The adventure continues

Costa Rica has been amazing so far, but I just want to touch on the not-so amazing parts of traveling. Of course, you are going to come back from traveling and have some truly extraordinary stories, but you are also going to come back with some stories that were not comfortable, especially during a trip of this length.

On the days when we are doing something really cool or exciting, but I still simply don’t feel that good that day I just remind myself that in future when I think back to this adventure, I’m not going to remember how awful I felt that day. I’m going to remember that I did a lot of cool things.

Okay so after my little philosophical piece now let’s get into the blog post for today, aptly named, the adventure continues!

After our week stay in La Fortuna it was time to move. We drove about around 300km, and it took us around 6 hours to Santa Teresa. That is not a typo for Australians - we roughly calculate our distance an hour for 100km on the freeway. Not so in Costa Rica where 100 km can take you 2 or more hours to drive as you hobble your way through pothole dirt roads, which classify as some of the main roads to get from A to B.  

While we were in Santa Teresa for a week this is where the fun began. Before I tell you, what happened let me give you a little more information. You may be wondering why this blog is called the adventure continues. Ever since the beginning of this trip, any time something goes wrong, we would say to each other, “ah well, the adventure continues”. There are dozens of times we have said this throughout the trip some key examples that come to mind were when the apartment in Santiago got flooded, when we lost our bag for a night traveling from Santiago to Buenos Aires, or when we got a flat tyre in Patagonia as it was getting dark. These are just a few examples, but with all that in mind. I thought it would be funny to give you the adventure continues - Costa Rica edition.

Scorpion

Towards the end of our time in Santa Teresa, David, my brother and I were up quite late one night. My brother was on his computer and exclaimed “there is a scorpion.” His door was slightly open, as he saw the scorpion walking around. David jumped up and responded with f**k! (which he doesn’t do very often). After this, David and my brother made a scorpion extraction plan. The plan was pretty simple, trap the scorpion in a container (similar to catching a huntsman) and put a thin cutting board underneath it and take it far away from the house. My brother’s job was just to take a video and some photos. Here are some photos of the big scorpion. Where was my mum? Sound asleep, she can sleep through anything!

Itchy rash

The next ‘the adventure continues’ moment happened over a couple of weeks in La Fortuna. I started to develop an itchy rash all over my body. It started to get really bad in Santa Teresa. After leaving Santa Teresa we made the journey back to Tamarindo for the second time. We just loved our time in Tamarindo so much we decided to come back for a second time before we flow out back to Miami. Okay back to the story, we arrived at Tamarindo on a Friday, so we waited over the weekend to see if my rash got better. Long story short, it did not go away, and I was itchy all over. So on Monday we went into the urgent care to have it looked at. The doctor took one look at me and said that it was a reaction to something I came into contact with and that I would most likely never know what caused it. The doctor said that he got it himself one time. Both the nurse and doctor were really nice and friendly. I had to get a steroid and anti-inflammatory drip for 30 to 45 minutes. Then I had a five-day course of steroid and anti-inflammatory pills. Thankfully I am all better now and no more itching. Yay

AirPods

Now for the last story. As we were staying it Tamarindo for two weeks, my brother managed to make a couple of friends and so he was out quite a bit. One day when he was out surfing, he placed his belongings in his friend’s locker and once he got back, he discovered that his AirPods were gone. Now at this point we thought they were lost and he probably would never see them again. But the next day the AirPods remote tracking function activated and gave a new location, and it was quite a far way out from the town. They had been stolen!

After getting consistent pings on the location for two days, David asked the local maintenance guy Alejandro, who we made friends with if he would be willing to come with them to a random person’s house out in the middle of nowhere to help retrieve them. He agreed and that afternoon my brother, David and Alejandro hoped in a taxi and went to the location out in the middle of the woods that was shown on the ‘find my iPhone’ app. Once they got there, they were having trouble getting someone to come to the door, so they asked their neighbour if they could help get in touch with the person.

By that time the taxi driver was all excited shouting over the fence, talking to the neighbour. Finally, someone came to the door; between the homeowner, Alejandro and the Taxi driver, there was an odd conversation in which they told the man he had stolen property in his house. The man called someone, most likely one of his teenage kids, who had “stolen” the AirPods from the surf shop. So, there I the middle of nowhere, my brother retrieved his AirPods. For whoever this young criminal mastermind was, next time they steal something I assume they will check if it is technology that can have its location traced.

Our adventure continues, in a good way. Stay tuned for the next blog which is on Bioluminescence.