Oakley Girls Hit the Road... (Pt. 2)

Jul 19 2007 / Los Angeles, CA The adventures of the Oakley girls team continue in Costa Rica

The next day we had to split up into two crews. Roxy, Claudia, and Kira went zip lining with the photographers and Mizuki, Niki, and I went into town with the filmers to get groceries and to track down Mizuki’s surfboard that was supposedly being delivered after getting lost somewhere between Japan and San Jose. From the girl’s reports, zip lining was really fun until they realized that they had to lower themselves down from the platform in the middle of the jungle canopy via a tiny little rope. Sketchy.

Our car ride into town also got everyone’s heart rate going because I drove. There’s this unconscious switch that goes off in my head when I get to drive off-road and for some reason caution goes out the window! That combined with good music and the fact that driving the roads didn’t hurt as much when I was behind the wheel made for a bad combination. Before long I found myself pinning it in fifth gear down the gravel road until we hit a few giant potholes in a row and I almost flipped our SUV. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to everyone in the car right now. Needless to say, Niki drove on the way home.

When we got to the grocery store we had the daunting task of trying to find everything on our house’s list minus being able to speak Spanish! After a while of walking around in circles, I grabbed the only person in the store who spoke English and got him to act as our personal buyer. The next stop was the “airport” (aka a strip of grass) to track down Mizuki’s surfboard. The airport staff consisted of a few teenage boys whose English was worse than our Spanish so I had to play a game of Charades in order for them to have any idea what we were talking about. I can only imagine what they were saying to each other while I was trying to act out “surfboard”. Finally we decided it would be best to kidnap one of the boys for a while so he could bring us to the board. Eventually we ended up at his mother’s house and the board came rolling up in his brother’s truck a few minutes later. Now I didn’t think that Mizuki could get any happier than she is regularly but when she saw her surfboard she was STOKED! There were a lot of “muchos gracias” flying.

When we got home, our stylist extraordinaire Jade had been working overtime to pick out our outfits for the rest of our trip. I never realized how great it was to not have to think about what to wear in the morning until Jade came along. I ended up getting so dependant on her that I’d basically just wait in my underwear each morning until she would come and dress me! Costa Rica is a really great place to turn your brain off and I took full advantage of it. Since I’ve been home it’s been exceptionally hard to dress myself and look good enough to leave my house…that’s how great Jade was!
    
The next morning Kira, Claudia, and Roxy went to catch some waves while Mizuki, Niki, and I went with the photo crew to shoot and climb inside a giant strangler fig tree. Our guide Eduardo, who despite never visiting the USA had one of the thickest American accents I had heard for a while, led us for a hike down the river to the shoot zone. I’m a big enviro geek so seeing a tree of that magnitude and importance in the eco web got me pretty excided. After we all put on our harnesses, photographer Chris and his assistant Ronnie climbed halfway up the tree and spent the next half hour (probably longer) suspended on the inside by nothing more than a really tight harness and a carabineer. Ouch. One by one we each got a chance to climb the inside of the massive tree that was around 300 years old and held nine with lots of room to spare. Did I mention it was pretty big?

Our next day on the agenda consisted of the photographers spending a solo hour with each of us getting shots of things that made each of us unique. Tons of work for them but it made for a pretty chill day for us girls! After shooting in the morning Niki, Roxy, Claudia, the filmers, and I hiked for about an hour along the beach to an amazing waterfall hidden in the jungle. It was a very magical place that left us awe struck until Claudia discovered that standing underneath it was like getting a really great massage…then it was a b-line to the pounding water. When we got back everyone was very mellow. I adopted a new best friend and companion that I would spend a lot of time with for the rest of the trip, a hammock, and we sat on the deck until dark almost in silence. It wasn’t because we didn’t have anything to say, but because the sound of the jungle spoke so loudly and the beauty of the sunset was so powerful that nothing mattered except the moment at hand.

After wrestling with my bike for a few days to put it back together (good thing I can ride a bike well because I’d never make a career in mechanics), it was finally running and ready to get its picture taken. I got to go on a quick rip down the gnarly road to the lodge for the first time since I had broken my ribs and it felt so amazing to ride again (except for the grinding bones). The lodge owner and a few workers were so stoked to see my crazy bike that they even took it for a ride barefoot. Niki and I headed out to the trails with the photography crew to shoot and then afterwards met the rest of the girls at the waterfall where they were doing a fabulous job of working on their tans!

Slowly everyone got up and started prepping Roxy for her next shot by covering her with river clay until she was the color of an Ompa Loompa. Definitely the hottest Ompa Loopa out there! After the clay bath, art director Paul must have thought we had way too much energy because he set up running races between all the girls. After a few rounds, Mizuki and Claudia got their super speedy legs on and went head to head in the finals. After a close race, Claudia took the win and everyone was worked for the rest of the afternoon!

Liesl’s friend Martina owns an amazing bar in the middle of the jungle by our house and it just so happened that that night was opening night. When we got there the bar was buzzing with locals, travelers, drinks, and wandering dogs! Martina stuffed us full with an incredible home cooked meal and Axel was surrounded by about 10 iPods and took charge of the tunes for the night. He was doing such a good job that Liesl and I couldn’t help but get the party started on the dance floor! We were dancing pretty hard, I even got joined by a dog at one point, but it was nothing compared to the crazy local guy who was getting so freaky on the dance floor that he tripped anyone in his path and kept knocking over chairs while attempting to do the worm. Soon the table dancing started, shooters started flowing, and the Oakley team had taken over!

Stay tuned for the rest of the Oakley girls story tomorrow.