Getting To Costa Rica
There is a viral Facebook post going around that suggests you should first travel with anyone that you think might be wife/husband material. Truer words were never spoken. For some reason, travelling introduces a whole new level of stress, especially with couples. Maybe it is the dry stale air in planes and airports, but personalities seem to magnify exponentially, making the most innocent of issues explode into major war zones. On this trip, my wife Lorrie and I encountered more than our fair share of potential disasters.
As many of you know, Lorrie and I have just embarked on a “trial run” holiday to Costa Rica to see if we could possibly live there at some point in the future. I have travelled a lot, but Lorrie is not a seasoned traveller, and actually leaves all of the arrangements to me, trusting me to handle things with my usual atention to detail. So when it came to arranging for a taxi from home to the airport, I did my due diligence with all the local taxi firms (none of them have better than about a 20% positive rating!) and arranged for a 5:15 AM pickup for our 7:45 AM departure. A nice young man picked us up as scheduled, and got us to the airport in good time, just before 6:00 AM. Things were looking good! I swiped my passport into the kiosk at United, and the first sign of trouble appeared – for some reason the flight was closed, and I neeeed to check with an agent. A quick check revealed that our departure time was actually 6:00 AM and the ARRIVAL in Washington was 7:45 AM. The agent then left to close the doors on our flight and promised to come back shortly to re-book us. Picture this – the moment Mike realized he had screwed up BIG TIME.
I am sure my blood pressure instantly hit record levels. I looked at Lorrie and didn’t know whether to scream or cry. She looked back, smiled, shrugged her shoulders, and said “What can we do other than just deal with it?”. Thank you dear, and that told me that it wasn’t really the end of the world (“nobody died” I think were your exact words) and we would get through it.
So then the fun began…
- instead of a heading for an early afternoon arrival in Costa Rica, we waited patiently for almost an hour for an agent to return and re-book us
- when that painful process was finished, we headed for Toronto and a six hour layover for flights to Houston and Costa Rica, to arrive at 12:45 AM on Sunday (12 hours later than planned)
- We had barely arrived in Toronto when the snow started; over the next six hours we watched it go from snow flurries, to whiteout, and back to clear; there was now two inches of new white stuff on the ground to be moved around
- Our flight to Houston got delayed for over three hours and of course we missed our Costa Rica connection
- We were able to get a nice Hilton room in Houston for a few hours sleep, and then headed back to the airport for a 9:00 AM flight
- we arrived in Costa Rica exactly 24 hours later than planned, except my luggage made it and Lorrie’s did not; we filed a Delayed Baggage Report
- I checked email when we landed to find that our ride had bailed on us; Lorrie negotiated with one of the many free-lance and shady-looking taxi drivers anxious for our business, and off we went
- the main highway from the airport to the coast was open ONLY to traffic LEAVING the coast (imagine if we could do that in Canada or the U.S.!); we took the scenic route which added about an hour and a half to the ride
- we finally reached our destination of Jaco, Costa Rica around 3:00 PM on Sunday; our host was waiting for us and we settled into a beautiful 7th floor condo
So, yes, we made it here. And still married. Our patience was tested and I am proud to say that we PASSED with flying colors.
Costa Rica from the highway
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