Cuban Cigars & Caribbean Waves - A Perfect Ending

Juego Terminado. Translation: Game over. Our bout in the beautiful country of Costa Rica is officially complete. We are safely back in the United States without any major hiccups ... Praise the Lord of Abraham, Jacob & Isaac! Our last night in Costa Rica involved a ransacking of the local grocery store for their coffee, hot sauce, dulce de leche, and pineapple jam. Thus, with our bags packed to the brim with Costa Rican goods and our new brandished tans, we were warmly welcomed back into the Land of the Free. (And of course hot water, toilet paper, and to-go coffee cups.) Suprisingly, U.S. customs had no problem with our mini-export coffee operation that we had going on considering I transported enough to keep me and my network of brethren caffeined up until the Rapture.


It feels like a lifetime has gone by since we left, but at the same time its as if we were never gone. Already, the daily tasks are piling up in my head and its back to the grind! Its funny how the concept of time felt so different down there. The days felt more fulfilling, richer with memories, and slower than that of a "regular" day in my normal life. Additionally, the excruciatingly slow bus transit system literally forced us to sit, be still, and enjoy life sans the pressure to constantly be moving and doing something. Consequently, comparitively speaking I felt like our days were so lush with substance as oppposed to a day in the office where routine tends to sterilize the hours of the day. So in that sense it seems like years of memories have past with all that we were able to cram into the last 13 days.

My favorite memories throughout the whole trip was the memories that were made through all our interpersonal interactions with one another and the random people God placed in our path along the way. The natives were so extremely helpful, hopsitable, and downright sweethearts wherever we went. And the random foreigns that we met throughout our trek were nothing short of absolute hilarity and intrigue. Some top favorites include the French guy we met in Monteverde who was astounded that we would liken France to Crepes, the friendly housekeeper named Flor who rambled off much of her life story to us over bread and butter, crazy bus stop man who was deported from Costa Rica, the Brazilian-New Zealand-Estonia trio (enough said), weird mustache surfer bunk mate, cute zip line guide dudes, the foul-mouthed Swedes, crazy drunken Columbian restaurant owner, Amy's dance partner in Cahuita, the infamous to whom I am now a disciple: Swimmerman, and Silver the 21-year-old park worker ... just to name a few. The people definitely made the trip what it is, was, and is yet to come. (Not sure what that means, but I'm leaving it.)

But, I have to say, aside from the picturesque waves, the jungles, the wildlife, the culture, the culinary delights, the foreigns, and all the other blessings I expected out of the trip, the one and most important blessing I did not anticipate came from the four unlikely woman that made up the traveling posse. In hindsight, with four totally variant personalities, temperaments, and travel styles -- not to mention the fact that some of us barely knew each other -- I am astounded at how well we came together to make this trip such a monumental time. There were some rocky times for sure (missing buses, things lost in translation, robberies, losing bottles upon bottles of aloe vera, etc.) but in the end God taught us (or maybe just me) a lifetime's worth of lessons in teamwork, patience, and love.

The interactions between the four of us that often times are confined to surface-level mini conversations were stretched to deep levels that explored all kinds of facets of everyone's personality. Those three woman know so much about me at this point ... I should probably kill them. (A jest.) Likewise, I could now tell you who was hung upside down and tortured relentlessly by their brother, who flushed the toilet on their father, who broke a pen on someone's face and who once had to stare at a toilet for 30 seconds to appease their father's packing checklist. That was seriously the good stuff of the whole trip.

But vacay time had to come to an end and its back to work for all of us tomorrow at 8 a.m. Thankfully, I have a) Costa Rican caffeine to help make the transistion a smooth one and b) the perfect ending to a crazy showdown in Central America: smoking a Cuban Cigar in a rocking chair overlooking the ocean. Life. Is. Good.