Let Yourself Go - A Desillusion Expedition In Costa Rica.
Jacó - Graffiti, a Bowl and every night Ladys night
Ethioskate
Photography Workshop
Travel Report/Linda
Progress Report/Carsten Beneker
TV Report about the Pura Vida Skatepark
Report #2 Timo Kliche
Construction Phase IV
G`day!
We`re absolutely sorry for this late late blogging, but the last two weeks were again super hectic and full of action
So Monday everyone had to prove they were here for a reason and everybody worked the best they coul. It was really helpful to have plenty of more hands to help out, especially because they speak the same language or t least English. We were sure that we could finish everything during the week and our goal was to do the last pieces plus the little area at the backend of the park until Friday. Al an Chet really wanted to add a vert wall there and all the others had some more ideas for finetuning the last pieces, too. That was a bit irritating to us who had done the whole park so far, because we just wanted to finish the park an were quite exhausted after five weeks of hard working. Most of the work had already been done an the park, which was at least finished 80%, had been tested quite a bit during the whole weekend from about 50 kids an skaters who just couldn`t wait. An they all loved what we had built them.
So we put the pedal to the metal and with the help of Henrik and his fluent Spanish Al and Chet could reunite with their bags already on monday evening. That was good timing for us, because Al ha brought some trowels which we really needed. And besides that we could rely on the help of several locals at this point of time. Because during the last week, when everybody seemed to realise what we were building there showed up several new faces like Rico, who showed us that there are even some ticos who really know how to work. And then on Tuesday evening Hjalte showed up and on Wednesday we totally hurried up for the last stretch. Even the daily fall outs of water and electricity couldn`t stop us, but for real, because of the long drought of the last week the city shut down the water in each barrio for several hours and it seemed to be absolutely safe the electricity as well. This is really bad, but even worse when you have to mix concrete with the mixer tp build an prepare waals for new obstacles which weren`t even planned in the beginning. But believe it or not, we made it indeed and after two truck loads and a super hard last Friday we could celebrate the finished park full of joy and pride. So we hit several sketchy bars in town and did the whole programm. Here we must add that Al and Chet more or less hadn`t had a break on this issue since their arrival. And by the way they both camped with Hjalte in tents on the construction side just as you would expect from some veteran skate professionals. Anyway it ws a blasting night and at times for adults only.
Of course it was quite hard to get everybody going and into the rented cab on Saturday morning which was the best proof that being team manager of a skate team is without doubt one of the hardest jobs ever. So we made it with quite a bit of delay and arrived t the beach in Dominical where we started the processions of the last night again and enjoyed ourselves. The miniramp contest that was held on the local ramp had been the main reason to go there, but now was more or less just entertainment. Quite exhausted from all the partying we still had a big first session in the finished skatepark when we came back on Sunday afternoon which kinda seemed like a demo since everybody sat down and to watch us professionals working after work. And damn, we really killed it. To skate something you built yourself always gives you this extra push…
On Monday we ripped some more though we still had quite a bit to do to clean up and make the whole site look decent. But somehow nobody had any more motivation and energy left and we could care less if the park keeps his ghetto look. By the way, Ali had booked another flight already to stay two more weeks, if he hadn`t he would have had to leave that day. On Tuesday Al celebrated his 40th birthday and we went to the strange and crusty halfpipe/miniramp at the sports centre in San Isidro where especially Al and Gabeb showed us what they`ve got and so we got heaps of photos for the Kingpin article. Normally we had intended that we all drive to the beach once more to celebrate with Al, after all there had been rumors about renting jet skis to have the ultimate blast the whole week. But through communication problems shit was not supposed to happen, so Al, Chet, Hjalte and Gabeb made their way to the beach on their own and the rest stayed in San Isidro while Petzi and Lui visited the jungle with their non-skating friends Stefan and Uta from Dresden who had shown up for a week. Later in the evening we celebrated in the kommodor for the last time with our friends from Vida Nueva and went to a pub afterwards. After all Arne was leaving us the following day.
And so it came, in the morning we filmed the last tricks in the skatepark for the documentary and then it was time to say goodbye to Arne who quite fast lost the battle against his tears. After all it was him who had given more sweat and love in this skatepark than anybody else. Thanx Arne Fiehl! It didn`t help that this was the end of his five months long trip around the world and at home there was no home that waited for him but seven more months of hard concrete work with Minus Ramps building skateparks. But it didn`t help and so he left with Stefan and Uta at about 3pm for San José where they all were suppose to catch their flights for Germany. The rest of the crew was leaving the next day for a small tour through Costa Rica and we will tell you more about that the next time. And to wrap this up right now: The main mission of our project to build a skatepark for the skaters of San Isidro was a great success. Word – long live pura vida!
text: Arne Fiehl
photos: Christian Petzold,Gabriel Engelke
