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Costa
Rica Adventure
March 5-20, 2005
Our flight home left at 8am, and
we were told to get to the airport early to leave enough time. So we arranged to share a taxicab with
Kirsten, who was also flying out first-thing. Cathy’s alarm watch was set for 4:30, but when it went off,
neither of us were really sleeping.
We packed up the last-minute items and made our way to the lobby to
wait with Kirsten for our 5am taxi. A day earlier, I hadn’t wanted
to leave Costa Rica. Now, I couldn’t
wait to get home. I knew that this could
have happened anywhere, but for the moment I felt unsafe in Costa Rica and
just wanted to go somewhere familiar where I would feel secure. I made a pact with Cathy that we would not
let the experience ruin any of our respective future travel plans. But first I needed to go home to
recuperate. We had time to kill in the
airport, and souvenir shopping was pointless since neither of us had any
money. I caved and phoned home. I
knew I should wait to get home to tell my parents what happened in person, so
they would worry less. That was what
Cathy was doing. But I’d reverted to my 3-year-old version of myself, and I
wanted to hear their voices. After
reassuring my mom about a zillion times that I was okay and unharmed, I hung
up, not feeling much better. The flights were fairly
uneventful, though flying with a cold is never fun. We had a tight connection
in Miami and the disorganized customs process for transit passengers didn’t
help. We made the connection but Cathy’s
backpack did not, as we found out when we finally made it home to Dorval
after a long day of travel. It would
be coming in on the next flight, we were told. My parents kindly picked me up
at the airport, and helped me get things sorted out. I busied myself for the next couple of
days with the necessities of replacing my stolen ID and wallet contents,
catching up with work, and unpacking.
A quick conversation with Visa told me that the muggers had managed to
rack up over $700 worth of charges on my credit card in the hour it took me to
get through to cancel it. The first
thing they did was went to McDonald’s.
Classy, eh? In the days following the
trip, I tried my hardest to focus on the positive. Of course, everyone wanted
to hear about getting mugged, but I didn’t want that to become the trip
story. It would be unfair to what was
otherwise a fantastic trip. Though it ended on a down
note, my overall experience in Costa Rica was overwhelmingly positive. Beautiful beaches, amazing wildlife,
incredible beauty… when I weigh the good against the bad, I have to say I’m
extremely glad I went! |
