Looking back to my apartment in Costa Rica

Hitchhiking the USA

I was browsing through some of my old travel footage, when I found this little gem. While the video is far from amazing, the story behind it definitely is.

The story starts in the USA. My organisation for the whole trip limited itself to booking a flight from Brussels to Miami and a flight a little over two months later from LA to the Bahamas. So I set out hitchhiking across the United States from east to west.

During my final days of my trip I had managed to lose my wallet, this left me nearly out of money and without access to my bank account. I decided there wasn't much I could do about it during my last few days in the States.1 So I decided to just catch my flight to the Bahamas and figure it all out once I arrived there.

Refused entry to the Bahamas

After arriving at the Bahamas I unfortunately was refused entry to the country. The grumpy customs lady, didn't have ears for my story and told me as much as: no flight out the country, no entry to the country. She said if I wanted to enter, I'd have to buy a plane ticket on the spot. Normally, this wouldn't have been a problem, but with my wallet lost, it just wasn't an option.

The Bahamas airport has a little outdoors patio, and so I decided to make the best of my two hour stay in the Bahamas, soak in the sunset with some Bahamian food before getting deported back to the US. I could choose between LA or NY, as I had had a layover in New York. Well, I hadn't seen NY yet, so that was the deal breaker for me.

_{I don't have a Bahamas picture, but this is how it looks from the sky: source}

Making it into Costa Rica

And so I ended up in New York, during winter, with barely any money, no place to stay, in the middle of the night. As if that wasn't enough, my ESTA for the US was about to expire. Fast forward a few days, I get in touch with a friend of mine who was able to front me the cheapest ticket out of the US. As you might have guessed, the ticket was to Costa Rica. But I had to fly out of Miami. I hitchhike my way down from NY and fly out to Costa Rica.

At this point, I didn't have enough cash on me anymore to afford a hostel for more than a day. Luckily, I was traveling with my tent and so I camped out on the beach, whilst using the hostel showers. After that I started to figure my stuff out, got the bank to release my funds to a trusted party back home (trust me that was one hell of a hassle) and got some funds send to me through Western Union.

Throughout all of this I have met many people who helped me through all of it. Most notably a local girl, who invited me to stay at her mum's place in Grecia, Costa Rica. A little village, with not much going on. With the notable exception of one of the best coffee houses I have ever been to.

Whilst this should have been a stressful time during my travels, the people I met in Costa Rica, made it one of my most wonderful experiences I had traveling. I fell in love with the country and its people and decided I wanted to spend more time here.

Settling down for a while

Fast forward another few days and I was looking for a place to rent. I had been on the road for some time, and felt I wanted to settle down for a while. With the help of some local people, I found this cheap apartment and got it furnished with all kinds of furniture and appliances the locals gave me. My little home away became fact. Up until that point, I had never owned my own place. The feeling was great, and I ended up living for six months in Costa Rica. I still often look back at my days there as some of the best of my life!

In the novel I am writing (but might never finish), I describe the feeling of waking up there.

_{Click the map to discover my other adventures!}

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