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On the Road

Costa Rica or Bust!

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I was truly bursting with excitement about our upcoming trip to Costa Rica. This girl needed a dose of nature. George, our latest pet sitter for Ella (from trustedhousesitters.com), arrived on Friday, so we took him to Tiramisu for our now traditional pisco sour toast.

Awwww… here we are, feeling all optimistic that things would go as planned. (counterclockwise, Tony’s giant face, our friend Lisa from Nido, me, our visiting friend Brian who worked with us in Delhi and now works at our old school in Shanghai, our petsitter George)

Tony and I hit the road on Saturday morning at the crack of dawn.

And then it all went to custard.

We called an Uber at 5 a.m., but when it arrived, the driver refused to take us to the airport. Another Uber answered my call, but he also refused. I later found out an Uber driver had been shot by police at the airport the other day, so I understand their trepidation. Still, we were stressed. Our concierge called a taxi for us, and we got the airport with plenty of time to spare.

As it turned out, we had way too much time to spare. Our 8 a.m. flight was delayed. And delayed again. Until eventually it became clear that we would miss our connection in Lima, Peru. I was determined to get to Costa Rica on time so that we could kick off my amazing itinerary and head straight to Tortuga Lodge and Gardens. Check it out. Can you see why I felt eager to get there?

We had already planned to spend one night in San Jose, Costa Rica, and then drive to La Pavona on Sunday to catch a boat to the lodge. However, if we got stuck in Lima, we wouldn’t be able to get to that paradise till Monday. Maniacally, I researched flights and thought I found a solution: We would book on another airline.

So we finally boarded our Latam Airlines flight from Santiago to Lima. The plane had to have been from the Wright Brothers era. I mean, our seats felt like they were made from plywood, and our armrests had ashtrays! I started watching “Pitch Perfect 2” on the in-flight entertainment, but the system broke down about halfway through the movie and never recovered.

When we arrived in Lima, our luggage didn’t. We were among about 20 people who had missed connections and whose luggage had gone AWOL. We waited at the luggage carousel for about 30 minutes while a Latam representative calmly and kindly kept reassuring us that they would find our bags. Finally, she gave us vouchers for a hotel in Lima. It was Novotel, which I know to be a lovely and fairly upscale hotel chain. Unfortunately, it turned out to be mediocre. Tony called it the “No Votel.” But, whatever, they gave us three free meals.

I continued to research alternate flights to Costa Rica, but we couldn’t do anything until our suitcases surfaced. Dang it.

I’ve been doing a 7-day gratitude challenge on an app called Calm, and today the meditation was all about feeling gratitude in the face of adversity. F**K that. I was cranky.

I washed my underwear in the sink, and Tony ventured out to find toothbrushes and toothpaste. (Yes, yes, we’ve been traveling for umpty million years and we should know to pack a change of underwear and toothbrushes in our carry-on. Please don’t lecture.)

We were so exhausted that we crashed at 7:30 p.m. and slept all night. In the morning, I checked with the hotel’s front desk. No call from Latam. No luggage. Tony thought he was so funny with his jokes like, “What are you going to wear today?” and “We have to leave in 30 minutes and we still haven’t packed!”

We headed back to the airport at 8 a.m. The Latam lady said our bags were still lost. She asked us to check back in an hour. We wandered around the airport until the designated time, at which point she told us to come back in 30 minutes. So we did. Still no news. She gave us a voucher for lunch at the food court. After our greasy lunch, we wandered back to the Latam counter, where she told us our luggage had been found! It was put on our flight to San Jose. Hooray!

We walked buoyantly to our gate, feeling like FINALLY we were kicking off this vacation. We hunkered down to wait for our flight to Costa Rica. I had come to grips with the fact that we were going to miss one day at Tortuga Lodge. I was disappointed, but more than anything, I just wanted to get there.

Suddenly, a crabby Latam Airlines lady invaded our tranquility to ask for our yellow fever paperwork. We were like, “What?” She asked if we had stayed in Peru … because apparently you need a yellow fever shot if you travel from Peru to Costa Rica. “Well, yes, we did stay one night here because Latam lost our luggage,” I told her. She huffed and stomped away with our passports. Another passenger, a British guy who we now call Tony’s doppelganger because they looked freakily alike, overheard our conversation. He had also missed his connection to Costa Rica and stayed at our same hotel the night before. Apparently, the airline had warned him that he might encounter some problems because of his lack of yellow fever certification.

Eventually, crabby lady brought our passports back with “OK” scribbled on our boarding passes.

