Murphy's Law

<--Puerto Viejo (sunny the day we left)

I feel like this past weekend ended up being a pretty good example of Murphy's Law.

For my first non-IFSA sponsored trip out of Heredia I went with a bunch of the girls in the program to Puerto Viejo de Talmanaca in Limón (Limón providence). I'd been missing the beaches ever since Liberia, so I jumped at the opportunity to soak up some Central American sun: it's common knowledge that Central American sun is different than North American sun. After all, it's not like there is only one sun which the entire world happens to revolve around, that'd just be weird.

After about 5 hours in total on two different buses we arrived, just a little bit tired and hungry; most of us hadn't eaten since 4am that morning and we arrived about 10:30-11. As we were in line to buy our bus tickets home, I proceeded to realize that I had left my wallet on the bus... Now I didn't really have that much money in it, but my credit and debit cards were in it so that was a bit of a problem :/ We talked to the bus people and found out that they had found my wallet, but that it was on it's way to Limón (the city). After dropping our bags off at our hostel, Rockin J's, and eating lunch, I took a 1.5 hour bus ride up to Limón where I then took a taxi to the bus station. I got my wallet and then had to take another 1.5 hour bus ride back to Puerto Viejo. Now this wouldn't have been too bad. After all I got to see more of Costa Rica, even if most of it was by bus or taxi; it was still just a small adventure. Also, it rained most of the day so it wasn't like I missed out on the beach.

However, I had about half an hour left of the bus ride left from Limón to Puerto Viejo after my "little" adventure, when fate decided to extend it into a big one. We were driving back and I saw this really dark cloud of smoke rising up ahead of us. It turned out to be from a car that had gone off the road and crashed in the sidebrush. I was wondering why we couldn't just pass by it; after all, it was way off the road and there didn't seem to be anything leftover on the actual road. Nevertheless, apparently the car was still smoking and they were afraid that the fire would reach the engine and the car would explode. Fun, right? So because of this we waited about 40+ minutes for the firefighters to arrive and put out the fire.

Now you would think that a delay of 40+ minutes wouldn't be that bad, especially not for someone used to city or Michigan summer traffic. And it wouldn't be, if it hadn't been for the fact that the 40 extra minutes brought us back after dark. Without the stop I would have gotten back with enough daylight to walk back to my hostel. However, in Costa Rica and ESPECIALLY in the providence of Limón (where I was) you DON'T walk alone at night.

So here I was back in Puerto Viejo, alone, at night, and freaking out just a little bit because of it. I walked about a block or so back to the bus station where I was kind of hoping maybe my friends would have a couple of people waiting (though I knew it was a long shot). No one was there and the bus station was closed. However, there were some payphones across the street. I had my phone card number memorized so I called Sarah L. (who is the only friend who's number I also have memorized). I knew I needed a taxi but the taxi numbers are different depending on you location, and I definitely didn't know the one for Puerto Viejo. She spoke with her older sister who gave me the Costa Rican information number (113), which I'm definitely going to remember for the future. When I called it though, the woman told me there wasn't a number for taxis in Puerto Viejo.

I called Sarah back and her sister gave me a taxi number that she had found. Unlike the 3-digit number I knew I wasn't going to be able to count on my memory for this one and I didn't have a pen. However, it had rained that day so I wrote the number down in the mud in front of me. After calling that number twice and only getting a busy signal I called her back again. By this point I was beginning to get just a bit nervous. Her sister told me to go first to the Soda (kind of like a small pharmacy minus the drugs) nearby first and ask for a taxi number.

So I got the number for apparently the only taxi rojo driver in Puerto Viejo -There are other taxi services, but they are private. Taxi rojo are public and generally much safer- By this point my phone card was giving me issues; while I definitely had plenty of minutes left, it said that it wasn't working and that I'd have to try again later. Well it wasn't like I could wait, so the lady at the Soda was very nice and called the guy for me. After a 5+ minute drive for 1,000 colones (approx. $2) I finally made it safely back to Rockin' J's.

Moral of the story, don't leave your wallet on a bus.