The same Frank Sinatra tunes are playing again at the breakfast buffet.  Does Old Blue Eyes really ever get old? 

Leanne shares breakfast with Saffron with a post-performance pride that only a performer (or a mother of a performer) knows.  We chat chat chat until Kyle emerges telling Leanne she has only 40 minutes to pack.   “You know that room looks like a tornado hit it,” he says trying to convey the message that 40 minutes may be nowhere enough time needed to clean up after a tornado. Darn it, “she-time” is over.  

Leanne rushes up, packs and showers with a few seconds to spare. She’s excited because after unloading a bunch of “stuff” into the shed box, her bag finally doesn’t throw her back out every time she picks it up.  Ah, she’s excited for a “weigh-in” for once.  At flight check in, she learns the diet on which she put the Red Beast (as we nicknamed her bag) worked brilliantly as RB lost four kilos.  An aptly-timed fist pump follows. 

Leanne tries to drop a last-minute hint that emeralds are mined in Colombia and we have our last opportunity here to pick up one AND tomorrow IS Valentine’s Day. “This trip is everyone’s gift for every holiday Leanne. We agreed no gifts this year,” reminds Kyle. “Ouch!” thinks Leanne. “If you’re going to change the no gift policy, you could have mentioned it the first day we got to Colombia not the last day in the airport when we have 15 minutes to catch our flight.” The conversation is obviously not going well and Leanne walks away muttering about having it rough sometimes. 

On the bus ride to the airport, a nice Costa Rican woman starts up a conversation excited after learning we were heading to her country.  I guess we really do stick out like sore thumbs everywhere, thinks Leanne. They are the first of many warm wonderful Costa Rican’s we will meet. Her family of four join in sharing travel tips for us.  They are returning from vacationing in Cartagena so Leanne decides to compare notes. “Hey, did you get shortchanged in Cartagena a lot?” Asks Leanne. “No, not at all,” they all confirm with nods.  Oh, ok so apparently it’s just us?

Sometimes strange things just happen on these flights.  On this flight, there’s an anonymous joker that keeps taking photos of unsuspecting fellow passengers sleeping with wide open mouths and then mass Airdrops it to every Apple phone on the flight. After his fifth attempt to share a photo, we decide that this attempt at paparazzi humor is pretty creepy.  Its kind of puts a damper on any of our desires to take a nap on the plane lest we become the next unsuspecting victim of his. Let’s just add this oddity to “stuff we just can’t make up!” 

We arrive in San Jose, the capital city of Costa Rica, around 4pm and roll into a 3.5 hour van ride to Monteverde, the epicenter of the cloud forest and a hub for rainforest adventure fun.  

By the time we arrive at the hotel only a few of us have energy to eat dinner — even in the hotel restaurant. We crash for the night.