friday night. i get to LAX around midnight and there were like a MILLION people in my terminal. wtf?!? are all of these people REALLY going to costa rica? turns out that they are, but i bypass the hideous check in line since i'm carrying on my carefully-weighed duffle bag (24.5 lbs, to be exact.) however, the security line is just as hideous, and at the end of it i got the lecture about "too many fluids". (oh yes, totally forgot that terrorists make bombs out of SPF 15, right? ugh.) so back downstairs just to go through the whole thing again. at least they put me on a direct flight this go around, instead of having a layover in el salvador. (granted, i've never actually been to el salvador, but it sounded pretty sketchy. at least not someplace that i wanted to hang out for a few hours at the crack of dawn.)
by the time i get back upstairs, all of the stores are closed. so no water/treats/magazines for me. boo! i also don't have any xanax. god, this is going to be one long-ass flight. never fell asleep, but once we land in san jose i'm too excited to be on vacation to care.
meet miss h. at the baggage claim, where my bag took wayyyy too long to come down... beginning to panic that this trip is starting off with bad ju ju and hope it's not a sign of things to come. bag finally appears and we walk over to the other airport. yes, WALK. sansa airlines is in a little building next door to the main airport. and it was hot. HOT HOT HOT. in hindsight tho i realize that this was nothing compared to how it was going to be by the end of the week...
ok, not that i was looking forward to taking the little JFK jr. plane in the first place, but there is nothing like sitting there for three hours, waiting, giving you plenty of time to build up the anxiety level. thankfully miss h. had a little box of treats, but seriously, at that point i needed about 50mgs. and by far the most reassuring part of the whole situation was watching a few mechanics work on what looked like our plane; they were scratching their heads, looking very confused (concerned?) as they called over the supervisor. (((gulp))). miss h. has a picture of me at this point, where it looks like i'm just impatiently awaiting our departure, but the truth is that i was actually contemplating my imminent death. besides, i had been hoping that if the plane went down, it would be the one at the END of the trip.
we eventually get on the flight and survive the 30 minutes. coming in for a landing at tambor was hilarious (which is one way to put it, i guess) because the "runway" is really just a landing strip, a glorified dirt road in the middle of nowhere. omg. what have i gotten myself into?
land at the "airport" and get a taxi to the rental car place, then rental car + dirt road + 1 hour = moana lodge. oh wait. while we we driving there we saw an accident, a few suv's pulled over on the side of the road, with this woman basically lying in a ditch. a man was holding her hand while another guy was on a cell phone, presumably calling for help. of course our immediate thought was "oh, silly & lame tourists!" quickly followed by "there is nofuckway we're getting on a ATV on these roads."
ok, back to moana lodge. finally! it's so cute, and even if it hadn't been i think we were both pretty much done with the traveling at this point. the woman at the front didn't speak english, but was somehow able to convey to us that the owners weren't there at the moment because there was an accident. YES, THAT ACCIDENT. turns out the woman in the ditch (vicki) was one of the owners, and that her husband (aidan) had just left to go take her to the hospital. jeeesus.
anyway, "gloria" (not her real name, but close enough) gets us into our room and we are in there for about 5 minutes before we change, grab a few pilsens, and run up to the pool. ahhhhhhhhh, vacation.
after a little swim, it's time to take a shower and get some food -- needless to say we are both starving by this point. but ahhh, just one little problem: miss h., in her beer & xanax fog, locked all of our stuff in the safe. money, passports, credit cards, money .... fuuuuuck. track down gloria and in the most basic of espanol, manage to tell her that 1) we are starving to death and 2) we have no dinero. god bless gloria, because she went and got us $130 (presumably out of her own money). we only felt guilty for about 30 seconds before we said "MUCHAS GRACIAS!" and jumped back in the car. had a yummy dinner, and still had $80 left. plenty to tide us over because aidan was coming back the next day, right? HA!
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