Nightlight Life, Costa Rica. photo by: Katie Hellerman

Outside of the bigger cities such as San Jose and Heredia, in Costa Rica there are no addresses. It goes beyond numberless buildings. To quote the band U2, “the streets have no names.” Our friends who wanted to visit received this “address”:

Go to Playa Grande, Take a left at the second road before the beach, you will see a big billboard with a bunch of advertising signs on the corner.   Follow that road, which turns into a dirt road, about 5 minutes.  Then you will enter though a gate and you’ll see the sign for “Palm Beach”.  Follow the road and stay left. Then you will pass through a really big drainage ditch, when you pass through the ditch, take the immediate right on the next road.  Go over the speed bumps and you will see the grocery store and the restaurant on the right. It is a yellow house on the right.

It’s a miracle that anyone ever made it. But they did. And I think in a way, they arrived more in the present than if the likes of Siri had guided them step-by-step.  Something so seemingly chaotic and disorganized, took them out of their heads and tricked them into being in the moment. You can’t be thinking about the proposal you submitted at the office if you are trying to decide if the drainage ditch that you just past through was the “really big one.” You must pay attention and observe your surroundings (which incidentally happened to be lush rainforest full of exotic flora and fauna). And isn’t that the purpose of a vacation?….To vacate your troubles and live in the moment.