed to the border.

First stop, money laundering.

In order to exchange some cash, we stopped and were escorted into a concrete office that felt like the inside of a microwave. After about 20 minutes of arguing about the exchange rate, we had a deal and could leave the excruciatingly hot makeshift office. 

We headed outside where two scooters were waiting for us. All of us. Well, minus Princess who headed back to wherever she hides. So, 5 grown men, 4 sets of luggage and two scooters made their way into the abyss. 

We rode through some hell hole of a town on a war-torn dirt road to a wooden shack where a guy in a lab coat checked our yellow fever cards. He also asked for some money and screamed at our guide.  Then, as if God himself was shining upon us, it started raining like hell.  Garrett, in his Sunday best, was starting to have a series of panic attacks.

After bribing that guy to do what he is supposed to do anyway, we walked a few paces through a ricketed wooden shack the Benin passport office.  A couple dudes in vintage military outfits took our passports. It took them a billion years to stamp us out of Benin. They wrote our info into a ledger they had been using it since Jesus was a kid. I don’t think they extorted us for money.

Wait, they did…sorry.  

At this point, it was raining like balls so we huddled up under a tin roof with our scooter drivers and a bizarre West African man in a dirty one-piece African man-robe he had been wearing since the earth was formed. He had long wooden-looking teeth and oddly inverted legs which caused him to walk like an Ewok. I have no idea how an Ewok walks or what an Ewok is but it is the first word that popped into my head.

He also liked 2pac.

After 20 minutes of uncomfortable conversations with the Ewok guy, the monsoon died down and we jumped back on the scooters. Mine broke. 

So, I walked across the border which was only a rope being held up by a homeless man. I think everyone within a 22-mile radius was homeless. I got on Garrett's scooter and we slid through a few mud lakes making our way to the Nigerian officials.

We arrived at the Nigerian passport control, customs, yellow fever checkpoint and immigration. All of which were random dudes in random booths wearing random clothing asking for random bribes.  

Finally, we got back in the car and headed out of hell until a guy in plain clothes told our driver to pull over for an inspection. After a few moments, some aggressive arguments, and  a $15 bride, the inspection was complete.

We hit the road, again, and breezed through over 25 police checkpoints. Our guide said that the government was cracking down on people bringing goods in from neighbouring countries in an effort to force people to buy Nigerian products. For example, rice in neighbouring Benin is currently 50% cheaper than in Nigeria and some people were smuggling it into Nigeria. 

We finally made it to our hotel after 6 hours of miserable roads and complete chaos, which was fascinating. As we arrived at our hotel the driver pulled to the side, popped the hood and removed two huge sacks of rice he had been smuggling the whole time. He smiled.