When we arrived in San Jose, we hustled to the immigration line, sweating about whether we would be asked about the yellow fever thing. The doppelganger was a couple people ahead of us in line. We watched him with bated breath and sighed with relief when he got his passport stamp without any drama. When it was our turn, our guy was pretty friendly and chatty. He didn’t balk at the fluorescent pink Peru stamps in our passports, but simply asked us about our professions, made a little small talk, and then found a spot to plant that coveted Costa Rica stamp. Whew!

We proceeded to the baggage claim, where – hallelujah! – our suitcases actually plopped on to the carousel with a smug sense of accomplishment. We got local SIM cards for our phones and cash in the local currency (colón), which is confusingly .0018 to the dollar. Then we caught the shuttle to the rental car agency, picked up our Suzuki Jimmy, and headed to a nearby hotel for the night. Tomorrow morning, bright and early (because we found out there will be a protest about some proposed tax), we’ll head to Tortuga Lodge.

Here we are, all stinky and greasy and relieved to finally get our luggage.

Stay tuned for our Costa Rica adventures!

Chile, Daily Life

Score! Another great match with Trusted Housesitters

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Ella’s companions for the Dieciocho holiday were Marca, Ashley, Evan, and Kieran, a family we found on the Trusted Housesitters website, which matches pet lovers looking for a free place to stay with pet owners looking for housesitters while they travel. Marca and Ashley were international teachers in Thailand and Saudi Arabia, but they’ve taken off for at least a year of travel and “world schooling” with their two boys. We gave them a tour of our school (in case they ever want to settle down again) and took them out to dinner before heading off to San Pedro de Atacama.

We knew we had found the right family when the younger boy showed up for dinner with a T-shirt reading “Purr-ito” and a picture of a cat face sticking out of a burrito. My kind of people.

I asked them to take a family photo with Ella. No small feat. She is terribly uncooperative.

I’m glad we told them about Ella’s secret hiding place! They sent this pic when she disappeared for awhile.

It seems Evan was Ella’s BFF.

When we got home, Ella was more interested in playing in the luggage than actually reconnecting with us.

Not only did this family treat our baby with love and kindness, they also left our home in perfect condition. Actually it was even better than we’d left it; Ashley fixed our broken kitchen faucet. Everyone said they enjoyed their stay in Santiago, so it sounds like a win-win!

Chile, Daily Life, On the Road

Stress free travel with Trusted Housesitters

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When we lived in India, most expats had household help who were happy to pet-sit during school holidays. Our maid, Raji, would stay at our apartment whenever we traveled and often said she loved our cats like they were her own children.

Here in Chile, we no longer have that luxury. We left Ella at a local “pet camp” twice, but both times she came home a little shell-shocked. Cats just don’t love communal living like dogs do.

At the recommendation of my friend, Sarah, who teaches in Dubai, I decided to check out the website Trusted Housesitters. I set up a profile and posted our travel dates: mid-June to mid-July. Assuming I would have to beg for someone to spend a whole month in Santiago, I was surprised at the number of responses. People in England, Wales, Argentina, and two U.S. states expressed interest in babysitting Ella during our trip to the States.

We ultimately chose Kyle and Desi, a young couple from South Dakota. He is a running coach, who consults online and works from home, and she is a Spanish teacher. They flew in a few days early, so we got to introduce them to Ella, show them the apartment, and treat them to their first pisco sours. We liked them right away.

Not wanting them to witness the mania of our last week of school, we sent them off to Valparaiso for a few days. They came back to Santiago for our last night, and we took off for Michigan feeling secure Ella was in good hands.

Over the break, they kept in touch, sent screenshots of our bills, and posted photos on Facebook. It was clear they were taking advantage of all Santiago has to offer, despite the chilly winter weather. They even experienced the city’s biggest snow storm since 2007. Although ringed by snow-capped mountains, Santiago rarely experiences snowfall. Tree branches fell on power lines, cutting electricity to many neighborhoods, including ours. Kyle said the power was out for several days. No fun.

Our return flight was delayed in Atlanta overnight, so we didn’t cross paths with our pet sitters upon arriving in Santiago. They had taken off for a short trip to Vicuña to explore the Elqui Valley (a 5-hour drive north of Santiago), but they came home for one overnight before flying back to the States. When I opened the apartment door to let them in, I was happy and yes, maybe a little jealous, that Ella quickly ran to brush up against their legs. She will miss them.

I should also report that we found our apartment in excellent condition: clean litter box, trash was taken out, no dishes in the sink, linens changed, everything in its place. Couldn’t ask for more than that!

So our first experience with Trusted Housesitters was fantastic. Cross your fingers that we find future caregivers for Ella who are as wonderful as Kyle and Desi.