Construction Phase III

We put in some double shifts and sometimes got two concrete trucks in one day. On Tuesday we poured the last piece of flat bottom and on Wednesday we did the big hip and the complete funbox. We have to admit some parts of the park are a little bumpy and rough, but all in all we can be quite happy. And of course we already did some test rides and can say that you get used to it and everything is skateable quite well.

The main reasons fort he difficulties working with concrete here are for example the concrete itself which seems to be and react differentely every single day. Then there is the bloody sun which sometimes sucks the water out of the `crete way too quickly, so we don´t really have to hurry up for a proper finish. And then there are our helpful friends who all got their first experiences with something like this and often use the wrong trowels at the wrong point of time and rub them for ten minutes on the same spot. And by doing that many square meters at once like we do you can´t have your eyes everywhere. But as we said, all in all it´s quite all right and some of the obstacles even turned out really good. And finally it´s a d.i.y. project and with that small budget and even smaller amount of tools we have, not speaking about time here, we really did the best so far. Especially when you think about what tiny crew of people we are to do all this.

Finally during time the locals seem to have understood that we depend on their help and they now show up on a regular basis, in time and in numbers. Diego and Jordan proofed to be willing to learn and Roberto is getting better and better, too. So now we always have enough people to help. Most of the time we just need helping hands to get the concrete in wheel carts to the right places, because we definitely can´t afford a pump and if so the concrete would be way to wet so we couldn´t really build any steep obstacles with it at all. But you still have to say that the ticos, that´s how the locals are called over here, have a way different work mentality than us. Sometimes you tell them to do something and ten minutes later they just stop and sit down in the shadow to take a break. But there is one thing they all are really good at and that is watering the park with the hose and getting the ´crete wet.

After all this weekend there`re coming more people to help us. We´re talking about the Carhartt and Nike SB team riders Jan Kliewer, Gabriel Engelke Hjalte Halberg, the US pros Al Partanen and Chet Childress and Alex Irvine of Kingpin magazine as photographer. So next week there´re gonna be some real prominent people in town and they hopefully bring some more trowels to help out with the last pourings. Because if we finish in time we´d like to do a little tour through Costa Rica to skate, get some footage and see a little bit more of the country. Well, next week we`ll know more about how things are going, but thanks to our stressful last week we´re really good in time.

At the end we´d like to let you know that last weekend we all had one of the craziest weekends of our lives, one of which we probably even gonna tell our grand children about, if there´s gonna be some one day. Involved were a couple of concerts, heaps of hippies, a festival, lots of rum and our old friend Antonio Rama, who even dedicated one of his freestyle raps to us. You can make up your own mind about everything else. Let`s just say karma was with us and there was lots of dancing going on. Saying so we you´re gonna hear from us next week, pura vida, dude, pura vida…