Gotta love it!

Sorry but this is gonna be a long one. If you have the patience I think you'll enjoy it though.

Well, traveling really exposes you to all kinds of adventures and experiences, you meet crazy other foreigners from all over the world, you try the most interesting food that you have never heard of before, you see beautiful landscape and oh yes I forgot, you get robbed. Now I know your freaking out right now but just calm down. Mere and I are perfectly unharmed and we have recovered all our stuff. It is 7:45 am and I have been up for almost 4 hours. Now I shall tell you the story.

Currently we are back in San Jose after a wonderful trip to Arenal. We are here basically to see our friend then we are taking off. It was getting late at the hostel on the fabulous friday night and I was getting tired so I headed off to bed. I'm reading my book and before I know it I am passed out.

At around 4ish my slumber was disrupted with a start and I look at the foot of the bed to find a strange face there. My first reaction: it must be Mere cause we are the only ones staying in the room. My second reaction: There is an EFFin stranger in my room with his arms full of our stuff. I jumped out of bed and let me mention that I was in this thin blanket wrapped around me like a sleeping back.

Out in the hall he hands me the stuff he was carrying and rushes off. I start yelling anything I can think of in spanish and go back in my room to discover that everything had been thrown everywhere. I instantly run after the guy and start pushing him asking him where all our other stuff is. He pulls out of his pocket my passport and tells me thats all he has. Along with my passport he hands me his ID card. His name: Norel Rafael Sanchez Diaz from Colombia. Inside my pasport though I discover that my two credit cards are missing.

This whole time I am yelling and yelling and waking everyone up. I follow the guy into the bathroom where he proceeds to relieve himself. I am thinking at this time that he must be dumping my cards in the toilet. So I start pushing him and he starts yelling at me saying that he doesn't have my stuff he didnt steal anything. (all of this in spanish of course). Finally he leads me to his room after the guy working at the desk hears me and comes to help. Everyone involved was very helpful by the way. Ok so my theif dumps out his bag to show me he has nothing then he starts crying. I feel no ounce of pity for this man however I am trying to be as calm as possible.

Finally the obscenities start. He gets mad at me because I am mad at him and then some other hostel resident comes to my defense and explains that he had seen the guy go into my room. Then the other complaints start coming more and more guests start saying they heard things at their doors and he had actually entered another room but woke up one of the girls too early and they kicked him out. Norel, we are on a first name basis of course by now, starts calling everyone names but he doesnt have a very strong defense.

Shortly there after the police arrive and they are on the case. I explain everything I can as best I can in spanish and do a little reenactment. Finally they ask where my friend was so I woke up Mere. She took control thank god cause I was losing my nerves. One police officer came with me while I scoured the room to look for my cards which were the only things missing at this point. Mere went with the other officers to Norels room where she verbally brutalized him, which was much deserved. She may have even subjected him to a minor physical reprimand.

I found out later that he had continued to try to prove to her by showing is clothe tags that he was not a theif and that he pays for his belongings.

Meanwhile I am getting the numbers for the credit cards and the police officer helping me starts flirting. I couldnt help but laugh. Once I knew what I was dealing with I couldn't get the smile off my face. My officer, Jose, first name basis as well, offers me a flower which of course made me blush and laugh at the ridiculousness. What's life if you can't just laugh at it, so i did.



My knight in shining armor Jose

I am finally able to put a hold on my cards and Norel is carted off with the police. We find out that he is here illegally and they can either process him or send him to immigration. I didnt really care that much. The police decided the latter because immigration could deal with it and leave them with less paper work. Who knows maybe we will run into him in Colombia.

I began to relax and go back to the room only to get rustled up again by a knock. Mere and I have to go down to the police station. We take a cab there and basically just hang out with the police for a little while. they joke with us and when they find out our travel plans Jose asks me if I will come back to San Jose soon so we can date. I explain to him sadly and as sincerely as possible that no, I would not be returning. I think he understood. After some sociallizing Jose and another officer drive us back in the big hefty police van. Before we took off however we got to snap a couple of great photos.

Our most corteous driver Alberto

When we returned to the hostel they had found my credit cards hidden in the bathroom. So all was recovered and now I am starving. Hopefully our sad little friend Norel is learning the error of his ways.

In retrospect I remember the feeling of "oh this is what is it like to have your stuff jacked." That feeling didnt sit too well with me. Now its over, we have our stuff, and a story to live on for a real freakin long time.