Costa Rica, all seasons, 2001.

We are young. Always arriving early, staying late, making deals, never leaving. 

We’ve rented a circular hut. A single room with no windows made of some kind of wood. I have sex with this guy called Flash (Gordon) and bleed so much I have to mop it up with bedsheets and hide it in the bathroom. The next morning its caused a cockroach infestation. They are everywhere, whole families feeding of my blood. We’re too embarrassed to complain, so try to kill them, but ultimately live them for a while and just stop eating. 

I’m selling frozen fruit & beers out an eskie to surfers on the beach. Everyday I ride out of town to the next village to buy cheap fruit at local prices. Cycle back again in the midday heat, chop it up and hit the beach, lugging this giant eskie with me. 

By night we flirt with American tourists and hustle them for cocaine. They trust us, we’re white, british and young. They’ll give us anything under the assumption it might result in sleeping with us, but it never does. I take their money, give it to a local boy I know, take a few lines for myself and give them their goods. They always share a few lines for my labour. 

This is how we party every night, for free. We’ve been here long enough to drink for free, we bring the tourists in and slip key’s of coke in our noses. By the time we get to Peru I’ve lived of cocaine, mangoes and conversation for almost a year.