From One Stress to Another

by Gabrielle Jette (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown Costa Rica

January 20, 2019: Day 2 of our whirlwind week in Costa Rica. In our crazed last minute planning for this week in Costa Rica (reasonable given that we decided to take this trip five days ago in order to escape the stress of the government shutdown), we decided to rent a car once we arrived in San Jose to avoid relying on the slower (albeit significantly cheaper) public transportation around the country. When we arrived at our hostel yesterday, the front desk recommended a reasonably priced company that seemed reliable. The rental associate arrived on time with a hardier than expected car, so we were pleased as we started our four-hour journey to La Fortuna. Due to some navigational errors (partly my fault, partly our GPS’s fault), we had a stressful drive down one way, narrow, bumpy roads to La Fortuna and arrived much later than expected. To recover from the drive, we grabbed a quick lunch of picadilla pollo and tamales and immediately headed to the highly recommended hot springs a ten minute drive from town. We parked on the side of the road amongst dozens of other cars as we’d been instructed and followed a short trail to a stream full of locals and tourists enjoying the volcanically warmed water. We eased in, sought out smooth stones to lounge against, and let the water start to ease our stress. 36 hours after landing, it finally felt like we were starting our vacation. However, after two hours of relaxation and eager planning for the days to come, we were sharply brought back to reality. As we walked back to our car, I noted that our rear license plate seemed to be missing. Then we noticed the police. Then we noticed the two locals screaming at an officer while the officer calmly handed them a ticket. We, along with 20 or so other cars of locals and tourists alike, apparently parked illegally, despite every blog, book, and person we spoke to telling us where to park. Long story short, we are now required to return to San Jose tomorrow (losing all forward progress we’ve made today), pay a $100 fine, lawyer fees for the rental company, and the cost of a second car since the car without plates can no longer be on the road this week. (For anyone planning a trip to Costa Rica, know that parking violations result in confiscated license plates!) Mentally, it’s a tough situation to deal with. We came to Costa Rica to escape stress, yet these first two days, and likely tomorrow, seem to have had nothing but stress. It’s especially difficult to accept as the violation seems to have happened by chance rather than us actually doing something wrong. Our hostel and the locals we’ve talked to tonight have assured us that the police activity was out of the norm; there are rarely, if ever, parking violations distributed on that stretch of road. Had we left the hot springs 10 minutes earlier or had we parked farther up, our day and vacation would have been much less stressful (and expensive). But there is nothing to be done about it, except move forward. And be stingy the rest of the trip. And only park in parking lots. Here's to accepting that no matter what our choices were this week, there was no escaping the stress, and making sure that even if we have to work for it, we relax and enjoy this vacation.