Tough Crowd

Wow, my fellow steemers! You guys are a tough crowd! I gather from my last post that we're not big fans of underage drinking and college shenanigans. copy that.

While I live in New York, and spend most of my time working (more to come on tours and TV shows) one of my favorite things to do is travel! I've been all over. Mexico, Canada, Peru, Costa Rica, Colombia, The Caribbean, France, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, St. Petersburg, Australia, China, South Africa. I'd been to all but 1 continent by the time I was 25.

As I learn more about cryptocurrencies - on this site and others- I hope to be able to travel using these global digital currencies.

In the meantime, I got horribly lost in a jungle in Costa Rica once. The story goes like this:

I went on a quick summer vacation with my mom to Costa Rica. A country that meets both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, and is nudged between Nicaragua and Panama. It is roughly the size of South Carolina, yet takes at least 18 hours to reach either border and 3 hours to the coast from the center in San José. We stayed in San José a city, with no beach. (which is not exactly what i had in mind for my Costa Rican vacation, let me tell you). So obviously the beach, with sand and more sun was a must.

There was a tour through our resort to the Pacific coast, for beaches and ocean swimming, etc. $125 per person. But my mom and I, we're adventurous, independent women; so she decides that instead we rent a car (against everyone else's warnings) and make our own tour. Woohoo!! So we head out in the morning, with some books, stuff for the beach, a map of Costa Rica and our rented car. There aren't really street signs there, but I'm a superb navigator with an old school paper map. As long as you know where you're going it's all good.

Incident 1. We're driving along. The rental car agent had warned us to bring passports in case we got pulled over. Mom says, "I'm not going to get pulled over." --Cut to 5 minutes later-- sure enough, my mom is driving 80 kmh in a 60 kmh zone --unintentionally--and we get pulled over. Well, shit. With the language barrier I thought it would be super difficult. Not so much. From what I pieced together with my admittedly rudimentary high school spanish, I understood that we had a few options.

1. Pay the officer a $20 dollar ticket
2. Pay the rental agency $30 for the ticket
   or my personal favorite 3) Pay the officer $20 and NO ticket!!!

Obviously took the bribe and continued on our way to the beach! It's mid morning plenty of sun and sand to be had!

We made it to the beach, a Marriott hotel//resort that we snuck into and pretended like we belonged there. It was lovely. We had lunch at a little local restaurant, where this man was shamelessly flirting with my mom-cuz she's hot or something.

Incident 2. Aside from the beach we also wanted to see this nature reserve park that was supposed to be really, really nice. With like tigers and birds and shit. (Maybe not tigers...that doesn't sound right...) It was closed when we got there. So we stopped for mojitos (my favorite) before heading back to the city.

It gets really dark there, really early, and we still had a 3 hour drive back to San José starting at 5. To summarize my first 19280128 paragraphs: Everything was fine until it got dark.

Incident 3. A wrong turn somewhere on our way back to San José puts us on a road we didn't recognize, but instead of turning around we continue. One road leads to another (literally, only one other) and about 45 minutes later we are sufficiently lost on the Costa Rican roads without numbers or road signs and it's getting worse. It is pitch black dark, under the cover of trees there's no moonlight, no starlight, no street lights. Just our headlights in tree trunks when all of a sudden, the road ends. And we are now driving along an unpaved, one-laned, dirt road. That climbs up and up and up the side of a mountain. Meanwhile, I'm in the jungle trying to navigate in the dark. And I mean dark. New York has given me a complex about what night looks like. It. Was. So. Dark. I'm scared out of my mind, thinking at any moment we will drive off this mountain and die. Or that we'll run out of gas, and die. Or any number of other terrifying things that also result in death.

Before my story comes to a close, because obviously I'm fine, I'd like to say that it was at the top of a mountain, on a dirt road, in the jungle, on a very dark night, that my mom and I wander into a real cantina and ask for directions (in high school Spanish) to San José. On a Paved road. Preferably with lights. We spent an extra hour that night being lost on a dirt road. I was traumatized, it was not fun. But I can look back and laugh at it now, as long as it NEVER happens again.

The very next day, I was on top of another mountin, where I zip-lined through trees on a canopy tour. Basically this trip rocked, minus when it was dark out!!

What are some cool/terrifying things that happened to you while exploring on vacation? Upvote and comment below! And don't forget to follow me!