costa rica. waiting...

we are bad at many things...but among them waiting may be the worstIt's a funny thing, perspective.  Here we are sitting in a perfectly beautiful hotel in the mountains of costa rica.  We have a comfortable room, a delightful breakfast each morning, a swimming pool (even though its a bit too cold to use), even a mini "hot" tub that a very nice gentleman will fire up 30 minutes in advance if/when we want to soak.  It's luxurious really.  But to us, its almost painful.  We are trapped here, doing the thing we are worst at - waiting.

Things actually went as smoothly as could be expected on the trip south.  We stopped in for a little football game in santa clara (go ducks!), stopped in to spend some time with friends in santa barbara who we haven’t seen since passing through Jackson on our last departure. We even got the bus out of the customs/storage conundrum without a ton of hassle.  Given our last experience...we’ll call that an enormous win!

The bus somehow even started up with only a moderate amount of work.  I pumped up the tires, checked the oil, blew out the fuel lines and she fired right up (amazing).  Couldn't get into gear while running however, and spent a few hours trying to tweak our clutch cable with nothing but a bruised arm to show for it.  It did give jen some time to begin cleaning things though.  A basic "dusting" of 18months of dirt and at least making sure we could see out the windows.  We have a lot of work ahead of us, but it gave us hope that the bus is under there... somewhere.

We finally pushed E out of the shop and push started.  The clutch miraculously freed up, apparently just stuck from sitting dormant for so long.  Our mechanic came down (thankfully, along with his english speaking friend) and let us follow him up to his shop.  "I'm no longer as far up the mountain" his friend translated to us and set our minds at ease before leaving the garage. "Perfect" we thought as we remembered the hellish ascent to his shop last time.   Having now made the drive to his new place, i respectfully disagree.

Even pulling out of the warehouse was a weird feeling.  The bus is no normal vehicle and it's more like sitting in some work out machine at the gym than behind the wheel of your car.  A few blocks down the road and my legs are already tired from the shifting and "braking".  I had forgotten completely what its like to be behind the wheel.  We were lucky enough to leave in the middle of what i assume was rush hour traffic and proceeded to follow him through all the back roads that one would take to drive directly up the side of a mountain - at the very top of which sat his shop.

"Lower than what?" we kept asking ourselves as we went higher and higher.  Each stop sign at the top of every steep street stressed us out and we were certain we'd be rolling backwards down this mountain in no time.  "Certainly he's just taking this route to test us, or to see if he can charge us for a tow to the top" we think.  The bus never got out of first gear, but somehow an hour later we made it to the top and pull into his shop.  E now sits free of the customs lot that has been his home for a year and a half and with a far, far better view.

We found a cheap-ish hotel nearby and checked in.  Our mechanic seems to think he can exorcise the demons that have kept us running on only a few cylinders most of the way south ...and while cynical we cant help but let him try before we begin the slow journey home.

But for now, we are stuck in this room.  Stuck without transportation and “wasting time” while our mechanic friend sees if he has the magic touch.  We could be perfectly happy here under other circumstances, and I'm certain people pay to fly here just to stay at this place (despite the fact we chose it because it was among the cheapest we could find nearby).  But we are ready to hit the road, ready to see whats next, ready to get back to the ocean.  This place just seems painful.

It has wifi, so work and a bit of “planning” for the coming days can be done, but otherwise we are just stuck.  Stuck listening to the obnoxiously loud kids frolicking next door.  Stuck listening to their mother’s stressful screams when she loses them every half an hour.  Stuck thinking about life instead of living it, which brings up all kinds of financial and other conversations to be written about later.  Stuck here writing a blog post that seems to have more complaints than positives.

Seriously Dangerz, give me a break.  We're sitting in the middle of a glorious tropical mountain about to begin a few months of adventure.  To return to a home we love, and we're doing all of it without having to worry about how to be free.  "Stuck" and "painful" should really be reserved for far different circumstances than the one we're in.  Perspective check.

Jen has been reading a few of the old blog posts to get back in the mindset and yesterday she reread this one to me.  What an amazing thing to look back on and try to remember.  We have come so far since that day and i can barely remember what it felt like to feel truly stuck.  To feel trapped by life and the supposed lack of options around us.

We are anything but stuck right now.  And life is anything but painful. Yesterday i laid here debating whether to go tell the mother to quiet her kids out of respect for the neighbors...today i think ill go jump in the hot tub and yell with them. ;)