It wasn’t particularly hard to wake up this morning, despite the fact that our “morning” was actually a fully dark 4am, and I’d only gone to bed around midnight, after all the packing and repacking was done and all the bags dependably weighing under fifty pounds. Hauling all those just-under-fifty-pound bags through the United checking line was more difficult, but we finally got them all safely deposited (even the dirty blue backpack with two rectangular poles sticking out the top). Then a stretch of waiting–lightened considerably by the USA Olympic swim team’s rendition of “Call Me Maybe”–and we were finally on the plane and taking off.
I must admit that for most of the flight, “sleepy” was a couple levels above “excited” in the internal emotions queue. But when I could finally sit down and relax enough to look around, after landing and hauling bags through customs and loading our taxi, that excitement meter crept up quite quickly. The more I looked at the streets and and the houses and the green plants overflowing every available space, the more that feeling rose up inside me.
Costa Rica is beautiful. Eyes wide and heart lifted for the entire two hour drive beautiful. Waterfalls around the corners and fog banks streaming off the mountains beautiful; brightly colored houses surrounded by cast iron fences and ferns wider than I am tall beautiful. Hot and sticky and ringing with the calls of bugs and birds and howler monkeys beautiful.
And perhaps most wonderfully, reaching out with friendly smiles and helping hands to welcome the two crazy American girls with way too much luggage–beautiful.
I can’t wait to get started.
The Tiger Shadow 