My Summer of Adventure- Costa Rica

So this summer has been an extremely busy one for me! I flew out of Atlanta, along with my sister, Margaret and friend, Christie, on June 3 headed for Costa Rica. When we arrived in San Jose we made up our minds that when we stepped outside the airport doors that we would pretend to be confident and know what we were doing so that no one would think we were dumb tourists. We stepped out the door into a lightly falling rain and the first thing we saw was a teenage prostitute fondling and kissing all over this big, round, ugly, white American. All our jaws dropped then and there and our cover was immediately blown!! Ralph, my brother, then appeared to pick us up and while we were waiting on our ride he explained that prostitution is legal in Costa Rica.

Ralph's House
We got to stay in Ralph's little "shed-house" as we called it, which was very cute, simple and very Ralph-like. He has a rabbit, Pepo, that hops around freely like a cat and is even house trained to poop on a newspaper. It also likes to chew things at all hours of the night, making lots of rabbitty chewing noises that made us want to put him in a stew. There is a guard booth right around the corner from Ralph's house so I felt pretty safe for the 2 nights we were there. But then I started wondering if I should feel safe since someone felt it was necessary to have guard booths all around the area. When we went to visit the college where Ralph teaches, there was a guard standing in front of the school with a machine gun! I wanted to take a picture but Ralph didn't think it was a good idea. At every door of the college there were armed guards. So I started wondering if I should have brought one of my Daddy's guns for our own protection?!? Ralph kept telling us that the rest of Costa Rica is much prettier and safer than the San Jose area- and we soon found out he was right!

Traveling
One of Ralph's former students, Steven, owns a tour company so we paid he and his wife, Monica, to take us all over Costa Rica in their tour van. We went to La Fortuna which is a town at the bottom of an active volcano, Arenal. We got to see the volcano spewing red-hot lava at night- it was so cool to see in real life what I have watched on TV and read about in books all my life! The next day we went up a nearby mountain & came back down on 20 different zip-lines over the canopy of the rain forest- it was beautiful! We got to swim in a hot river. It looked just like a mountain river in North Georgia but it felt like hot bathwater- it was a strange feeling to be swimming in a hot mountain stream. We went to the beach on the Pacific Ocean which was very pretty and we all stayed in a hotel by the beach with no air-conditioning- HOT!!The last day in Costa Rica we went to see another Volcano- Poas which is not active. It stands at an altitude of 2708 meters (8,200 feet) above sea level. One of the craters measures 1.5 kilometers in diameter (0.9 miles) and is 300 meters deep (900 feet). At the bottom of this hole, there is a medium sized lagoon, that spews boiling sulphurous gases. We actually got to look down into the crater of the volcano!!!! So as we gazed into this massive crater, the smell of eggs was all around us. but it was worth it to see such a sight!! The only thing that would have made it better was if we could have zip-lined from one side of the crater to the other! Words just can't describe how amazing it was looking into the crater of a volcano!

My Companion, Camphylobacter- While at the airport in line for our flight home, I started feeling feverish so I took some Tylenol. The last 30 minutes of our flight I started feeling really bad, shaking uncontrollably, and crying (cause that's what I do when I feel bad). When we finally landed in Charlotte and got off the plane I took some more Tylenol and sat down while Christie and Maggie got our bags. An airline lady came by, ordered a wheelchair for me and suggested I get some medics to check me out. After some discussion I told her that would be fine and so in a matter of minutes I was surrounded by about 10 people all discussing my blood pressure, heart rate, and bodily functions and whether they were going to let me on the plane to Atlanta. They finally agreed to let me fly but then our plane was delayed and I began to feel worse. By the time our plane finally arrived, I felt like I could not sit in a seat all the way to Atlanta & was convinced I had some weird disease and would die on the way to Atlanta like all the medics & & airline people seemed to believe. So Maggie called Clint to come get us and we went to the hospital where they gave me antibiotics, fluid, and a nice bed (but poor Maggie had to make a bed from 2 chairs). Around 3 am, they kicked us out of the room and we had to sit in the waiting room and wait for Clint. Along with us was a man who kept asking for cigarettes, and 3 men dressed in hospital gowns that kept staring at us. Around 4 or 4:30 Clint drove up- our knight in shining white Expedition- and I have NEVER been so glad to see someone in my whole life!! He drove us back to My Mom's house until Dr. Garnto confirmed it was Camphylobacteriosis (which is a bacteria similar to Salmonella) and I finally got to go home on Tuesday night, June 10. I stayed sick and puny for another week. I had to leave the next Monday for a Christ In Youth Conference in Savannah and I really didn't feel better until that next Wednesday in Savannah. But even though I got sick, the trip was definitely worth it! I recommend it to everyone, although you might want to take a few suitcases full of food along with you so you won't bring home an unwanted bacterial companion! I'll fill you all in on Savannah and our cruise next so stay posted... I know it will be difficult waiting, but just try to be patient.....

Amy