Christmas already seems long ago, as our entire family is enjoying this year’s Christmas gift — a week in Costa Rica. I’m just relieved to be here, with the surf crashing outside of our dreamy hotel in the remote Pacific Coast beach resort of Manuel Antonio.
I was a bit edgy getting out of Seattle. Snow was stranding people wearing Santa caps at the airport. I had logged on to the airport website to check on parking, which told me that all parking lots in and near the airport were full — even people with reservations were being turned away. So, since we couldn’t drive ourselves, I had to scramble at the last minute to find a loved one to brave the icy roads to drive us there.
And that followed a bigger fright. Two days before Christmas, my daughter Jackie realized she left her passport back at her dorm in Washington DC. We scramble to get it FedExed — but had no assurance that it was actually sent, as much of the country is snowed in. So the day before Christmas, not about to risk our long-awaited family vacation over a passport stuck in a snowstorm somewhere, we spent hours in downtown Seattle getting an emergency replacement passport.
There was a long line of people, the computers were down, and snow was threatening to close the office. We were nervous, telling the woman at the counter, “This is a real emergency — our entire family vacation depends on Jackie getting her passport today.” The woman curtly responded, “It’s the day before Christmas — it’s an emergency for everybody in this line.” We do the paperwork, they declare Jackie’s existing passport lost and cancel it, and send us away for two hours while they issue the new passport — but they say that with more snow threatening, they don’t know how long they’ll be able to stay open.
Trying to relax, we got word that Jackie’s original passport is actually on its way via FedEx and should be in Seattle shortly. Then the irony sets in. If the snow closes down the passport agency office, we could actually have gone to heroics to get her existing passport to Seattle while simultaneously cancelling it, and be unable to pick up the newly issued one before we were to fly out. Thankfully, the snow held off and Jackie got her passport (which was good, since the FedExed passport never made it in time). Flying out at midnight on Christmas night worked great. A quarter tab of Ambien gets me three hours of good sleep to Houston (dreaming of a four-legged tree and two happy monkeys). We then grabbed a burrito breakfast and good coffee before catching a flight to San Jose, Costa Rica, where another quarter tab of Ambien gave me the second half of my Christmas night’s sleep. (Ambien meets Starbucks…and Ambien wins.)
I feel clueless about Costa Rica. I simply signed up for the best eight days that my friend’s Costa Rica tour company could offer. I can’t even find where we’re going on the map. It’s fun being clueless. I actually brought the last of our Christmas Satsuma oranges all the way to Costa Rica, where the customs official made me toss them out. Not knowing what plugs work here, I needlessly brought European adapters. I’m paranoid that our iPhone will be accidentally on, and we’ll be roaming 24/7, racking up a huge bill…we’d be sipping cheap drinks while going broke.
At the small San Jose airport, we climbed into a tiny six-seater plane for the herky-jerky ride over lush mountains to a jungle landing strip and a quick shuttle to the remote beach at Manuel Antonio. The flight seemed pretty dangerous, but I kept looking at the pilot and his young co-pilot, who were incredibly nonchalant as they motored their airborne jalopy into a dense cloud, managing to push the right little buttons and switches as the entire cockpit rattled away in a complete whiteout. Eventually, like a stray chunk of two-lane highway, our landing strip came into view.
The kids are into this vacation. Jackie spent much of the flight reading up on Costa Rica’s civil war, local gender issues, and lively bars near our hotel. Andy’s all for getting up early tomorrow for our guided nature walk through the national park.
I’ve never been to Central America to simply relax. As golf carts are ready to shuttle us down to the beach at a moment’s notice, I’ll do my best not to think about economic realities over the border in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Costa Rica is the Switzerland/Disneyland of Central America, and for the next week, it’s our rum/sun/fun-soaked play zone. Tonight, stripping the meat out of my lobster tail, I told my family I need to get in shape in a hurry. The day after tomorrow, I learn to surf.