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It’s the 9th May 2019, early morning at Heathrow Airport, London. I’m with Wayne, my best mate, and we are embarking on a trip to Costa Rica. This to Wayne was new territory; dauntingly excited thoughts I’d presume would be going through his brain and with the flights booked and an itinerary meticulously prepared it was going to be a dauntingly exciting two weeks. I, however, was going for different reasons. I was rekindling a love affair with Central America that began on the 14th August 2014 in Penrith, Cumbria. This was the day I’d lost my job as an Apprentice Printer at a local printing merchant and with it the want, desire and need for a mundane 9-5 lifelong profession. Adios. Oh, and what next? Six months behind a bar in the continuously rainy ghost town that is off-season Lake District, saving as much coin as I could. As these months rolled on, a fascination with the world that I’d held from a very young age was returning to the forefront of my mind and a longing to be somewhere and to do something so far from what I’ve ever known. Most nights would be spent scouring travel guides and blogs until I found exactly what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. The result? A Spanish Immersion Course in Bocas Del Toro, Panama! Travelling solo, here commenced a month of archipelago bliss. Staying under the wing of my host-mother Mari-Bel’s, with Texan James, Coloradan Evan and Swiss Maxine living Spanish speaking mornings and idyllic afternoons. The most enjoyable day I have ever lived was the 15th March 2015. Experienced with newly found friends, monkeys, sloths and red frogs, further accompanied by fresh visions of mystic colours, tropical tastes from an en-route organic farm and a sense we were all living our lives with fulfilment and fun, we hiked for miles through a jungle to the secluded Salt Creek, Isla Bastimentos. I never thought the hairs on the back of my neck could lift until I first glimpsed this magnificent paradise. A gorgeous sunset ascended into the greatest of parties and my world felt just perfect. My time in Panama would last another month as I ventured to the more mountainous Boquete region and then eventually Panama City, the Panama Canal and San Blas Islands and this wondrously varied country was now firmly entrenched within my heart. The next nine or so months were spent working to save for a three-month trip through Cuba, Mexico, Belize and Guatemala the following year and further warming my affinity with this exquisite part of the world. These could each be regaled with there own tale, but I feel we should return to Heathrow Airport and 2019. Now it’s time for me to return to Central America, this time initially to Costa Rica, but dropping in for a five-day personal nostalgia trip into Bocas. Work commitments for both Wayne and I meant this trip would last only two weeks, but even so we were now checked in and on our way. Destination; San Jose, Costa Rica. Phoenix, Arizona was our connection flight and it was taking Wayne some time to get through passport control. I breezed through and waited for him whilst he had a lengthy chat with the attendant. Eventually Wayne followed, said he was going to the toilet and I went to check the flight departures. As I did this, a rather cold sweat came over me, an incredible nervousness too, unsettled by an abbreviation. At this point, Wayne returned. “I’ve just had the strangest conversation, the guy at passport control doesn’t think this airport flies to Costa Rica” Wayne said, with exasperation. “Yeah, just hold on to that thought”, I mumbled. “You wha?” “Just…” As we arrived to our gate it read, clear as daylight, ‘Flight 431 San Jose, California’ I looked at Wayne and he looked back at me. Momentarily, I thought he was going to punch me, but he chirpily piped up… “California it is, then!” So with that; San Jose, San Francisco, Vini the rented Nissan Versa, Highway 1, LA, Yosemite National Park and the most spontaneously brilliant two weeks with my best mate.