Today is Tuesday and I am sitting in an awesome little hole in the wall hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica waiting for a little breakfast and setting up my blog for the trip.
Time machine snapshots leading me to this moment:
(6 months ago) Home life was topsy-turvy, and a change in residence was in order. [If you don't already know, don't ask.]
(7 weeks ago) An old boss approached me about returning to his firm [Neudesic], and after some discussion I couldn't refuse.
(3 weeks ago) It worked out [unplanned] that I'd have a week gap between jobs.
(1 week ago) A friend suggested I seriously think about getting out of the country for the week. While it sounded good, I secretly had lots of objections and excuses to do nothing - perhaps some netflix and kayaking... [What a waste!]. -- My grandmother Alice passed away on a Sunday morning. My son and I got to see her the day before she passed.
(Last Thursday) At the very fine send-off that the Taco Bell IT team hosted for me [Javier's happy hour] they were encouraging me to book a trip. I mentioned Costa Rica, and the experiences and stories of their trips there started to flow. Hmm... Maybe I should really consider it. Any airline miles left? -- I visited with my family later that evening for my grandmother's Rosary service and family viewing [my first, and a most beautiful ceremony]. Afterward, in speaking with my folks about Costa Rica, they encouraged me to go.
[Notice a theme? A well worn rut of staying local these last couple of years took a fair bit of pushing, prodding and externally infused excitement to set me back on the travel path. It's so easy to find reasons not to do things - the familiar, the mundane, the routine, the comfortable all numb out the drive to expand, experience and to simply turn left in life. Now that I'm traveling, I intend to keep the fire alive with the goal of always having another trip in the planning stage on the horizon.]
So, from 11pm - 1am Thursday I was online, finding a way to make it work. I discovered that I had enough airline miles to book the flight for only the cost of taxes and fees ($127 total vs $1,000). I found a place in my parents' timeshare exchange that looked nice, right on the beach in a town called Jaco [no idea of what kind of town, but it looked like a good place to learn how to surf].
(The weekend) I made arrangements to have a friend and his daughter watch my dog [thanks Danny and Kelly!], picked up a few things for my trip, cleaned the house, went to my grandmother's funeral, gave a eulogy, [she was such an awesome grandma], visited with some friends and tried to secure lodgings, a ride to the airport [thanks Michael!] and a 4x4 rental vehicle. Here's where the adventure begins.
The timeshares were all sold out. So I found a nice place in Jaco that wasn't too expensive and booked it through TripAdvisor.
I tried to book a car through Avis Costa Rica, and it looked like I had the car reserved, but they would later email me that they would get back to me later with my reservation. I would not discover until I arrived at 8pm in Costa Rica that there was no Avis at the airport, and I had no reservation confirmed... A major music festival is going on this week here, so everything is sold out. More on this in a bit.
(Monday) My friend Michael happened to be traveling Monday morning to New York from LAX. He picked me up at 3:30 AM. I checked in, settled in, and took a nap in the terminal.
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