Today was not my day to die!

Today was not my day to die. I wanted to give Jaco a try, the closest beach town to San Jose. Most of the Josephinos go there because it is only a hour from San Jose. I assumed it was going to be like Pattaya, the closest beach town to Bangkok, filled with noisy bars and restaurants, a great beach for surfing and lots of people wandering around buying junk from stores. ( But I get ahead of myself).

I really had no idea how to get there and could really use a GPS.( Daniel) Costa Rica is not the best with signs and I knew at some point I had to turn off and head to the coast. For some strange reason, when I got near to Esparza, I decided to pull off the road and ask. I went to a soda ( a cheap restaurant) and asked where I should turn. I was about 30 seconds or a minute. When I went back to my car, about 100 meters in the distance there was obviously a huge accident and cars were backed up to where I was standing. Had I not gone into the restaurant for directions that ambulance that eventually came hurtling down the highway could have been coming for me. Amazing how life ( or death is). In a flash, our whole life can change depending on instant decisions we make, in my case for no particular reason.

Interestingly enough, when I did get to the intersection where the car accident was, I had no idea where or if to turn. I pulled into another stop area and asked two guys who told me to follow them. They took me down winding isolated roads and because I hear so many terrible things about theft and so on, I assumed they were taking me down some country lane to rob me. I was even figuring out in my mind how I could avoid getting the credit cards stolen and was considering hiding them in the car. Suddenly, like a mirage in the middle of a desert, a four lane highway appeared miraculously. Believe me, this does not happen in Costa Rica, ever. The main highway running through the country is a two lane twisted road that meanders through the countryside in a leisurely annoying way because it is always full of trucks and slow moving horses, cows crossing the road and bicycles etc.

When I got to Jaco and picked a dumpy cheap hotel, there were signs all over my room that the hotel was not responsible for contents left in the room. The owner told me to take a cab if I came back after midnight and so on. I hate these innuendoes and clearly it dampens my enthusiasm for Costa Rica.

When I came back today, at Canes there was a school band competition in the town bull ring. I loved it and would have stayed till the end but my computer was in the car and twice, when people have come to visit me at home, brought their computers into the house with them rather than leave them outside in the car. If it was just the car, I would have left it but I did not want to lose the computer a.k.a. had it stolen so I did not leave until the end even though I dearly wanted to because I loved every minute of it, but if I did stay until the end you might not be reading this now. In other words, I am letting my fears dictate my actions which seems ridiculous but I do only have one computer!

Jaco...not worth writing about!