Travel Talk

Comedy of Errors Getting to Costa Rica From Canada


Greetings from 39,000 feet over Mexico,

I had plans of kicking it in Costa Rica tonight with a cold local cerveza and writing about a misadventure that could best be described as a comedy of errors but alas, it was not meant to be. I’m writing this on the flight from Dallas to San Jose that was delayed 4 hours, hooray. Nothing like looking at a long list of say 100 flights and seeing all of them on time except the one you want, yes? That said, this “comedy” of sorts started long before Dallas…

The alarm was set for 5:45 am but found myself awake, wide awake after a not so refreshing 4 hour snooze at 4am so I played around online before finally making a move to the airport. At security I was selected for a “random security check” and they really grilled me and went through EVERYTHING I had, when I left they said thanks for being so cooperative for this random check to which I quipped “it’s not so random if it happens every few times I enter the USA….” I did make a remark to the lady about enjoying her vanilla perfume so perhaps that was it?

Next it was customs and that was a treat, the officer looked like a portly Spanish character on Saturday Night Live with a moustache(sic) and started asking me about my t-shirt from Secret Cinema. One thing leads to another and we were talking about Masonry and both of us denied being Masons, I’m not but I’m sure he is. Then he asked me if I had any dope in my bag and I almost fainted. I said no all astonished and he burst out laughing saying “I’m just kidding dude, relax” to which I quipped “I’m not” then he gave me the green light and I said “see ya” and he said “later man”, seriously.

So we get to Dallas and find out our flight is delayed…

We hit up this bar and buy a beer which was like a tower of sorts, a BLT and another pint later find out the flight was once again delayed. At this point a lady or a man or a now lady who was once a man who claims to be from Mexico starts chatting us up to nausea. Have you ever tried to give someone the hint and they just don’t get it? I felt bad but the whole time I was trying to see if there was an Adam’s apple… This character looks like it had lots of plastic surgery so who really knows or cares?

So we we’re supposed to be arriving at a civil hour but now it looks like we’ll be touching down in Costa Rica near 10 or 11 at night which is great. It’s great because we clear customs and quickly thereafter hit the hay before rising at 6am or so to go white water rafting, I think. Anyways if you travel enough this type of stuff happens, yes? At the end of the day, every step of the way is part of the adventure and everything plays out the only way it ever could, we can’t question it, just go with it.

Oh yeah, glad to be going back to C. America; lunch was 1/3 my month’s rent on Little Corn, ha!

Tips hat,

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