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Costa
Rica Adventure
March 5-20, 2005
Breakfast at the Blue Monkey,
some last-minute packing, and we caught cabs to the bus terminal in Quepos to
get the public bus that would take us back to San José. Of course, the bus was late in typical
fashion. But we’d come to expect that
by then. Maybe because I was still
sick, but the ride back was brutal. The winding roads and altitude gains were
wreaking havoc with my ears, and the people in front of us had reclined their
seats to the point where we had about negative-four inches of space. The bus was hot, sticky and uncomfortable.
I couldn’t wait to get back to San José. We arrived at Hotel La Amistad
early afternoon, and checked back in. I was feeling pretty lousy, and
basically passed out for a nap. Cathy headed out to pick up a light lunch and
do a bit of browsing around.
Mid-afternoon, she returned to the hotel to see how I was feeling, and
I decided I was well enough to go back out to do some last-minute souvenir
shopping before meeting up with the rest of the group for dinner. Neither of
us had any way of knowing what that decision would cost us. Meandering through San José’s
streets, we bought cheesy souvenirs like a wooden toucan, some flavoured liqueurs, and other such fun items. Cathy bought a
reggae CD from a music store. I had
my camera with me and snapped a few photos.
Finally we’d had enough, and walked back up to the hotel to take
showers and change for dinner. At least, that was the plan. But things didn't quite work out that way. The hotel La Amistad is located
on a fairly quiet side street, away from the main areas of the city. We’d
been warned about petty crime and had the presence of mind to lock our
passports in the hotel, but it was broad daylight and despite the bars on all
the doors and windows, we never really felt unsafe. Maybe that’s why, when we
saw three guys walking towards us on a quiet street with no-one else in
sight, we didn’t think anything of it. As we got set to walk past
them, the three guys grabbed Cathy and I, pulled out a knife on me and a gun
up to her, and demanded our bags. I
barely had time to register what was happening. I handed over everything I had on me as quickly as I could, just
thinking, take it, please take it and don’t hurt us. I didn’t even have time
to be scared until it was over. The muggers made away with our
purses, wallets, my camera, the remainder of our cash, my license, medicare
card, bank card and credit card, sunglasses, Cathy’s souvenir bag (for some
reason they left me mine), and everything else we had. They also frisked us
looking for money belts or other stashed valuables. Thankfully, our money belts were safely locked up in the hotel. Thoroughly shaken, we walked
the half-block back to the hotel and recounted in
garbled tones what had just happened.
It didn’t really sink in until the shock wore off and I was explaining
what had just occurred. You
hear about things like this happening all the time, but somehow, it never
occurred to me that it could happen to us. The hotel owner called the
police, and they arrived after a few minutes. We explained what had happened
as clearly as we could, and we were told we would have to go to the police
station to make a statement and get a report. In the meantime, I finally
managed to get through to Visa to cancel my credit card. We were too scared to go
outside and walk or catch a cab, so the police drove us to the station
(flashing lights and all). Mandy
volunteered to come with us, for moral support and to translate into Spanish. The police station was
something that had definitely not been on my list of tourist
attractions. We walked in and were told to take a number. Literally.
Obviously this type of crime can occur anywhere, and I hadn’t thought of San
José as particularly dangerous, but our experience with the police made it
crystal-clear that this was a very typical occurrence there. We met several other people waiting to
make their statements, including an American tourist whose backpack
disappeared from her hostel lobby, and a local man who was reporting his
fourth time being robbed. Tico-time applies in the
police stations as well as everywhere else. It took us over two hours to make
our statement and get copies of the police report. None of us had any
illusions that the police would actually do anything other than enter the
data into a computer (after all, what could they really do?), but the police
report would be helpful for insurance purposes as an itemization of losses. Still too scared to catch a
cab back to the hotel – and also without any money to pay for one – the
police were kind enough to drive us back.
More blue flashing lights. I
wished I had my camera to take a picture of us riding in a police car… but of
course, they’d stolen that. The tiny little police car was driven by a
burly, broad policeman. Ordinarily,
we would have cracked up at that, but we were too shaken to be amused. Back at the hotel, Cathy and I
wanted to do nothing other than barricade ourselves into our hotel room,
triple-lock the door, and cower under the covers. But we felt the members of our tour had been so nice to us, we
owed it to them to join them for dinner. Robert had waited in the hotel for
us to return, which was really nice considering how hungry he was. He and Mandy walked with us down the
single block to the restaurant. It was the longest block of my life. Cathy
and I gripped each other’s arms, looking around for any sign of anyone. We nearly jumped ten feet in the air when
we saw a man standing outside the restaurant’s entrance, until we realized he
wasn’t a mugger, just the maitre d’. Our group was wonderful. Not only did they treat us to dinner,
since neither of us had any money left, they also gave us some cash to tide
us over and get us home. Everyone was extremely supportive and helpful. Even
Julie dropped by from her other tour to say hello and find out how we were
doing. All at once, I was glad we’d gone to dinner, even though I had no
appetite and could barely force down half an appetizer. We tried to put things in
perspective. Thankfully nobody was
hurt. That was the most important thing.
It was just stuff, and stuff is replaceable. Luckily we still had our passports. Luckily, my camera wasn’t digital so I only lost one day’s
worth of photos. Everyone was being
very helpful. These things can happen anywhere and they’re totally random.
And so on, and so forth. All of that
made logical sense but it didn’t really resonate. We were both too shaken. We walked back to the hotel as
a group, relying on safety in numbers, and Cathy and I busied ourselves in
our last-minute packing and preparations for the next day. We tried to
distract ourselves with stupid TV shows, but nothing worked. Sleep was impossible that night. I tossed and turned all night, and across
the room I could hear Cathy doing the same.
We settled in for a very long night. Next: Home sweet home |
