I only hired a prostitute once in my life, in Scottsdale Arizona, an African American woman, she got in my limo with my two cousins and I, to inject heroine into my arm as that’s all we could find that night. I was twenty something, it was 1983 and I was flying to Hong Kong the next day for the first time. I’d just been spoiled for three weeks playing the great desert golf courses of Phoenix, waiting on my Australia visa. She did the deed that night and was surprised to be dropped off so fast, with having only to do that one thing.

That was also the last time I ever punctured myself and I never talk about it because I am still so disgusted in myself. How did I ever get that twisted? One of the factors was I had lost a long time love because of my own infidelity, I was heart-broken and running away to Australia to avoid responsibility, to live on the beach, swim, surf and read books. So I became a bartender and later invented Lock up your Daughters Charters, which was a Barrier Reef sail boat cruise, for a workmen camp in Port Douglas, during a Northern Queensland construction-boom.

I bought myself time and read allot of classics, while circumnavigating Ozzy 3 times by land (and 1600 miles by sea), plus hitched across the Nulabor Desert alone, with a surf board (that was stupid because I could hardly stand-up and it reduced my rides) but and also rode the midnight train through the heart from Alice Springs, past Ayers Rock, to Adelaide.

Before I left Australia, after 3 years time to think about who I wanted to be, I came to terms with my disgusting mistakes. I made an oath to always honour fidelity, never inject drugs (unless it’s an absolute emergency), and never hire prostitutes but always treat them as fairly as everyone else. Just those simple things.

Costa Rica in the 90’s was the Hemmingway’esque period of my life because so much was going in the heydays of Internet Sportsbetting. I was a consultant to one of the titans in the industry, with a staff of 400+ and a gross handle above $1B. Ft. Lauderdale was so close and the flight a single beverage ride, then you land in a truly great country with awesome people called Tico’s and a very charming and traditional San Juan, the capital city.

In the beginning I liked to rent a room in El President Hotel on the side facing the central bank and famous gold artifact museum. From that Hotel balcony I could look on the roof of a building responsible for $5B/year in Internet gaming revenues, the CR Banco Central. I knew there must be a legal way to connect into that flow, as I think of money as energy not actual stacks of cash paper. To me, Energy begets more energy, and you need to tap into energy to make energy but it all starts with an idea and knowing where the energy is and how to use words to get some.

My idea was to help other people succeed and recruit to my weakness, determine my strengths and find associates who are sharp at he things I can’t do so well. i.e. spreadsheets, just for an example however in business you need skills multi-task, multi-capable, independent strategic partners. People you can trust and have proven to good to their word, truly accountable and you won’t know for sure until there’s cash on the table, then the truth comes to the light. So you have to try again and again to align with the right people, at the right time, with the right idea.

Costa Rica was incredible because the best of the best work there. These big operations have incredible leadership and the ranks are filled with exceptional managers from all over the world, who get pulled into the vortex which is online gambling operations. The second oldest profession on the human record and just a mirror copy of wall street, for anyone who wants to cast a stone. What I was amazed by was the legal prostitutes that worked in the big central hotel, which was  the main watering hole for Gringos working in San Jose, and sometimes private jets would bring entire teams for party with the enormous collection of girls that worked there. 

There’s so many Range Rovers in such a small country that you often wonder what’s really going on here, is this all from coffee?

When I moved to the magnificent Casa Alta Vista in Escazu, I experienced the very finest of art and culture, as well as world class cuisine, in a replica of a famous building from Europe, with views of an active volcano across the valley. I’ve never lived in such fabulous splendour, Costa Rica rocks!

My amazing suite at the Alta Vista was not too far from the U.S. Embassy and CR Country Club, with all it’s gated compounds and hidden villas, always a nice drive down the mountain on sunset and into town to enjoy the camaraderie of my fellow Internet web warriors, at the happy hour in the big hotel during the procession of the licensed prostitutes.

At the Big Hotel these women were not Tico’s, by and large they were from other Central American countries, also Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. I was there because it was part of my job, in that I was boots on the ground and often the client would fly in from Dallas, or legal folks from Miami, which is a nice quick comfy flight, you never know who will arrive on a Friday night happy hour, ahead of a big weekend. The girls would arrive almost like a parade and this was there party place and they controlled it.

My wife was amazed when I took her there one day, and to meet some of the girls I had met. She always knew it was part of my work, since I’m like an envoy from Miami to San Jose. We had nice table and many of the pros came over and talked to us, they were every type of soul, some were even mothers putting kids through school, or working for their families, many of them are putting themselves through school and I can’t say that I ever met many that were downtrodden, actually the ones who owned cars were the idols that the others girls looked up to, and although this was decades ago they loved to show-off the cell-phones and all the bling.

My other observation was that when one working girl knows your not a customer and after you’ve been around for awhile, one tells another and they begin to treat you different, more like an ally. Other people treated me differently too, because they knew. The taxi-van driver knew too, she was a good friend and always either drove me everywhere, or organized vans and drivers for my guests and their entourages. The prostitution laws of Costa Rica were designed to protect the girls for health related issues but the laws of the jungle have to protect them from violence, still though they have to deal with allot of drunk and often belligerent men and vile attitudes.

So who’s at fault, the John or the Jane? How did this whole thing get started and how do we end it? My point is that all people deserve to be treated fairly, no matter what those people do for a living, they are still interesting and often warm individuals with cool stories. Everyone deserves a second chance to make amends. Redemption belongs to us all.

It’s wrong to take advantage of someone because of a wrong decision they made in the past. That was the path they chose and they’re often happy to take advantage of the stupid drunks, so it works both ways. I meet many people doing questionable things, I never felt sorry for them, how could I, being that I was involved in accepting online bets, that were probably destroying a family back at home, maybe it’s a mortgage payment.

I’m still close friends with my Ex-wife and she tells the story more times than me, about how cool it was to see the procession of licensed prostitutes who work the big legal hotels of Costa Rica. To give you a clue, it’s where they have sold millions of tee-shirts that are world famous (for keeping the secret) slogan says; “Gone Fishing in Costa Rica”

I’m no better or worse that you and my greatest weakness is my own weaknesses. The enemy is within, if I delude myself to thinking anything outside of myself can make me feel better inside myself and forget about the giant truckload of mistakes I already made. Most of which were caused by my wanting something, whatever that might have been at the time, once I got it there was nothing about it worth doing again. Now I’m lessening the wanting and seeking peace and atoning for my Costa Rica Confession.

Costa Rica Confession Photo credit: @CarShowShooter on Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-SA