Trouble in Paradise
After weeks of planning and prepping it was finally time. The stress of preparation was behind us, and it was finally time for me and my girlfriend to go on our trip to Belize. It’s my fourth year in a row traveling internationally during my birthday, and the third year i’ve brought my girlfriend Grace. While each trip has been filled with great memories, they've also been filled with a comical amount of mishaps and misfortune. It began the first year I visited Costa Rica by myself, though I do have to admit my misfortune was more a result of bad decision making than of bad luck. I arrived in Costa Rica, and immediately was in awe. I had never traveled internationally by myself before, and when they had us disembark directly onto the runway I felt like some kind of globetrotting celebrity. After a few hours I made it to where I was staying in Tamarindo, one of the tourist hubs of Costa Rica. As a 19 year old I had never legally drank before, so like any mature and responsible young adult the first thing I did was get unreasonably drunk in a place I knew nothing about.
After all the bars closed a local offered to give me a ride back on his motorcycle to my place since I was clearly intoxicated and I graciously took the offer. He told me he just needed me to hold onto his keys and bag so they wouldn’t fall out of his pockets, and I didn’t object so he put them directly in my pocket; a little weird but like I said I was young drunk and stupid so I didn’t think much of it. After we got to my place he gave me a big hug, and reached in my pocket and grabbed his keys before I could hand them to him. As soon as he got back onto his bike I felt around for my keys and realized my pockets were empty, no phone, no wallet, and no keys. I ran all the way back to town in my flip flops, looking for the guy who gave me the ride. I wandered around town hopeless and helpless, alone in a foreign place for what felt like hours, just hoping I would somehow come across the guy who took my stuff.
Hopelessness settled in after hours of fruitless searching. As I sat sulking on the curb, a raspy voice called out to me. It belonged to Ivan, a man I had bought a pack of beer for earlier. Despite his rough exterior, he was my momentary angel. I looked over and recognized the man instantly, his name was Ivan and I bought him a pack of beer earlier in the day. I told him what was going on, and without hesitation he told me he would get my stuff back. I felt a little better, but I told him I thought getting my stuff back was a lost cause. He doubled down and told me he knew where to go. Over the next few minutes Ivan went around with me gathering up some of his fellow night-owls, the most notable undoubtably being a French man named Pascal who was practicing Tai-chi on the sidewalk despite the fact it was past 3 AM. After Ivan gathered up 4 or 5 people, he took me to this dilapidated building with a chained up gate and boarded up windows. Sitting on the stoop behind the gate smoking some kind of powder was the guy who took my stuff. At first he tried to claim he never took my stuff, but after just a few minutes he went into the building and came back with my keys, wallet, and phone. While Ivan and his friends didn’t help me under any pretense of a reward, I made sure to pay every one of them.
In the years since I first traveled internationally I have had my phone stolen twice, broken another two times, got MRSA, been stung by a Tarantula Hawk, and gotten heavy metal poisoning. My friends and professors never believed how bad my luck was, until they traveled with me and got to witness it first hand. My girlfriend has had to suffer through my bad luck the past three years and we were both hoping this year would be a little different. Everything went smooth leading up the trip, our bags were packed, we didn’t forget anything, and it was quick and easy going through TSA. We arrived at our terminal forty five minutes early and got a few snacks. Everything seemed normal and we got onto the plane with no issues, and even managed to switch our seats so we could sit together.
While me and my girlfriend sat on the plane eagerly awaiting takeoff to Belize, the pilot made an announcement that much of the luggage would not make it onto the plane. After a stressful back and forth we decided to continue on our trip after being told by a flight attendant that our luggage would quickly be delivered to wherever we were staying within 1-2 days. Upon landing United reaffirmed that our luggage would be delivered to us within one day and not to worry. Stressed, and exhausted, we were excited to get to our AirBNB to relax, and forget about the early stress of the trip, but just minutes before arrival the host called me and informed me that we would not be able to stay there due to water issues. We took some time to regroup and began scrambling looking for an affordable place to stay, and eventually found a new place to stay a few miles away. We called a taxi, but like a scene out of a bad sitcom, minutes into the ride our driver got a flat tire. Luckily he had a spare and was able to replace the tire in about 15 minutes, and deliver us to our hotel. At this point in the day all I could do was laugh at how bad our luck had been, and hope the worst was behind us. After a quick local dinner and trip to the grocery store me and my girlfriend both passed out after a long and stressful day.
On the second day we decided to explore a little bit and relax since we still had not received our luggage. We rode our golf cart down to the beach and began to swim and lounge a bit, but shortly after I got out of the water I noticed my eyes and face were burning. When I asked my girlfriend if my face was red she looked scared and said we should head back to the AirBNB immediately to head back to the apartment immediately. The burning spread all over my body and by the time we got back most of my body was bright red, and my eyes were so swollen it hurt to blink. I coated my body from head to toe in sting relief cream, took 4 benadryl and passed out until the pain subsided.
After a little bit of talking with locals I figured out the cause was larval jellyfish, which began to be most prolific in the area in early March. I was still persistent not to let any of our bad luck ruin our trip, so after I woke up I looked around on google for some local places to eat with my girlfriend's help and found a local restaurant named FINGER FOODS DELIGHTZ. It was a small and unassuming place, but me and my girlfriend both agreed it had amazing food, along with an incredibly kind owner. The chicken was some of the best I've had, not just in Belize, but anywhere
After dinner we made a quick stop at the grocery store before returning back to our AirBNB to rest and attempt to figure out where our luggage was, and after a few hours we found out to our dismay the luggage had not even left Newark yet. United offered to compensate us for any purchases we had to make, but the reimbursement was gonna 5-8 weeks, and it wasn’t easy to get clothes in Placencia let alone fishing gear. We prayed spent the night praying that our luggage would arrive early the next day, and luckily it arrived at around 11 am.
Now that I finally had my fishing gear, and my girlfriend had her bathing suit we decided to head to the beach and spend a day relaxing. I bounced around from dock to dock near our hotel, and while I didn’t find any bonefish or tarpon I found plenty of other cool species I had never caught before.
