Have You Heard the One About the Two Iranian Doctors?
Guest Stories Vol. 1
This installment of What an Adventure! was written by my husband, Mark. He can tell this story so much better than I can! And we’ve told it quite a few times! I hope you enjoy this crazy guest story as much as we do.
This story starts like a slightly inappropriate joke. “Two gay Iranian doctors walk into a boutique hotel…” I’ll tell the rest of this crazy but true story in a minute.
Shiny Happy People
When we purchased the hotel, one of the things we looked forward to was meeting interesting guests. Al Gore, Sheryl Crow, Anderson Cooper, Kim Carnes, and other celebrities have stayed at the hotel. During our five years as owners, we didn’t host many true A-listers, but we welcomed plenty of actors, politicians, oil tycoons, social media stars, professors, music producers, airline pilots, and enough doctors and lawyers to fill a small stadium.
Marlo and I made it a point to spend an hour each evening at the hotel bar so we could get to know the guests. We were lucky to have the best bartender in the world, Vianney, and our guests couldn’t resist his Pineapple-Basil Martinis.
Most of the time, chatting with the guests was fascinating. Except when it wasn’t.
Which brings me back to the Iranian doctors. Their names were Farhad and Rupert (don’t ask). These guys showed up a day late for their 3-night stay because Farhad forgot to bring his passport to the Los Angeles airport where they lived. Hopefully, he remembers to scrub-in before surgery! When they finally arrived, they headed straight to the pool and started drinking like they were making up for lost time. All afternoon, they sat by the pool while Vianney brought one cocktail after another.
In the evening, Marlo and I made our usual stop by the bar, and Vianney walked over to give me an update. He told me that Farhad and Rupert had already sucked down 6-8 cocktails each (and Vianney’s cocktails are no joke!).
Then the bombshell. They had propositioned Vianney with $100 to come back to their villa with them after his shift! Vianney obviously declined.
As I sat at the bar, a drunken Farhad came to tell me this was the best hotel he had ever seen. He said we should get ready for a lot of California doctors booking stays with us because he was going to tell everyone he knew. He also asked if it was OK if they ate dinner by the pool instead of in the restaurant. I was happy to tell him “Yes” because I really didn’t want these two in the dining room in their drunken state.
As the two Iranian doctors enjoyed their meal, they switched from cocktails to shots of Peruvian Pisco. Washing down each course with fresh shots, they finished a bottle of Pisco by the time dessert was served. After dinner, they stumbled back to their villa with a little help from our security guard, Don Pascal. Later, Marlo and I went back to our villa and started getting ready for bed.
Little did I know, my evening was just getting started.
Gardening at Night
Just as I was about to turn out our lights, our manager, AJ, called my cell phone.
“Mark, I just wanted to let you know that Farhad came back up to the restaurant looking for his glasses and now we can’t find him.”
“What do you mean you can’t find him?” I asked.
AJ replied, “Well, he was by the pool looking for his glasses, then he disappeared into the darkness. Oh wait, we found him! He’s roaming through the pineapple garden!”
“Oh geez, thanks AJ. He’s really drunk so make sure he gets back to his villa.”, I instructed.
Night Swimming
Our daytime staff went home for the night, and I got in bed. I was just about to drift off to sleep when I heard some commotion outside our villa. I had a feeling it was Farhad, so I got up, got dressed again and went outside to investigate. Sure enough, I found him rummaging around in a storage shed in complete darkness.
“What are you doing, Farhad?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m looking for my glasses.” He slurred as he stumbled out of the storage shed. Then I noticed he was wearing nothing but a pair of white linen pajama pants. No shoes. No shirt.
I suggested we retrace all his steps to see if we could locate the glasses. I didn’t say this, but I was pretty sure he forgot his glasses in California. We never saw him with glasses on!
Since their arrival, they had spent almost all their time by the pool, so we started our search there. As I began to look around the chairs and tables, I noticed Farhad walking towards the pool in what seemed like a trance. In disbelief, I watched as he walked straight into the pool like he was Jesus walking on water.
He came up gasping for air and shouting “I’m OK, I’m OK!”. After helping him out of the pool, I said “Farhad, we’re not going to find your glasses tonight. Let’s get you back to your villa, and we’ll search for them tomorrow.”
By this point, I couldn’t even look at him because his soaking wet white linen pants were now completely transparent and sagging well below his hips.
Our security guard, Don Pascal, and I walked with him back towards his villa. Don Pascal shined his flashlight so Farhad could see his way to the path leading to his villa.
When he reached the villa, he turned and waved to us and thanked us for our help. Don Pascal and I waved back and muttered something polite in return.
Finally, I could go get some sleep, right?
