Buen Viaje [a trip to the beach]

Flashback: February 2009 (or sometime around then)


We come together in Boynton McKay, a small cafe on Route 1 in downtown Camden, Maine.  It is here that we have chosen to say our goodbyes, our good lucks, drink ridiculously expensive natural or local sodas and eat good food.

We had arrived in Maine about a year earlier and as luck would have it we became good friends with one Mr. Joshua Hardester.  Now we were saying goodbye, this was becoming a theme - meeting amazing people in this little coastal town only to have them move on after a couple of months or a year or so (not that we can talk as we did the same thing).  In Josh's case it was different.  He wasn't just moving on, he was joining Peace Corps.  He was going to go to Costa Rica and save the world.  We had submitted our own Peace Corps applications a couple of months earlier and couldn't wait to hear about the adventures that awaited him in the tropical country situated between Nicaragua and Panama (that's right, Costa Rica is not an island, that's Puerto Rico).

We talked, we laughed, we ate, we hugged and we said goodbye.  Buen viaje.


Flashback: November/December 2009 (or sometime around then)


You're never going to believe it - we're going to be Peace Corps Volunteers in Costa Rica too!  That means we get to see Josh again!


Flashback: May 2011 (yup, that's right about now)


We get the text that says "I'm here" and smile.  We send one back saying we've made it onto our final bus for the trip and that we'll arrive in Cahuita in about an hour.

We've come full circle.  From wishing Josh safe travels in that little cafe in Maine to spending a weekend at the beach in Costa Rica to do the same.  OK, so Costa Rica is a bit hotter in May than Maine is in February, but we were still on the Atlantic.  We had a great time just sitting back and relaxing.  We took a walk through the National Park, ate copious amounts of Caribbean style rice and beans, enjoyed panbon (a delicious sweet bread from the Limon region of Costa Rica) while listening to the sound of ripe mangos falling from the trees and catching up on days gone by.

In other words, we talked, laughed, we ate, we hugged and we said goodbye.  Buen viaje.