How to get "muffed up" in Costa Rica

Happy holidays everyone, I hope that you were all able to spend time with loved ones and reflect upon the past year with fond memories and ideas about how to make the next one even more “pura vida.”  I was lucky enough to have four of the most special people in my life come to visit me last week.  My aunties Margaret and Mary, my uncle Ed, and my brother were all here to help me celebrate.  Before arriving in Costa Rica, they had read about the history and culture of Costa Rica, and also about the many dangers that this environment can present to visitors (or, as Mary put it, “The many ways you can die in Costa Rica”).  This post is inspired by (and plagiarizes) an email written by one of my aunts upon her return to the States:

They read about all of the ways one can encounter death in Costa Rica, but when my aunts, uncle and brother came to visit me for Christmas last week, they never anticipated that the biggest threat to anyone's life would be posed by something rather different than coral snakes, earthquakes, heatstroke, flooding, landslides, freshwater sharks, normal sharks, driving on narrow, mountainous roads with hairpin turns inches away from enormously high cliffs, crocodiles (we went to one river that has 125 crocs for every 1 kilometer of water), jaguars, or the deadly fruit and bark of, and air surrounding the manzanillo tree.  Although we nearly died of laughter when my aunt Margaret would tell people, “No te quiero” (I don’t love you) or “No te quieres” (You don’t love yourself) when she meant to say “No quiero” (I don’t want any), this was still no match for the greatest threat to most dangerous occurance of the trip, which involved none other than a fold-up couch in our luxurious beach condominium.  Travel book authors take note, because this oversight on the part of my aunt’s travel books nearly cost us her life. 

It all happened in the “snore room,” which was reserved for our sleepers with special habits.   My aunt Mary was sound asleep on the pull-out couch when her efforts to roll over were interrupted by a malfunction in the foldable bed.  There was nothing she could do as her legs were forced into the air towards her chest, and she found herself trapped in a death grip between the back of the couch, the spiky bed springs and the mattress, which flew up into the air as she struggled to position herself near the top of the bed.  The airborne mattress then left room for her legs to become ensnared in the bedsprings that once lay underneath it, making it impossible for her to pull herself up.  Next came the relentless Charlie-horse leg cramps and she began to yell for Margaret (the resident nurse) to come to her aid.  Confused and blinded in the still-dark room, Margaret fumbled her way to the disaster site and seeing the gravity of the situation called for backup from Ed.  The two of them worked to pry the bed back open and help Mary (who was without the use of her legs due to the cramping) out of the pit of death.  When I asked my aunts how is the world they were able to do that without laughing they said they knew that neither one would survive if they allowed laughter to take over and that Mary would never be removed from the situation.  Once Mary was free and everyone went back to bed (exhausted from the rescue efforts), the brief silence was broken by Ed when he said, “That was actually pretty funny.”  At that point all bets were off and the three of them broke out into uncontrollable laughter, which nearly resulted in a different type of emergency as they struggled to breathe and gain control of themselves. 

It was very special for me to have my aunties, uncle and lil bro here to meet my new family and my community, which is the reason for which I am here.  Every day I think about how grateful I am for my friends and family, and for the opportunities that I have either found or been presented with in this life.  Again, happy holidays, and may you have many moments that bring you so much laughter that you feel sick to your stomach and lots of pain in your face muscles.  Pura vida.