Running out of Luck

There’s only so much planning you can do ahead of time for a trip. Only so many instances you can prepare for and issues you can foresee. Gavin and I had a certain amount of luck on our trip with things out of our control such as avoiding the rainstorms and having good transportation. I think we’re starting to run out of luck, though. The rainy season in Costa Rica is amazing, I love being in storms after a hot morning. However, the storms make it difficult to travel. 

While we were getting ready to head off to Playa Conchal, a cute, innocent looking gatito sprayed on my bag. As everyone knows, cat pee is the worst and extremely difficult to get out. As Gavin and I were trying to deal with this incident, our car was only two minutes away so I couldn’t properly clean it in that moment.

During the whole car ride, I was thinking about the cat pee being on my bag that I’m going to use for the next six months. Our driver dropped us off at the wrong location and we had to walk around these pointy rocks to get to the beach. Then the storm was coming in and Gavin and I frantically looked for a cafe or restaurant but found none, only a private resort.

We found some trees and later a canopy to hide under. The storm intensified and we sat with our bags for about an hour. Gav and I had good conversations the whole time and while frustrated about the cat pee and the afternoon, we recognized how small scale our issues are. We’ve been putting our frustrations into perspective, agreeing that as long as there’s no bodily harm, everything’s okay in the grand scheme of things. 

We recognized a window that we could take advantage of from the rain and tried to run back to Brasilito (the town where we got dropped off) and find shelter to call another car. We successfully did this and avoided the sharp rocks as well ( turns out there was a much easier path).

All in all, it wasn’t a perfect afternoon and maybe we did run out of some luck but we made it to Tamarindo to meet our friends and realized everything is okay. After some coffee and some food, we explored the beach and town. It’s very different from Portrero — this is a lively place. I think I saw multiple drug deals as I was walking down the street, always involving a white man standing outside of a fancy hotel. The beach was packed with people and I keep thinking to myself, what does this look like during high season!? I’m not much of a party type but I can see how this would appeal to someone that is. 

We found a nice place to watch the sunset and later eat dinner on the beach. A mariachi band performed and later these fire dancers. We headed back in the evening, looking out for crocodiles. I guess it’s common to see them on this beach, maybe because of all the fresh meat… 😉