Saturday, August 30, 2008

Freak out numero uno y dos...


I am so happy to say that, to date, my travels have gone by virtually without major incident. I did have two minor incidents that I can now laugh about...

Freak out numero uno:
When I was in Manuel Antonio, after school one day, Karen and I had gone into town and then back to my hotel room. When we got to my hotel room, I started looking for my camera. I couldn´t find it. I tore everything apart. Karen checked my bags again and I was at a loss. I was so bummed. I was "freaking out" a bit. I was thinking OMG, my mom just bought me that camera and then OMG, all my pictures. I was so bummed. Poor Karen, she didn´t really know me that well at that point, all she could say was, "I am so sorry". After reading all the "dangers and annoyances" sections of the guidebooks, I was sure that someone had taken my camera. Costa Rica has been known to have its share of pickpockets. I retraced my steps and decided that I should run back to the school and see if they found it. Well, sure enough they had it. I had left it by the computer. Thank Goodness! Whew! That was an adrenalin rush I could have done without!

So we are now at freak out numero dos:
When you get to the border of Panama and Costa Rica, on the Panama side, you have to stop and get your passport reviewed and then walk across this old rickety bridge. It´s a not a short bridge so there are guys on the Panama side that will carry your bags over the bridge for you. There was a guy that grabbed our suitcases and he had mine flung over his shoulder and was pulling Tab´s across the bridge. These are not small bags so he was high tailin it across. There was some sort of scuffle happening with the police and some guy so the border agent looking at my passport was distracted and took a while to get me through the process. We started walking across the bridge and as we get toward the end, I didn´t see the guy with our bags. Where did he go? I start to panic. OMG, he took our bags and just walked away with them. I was pretty much freaked out. In my mind I was thinking well, I am out of here. I have my passport and money and I am coming home early. Oh no, all my stuff. OMG! I walked past the Costa Rican immigration point and went looking for this guy. Tab was so calm..."he´s here somewhere, calm down". Turns out, he was waiting at the Costa Rican immigration point, with our bags, ready to explain to us the forms we need to fill out. I had walked right past him. Ahhh!!! I felt like an idoit. Tab was laughing at me. I think other people were like "what is up with this crazy one?". I laughed at me too...but not till later!

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