A Long Day

Day 10: Puerto Limón, Costa Rica

Costa Rica is not on my do again list. I will be fair though and note that I did not give the place much of a chance.

I ended up bumping into Octavio and Deanna at breakfast and decided that I would join them in exploring Puerto Limón. When we got off the ship, basically everything was closed up so I think that the people of the city have it figured out when the most people will be getting off of a ship and plan their day around that time.

The Heat

So, Costa Rica is about a billion degrees with a trillion percent humidity at eight in the morning. Couple those two points with the fact that the air was eerily still, and it made for a miserable experience ashore.

I made it about two minutes off of the ship before I was drenched in sweat. It was so bad that the sunscreen that I applied was seeping back out of my skin. I push on though as I wanted to explore the city as much as I could before I died of heat stroke. We made it to their municipal building which had a memorial dedicated to the native people of the region which I liked and was ready to give up after seeing, but I carried on for about another mile.

In the image above, you can see that I am not lying

My last straw was when we walked by an open air fish market on the street. I saw it well in advance and held my breath in preparation for walking by the stench that I knew was coming—Deanna did not fair quite as well. I was about half way past the stench of rotting fish and I could hear Deanna behind me starting to dry-heave which made me laugh a bit and lose the air that I had saved to pass. I continued on with my lungs burning from lack of oxygen in them while Deanna was turning green and Octavio was providing commentary on the whole situation. That is when I decided to head back to the ship.

Pool Day

I nearly died as I approached the gangway of the ship, I could feel my blood pressure rising and anxiety starting building, but I soldiered on. Getting to the top of the gangway and feeling the sweet, sweet air conditioning of the ship hit my body was one of the best feelings that I have ever had.

After my near death experience, I went and washed all of the sweat and leached sunscreen off in a nice cold shower and then headed down to the pool. O-box, Deanna, and myself sat in the pool for basically the rest of the day avoiding the steaming heat of Puerto Limón.