When I met Jelene and John in Miami just over a week ago, they told me they were going down to Costa Rica on business on the 24th, and would be staying in their condo down there on the Pacific coast. Would I like to come down for a week, they wondered? Monkeys come to visit them at their swimming pool, and they have horses to ride in the wilderness.
Hmmm, I do have things I feel should be getting on with, as some of my goals seem to be slipping further out of reach. But I am coming to accept that I will not achieve all 100 goals, and as I have always said, it is more about the people and the overall adventure.
And spending so much time with Moe this week in Jamaica has suggested that my journey may have other possibilities in future. The overall adventure seems to be bigger than just a list of goals, and I am just enjoying that right now.
So I finally decided that the Costa Rica opportunity is too good to miss out on, and I think Jelene and John will be fun to hang out with for a while. They have been kind enough to extend their invitation to Moe too, and I have been trying to persuade her to postpone her return to Canada, and to join me on the trip down to Costa Rica.
She has other committments, and has been wavering, but yesterday made her decision. She had a lot of emails to write in order to cover everything for another week back at home! We’re off to Costa Rica, and have flights booked now. We fly tomorrow back to Miami, have a few hours in the airport, then are straight back out to San Jose. How exciting!
We have spent the last few days idling around Negril, swimming, wandering into town, and yesterday afternoon, once again we headed out to Rick’s Bar on the cliffs. We refused to be distracted too much by coffee shops, bars, and roadside salesmen, and made it to Rick’s before sunset.
This time cliff-jumping was still in progress, and I watched several people jump of the high clifftop platform. Oh dear, I knew that I wanted to do it, but it was impressively high. But after watching one of the fit young locals jump off the enormously high treetop platform, I handed Moe the camera and money from my pockets.
“‘Dis guy look confident,” smiled the lifeguard, but I felt far from it as I peered over the edge. It was a long fall, but a straight clean entry meant it was painless, and as I climbed back up to Moe she told me I had to go and do it again, as she had missed getting a picture.
The second jump went as well as the first, with a bit of a slap on the soles of my feet. “No, missed it again,” grinned Moe. “Once more please.” I was suspicious, and asked to look at the camera – the pictures looked fine to me! It was time for a beer!
At the start of the week, we had all sorts of plans to rent a scooter or maybe bicycles, and head into the mountains to see some waterfalls. But with a beautiful beach, and an easy lifestyle, we have reached the last day here, and have been no further than Rick’s a couple of miles away.
And I have loved it. It has been so relaxing to have nothing that has to be done, and nowhere that we really have to go. The only obligation has been to do some “work” on the book, in order to fulfil the loose requirements of the “workplace romance” goal. Blissful.