Four fifteen is a really early time to leave the hotel for the airport. The hotel provided box breakfasts, consisting of yogurt, an apple, a small muffin, and a box of juice. Coffee was available. Folks leaving early (not everyone was) were in the lobby by 4 to get the sumptuous breakfast, get our bags loaded on the bus and go. We thought we’d seen the last of Sama (Federico) our wonderful bus driver, but he was there to drive us to the airport. I’m guessing he broke some bus driver laws, cuz they have to have a day off every so often and he hadn’t. Perhaps he was the only one available to drive the big honkin’ bus.
On arriving in the airport we “cued” up, (or is that w/ a q?) to pay our exit fee. A visitor to Costa Rica must pay $26 (or 13,000 colones) to leave the country.
Going thru security, the zippers on my pants pockets beeped, so I was “wanded” and went on my way. It is interesting how different all the settings on the metal detectors are. Same pants didn’t get any response from the machines in either DFW or Atlanta. Oh, Well we were soon to discover how security conscious Costa Rica is. We found our gate and waited a little while. We were sitting in zone 4, so when that was called, we got in line to enter the plane. Nope, not yet. Our carry on bags and purses were searched --some more thoroughly than others. The lady looking through my bag TOOK EVERYTHING OUT and patted down the bag itself. She felt around the sides and bottom of the bag. When she was convinced that I wasn’t smuggling anything out, she put everything back. I had a wad of money, some underwear, snacks, book, all sorts of things. When she grabbed my sack of banana chips and started squeezing, I told her to look in—I didn’t want them crushed. Do I need to mention that this lady was more thorough than some. N said his inspector just unzipped and looked in, didn’t touch anything. I guess I look suspicious.
As we were finally sitting on the plane, we noticed out the plane window that there were people on the tarmac “wanding” airport employees. I guess we should feel more safe than normal.
The rest of the trip was uneventful, no huge delays. Things were tight getting thru the customs stuff in Atlanta, we we made it with a minute or two to spare for a bathroom break. Thank you, E, for shipping the chairs.
We sat and read and napped and finally we were in DFW and my two favorite girls were waiting for us at baggage claim. I should have taken a picture because Lily was entranced by the sound of the baggage mover.
We were also grateful that we were home and the rest of the Bwd group still had a 3+ hour drive home.
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