Everybody Hurts
An hour or two later as I lay dreaming about sharing a beer with Al Gore and Sheryl Crow, my cell phone rang again. It was Don Pascal. At this point in our Costa Rican adventure, my Spanish was more advanced than “non-existent” but not quite to the level of “horrible”.
And in the best of circumstances, Don Pascal is really hard to understand. Here is what I heard in Don Pascal’s excited voice: “Jefe, el cliente… yada yada yada… la policía!” Oh crap.
I spoke to Don Pascal in the clearest bad Spanish I could muster with my head still clouded from dreaming “Do NOT call the police. Tell the client I’m on my way.”
As I approached the reception desk, Rupert ran to me frantically shouting “Where the fuck is Farhad? We have to call the police!”
People often tell me I have a calming influence on others, and if there was ever a time, I needed to calm someone, it was now!
“Believe me Rupert, if we get the police involved, this will take all night. Let’s look around to see if we can find him. Now what happened after he came back to the villa last time?”
“What do you mean, last time?” Rupert asked. Uh oh.
“Farhad was here an hour or two ago looking for his glasses. Didn’t you see him when he came back to the villa? His pants were all wet because he fell in the pool.” I clarified as calmly as I could.
“What the fuck?? He fell in the fucking pool?? I never saw him. I fell asleep after dinner, and when I woke up a few minutes ago, he was gone.” Oops, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the part about the pool.
Rupert looked like his head was about to explode. He was somewhere between super-drunk and super-hungover, weirdly angry, and scared at the same time.
“OK, don’t worry we’ll find him. Let’s start by the pool.” I said.
I was actually terrified that we might find Farhad floating face down in the pool, but thankfully he wasn’t there.
The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight
Somehow, I suddenly had a hunch about what might have happened. When Don Pascal and I had taken Farhad back to his villa an hour or two earlier, we never actually saw him go inside. It occurred to me that he might have wandered off after we left him there. The only place to wander to from that spot is into the jungle…yikes.
“Rupert, the last place I saw Farhad was at the entrance to your villa, let’s go back there and see if we can find him.” I offered hopefully. Rupert grudgingly agreed.
We walked past the villa and continued down the trail into the thick of the jungle, shining our flashlights and calling out “Farhad!!” every minute or so. The other guests at the hotel must have wondered what the hell was going on.
The Costa Rican jungle is amazingly beautiful, but it is also filled with creatures that want to bite you. Pumas, snakes, spiders, fire-ants, scorpions, the list goes on. Walking around in the dark - barefoot, drunk, and shirtless - is not recommended.
I was starting to get very worried about Farhad.
Ten minutes into our search we heard a faint response to our calls coming from the jungle. “Farhad!!” we called again. Another faint response – off the trail and down a steep ravine. We rushed to the edge of the trail and shined our flashlights down into the ravine. “Farhad!!” we called again.
This time the response was stronger, and we saw some movement far down the steep slope among the trees and thick vegetation. Then my flashlight lit up his face, and I saw the two most bewildered eyes I had ever seen. A deer in headlights would have looked positively intellectual compared to that face.
“Farhad, you’re going to have to crawl up the slope towards our flashlights!” I shouted down to him. Slowly, he started making his way up the slope on his hands and knees.
As he neared the crest of the ravine, I noticed he was covered in mud and sweat, and he had scratches all over his body. His white linen pajama pants were now down to his knees and were stained with mud and blood.
When he reached the trail, he stood up, offered to shake my hand like we were business partners, and said “I’m so sorry for the inconvenience. I was just looking for my glasses.”
I wanted to push him back into the ravine.
Rupert and I took Farhad back to their villa and this time I made sure they both went inside. “Rupert, make sure Farhad takes a shower before you go to bed.” I said. I didn’t want him to ruin a new set of white luxury sheets!
As I left them alone and started up the path from their villa, I saw an unusual reflection on the ground. Stooping down for a closer look, I found the pair of glasses.
Thanks to Mark for writing this guest story and if you noticed a musical theme, or have a crazy guest story of your own, please leave us a comment!
Wow! It is a funny story, but like you Marlo, I would've lost my $hit!
God Bless Mark for being so calm in such a tense situation.
About 40 years ago, my parents had a 20-something guest from Germany staying with us. He wore long leather pants and never took a shower even after staying with us for a week in the heat of the summer. He drank vodka all day long and into the night every single day. He never acted inebriated and seemed completely fine with his regimen. One night my boyfriend and I took him to the bar with us. He had something OTHER than vodka (wish I could remember what he drank) and became completely annihilated. After we got home, he refused to go into the house and ended up sleeping out on our front lawn in his leather pants. We lived in a densely populated part of the city. I'm not sure what time he got up in the morning but when I left for work, he was gone. Good times!