Today is the fourth day of my road trip, starting In Telluride with the goal of ending up in Big Sur by the end of the month. The spontaneity and bizarreness which has ensued thus far in this trip reminds me of another, just about a year ago, the road trip from Belize to Costa Rica for the music festival Envision. That trip was also as last minute and spontaneous as this one has been. I decided less than twelve hours before that I would be going with my three friends across five countries to a music festival in the jungle on a beach, just like this time, deciding to leave days before I had intended because of an unexpected change of events; everything comes down to timing and weather. Today I met up with one of my friends from that trip through Central America and to me there are a lot of parallels between Vegas and Envision. The main one I’ve noticed is everyone’s motive to be here; people want to feel free.
As much as these two places are inherently different; one being in the jungle and one in the desert, one a major city, one a temporarily existing gathering of humans in an otherwise secluded and super small town, it still makes sense that we would meet there, and then also here. I find myself drawn to these types of places and these people.. the desire to be free is present in both of us, and in these places. We jokingly refer to ourselves as reality refugees, currently escaping real life and our current situations, and keep asking each other, how did we get here?
On the road trip in Central America there were five of us originally in the car, quickly dwindling to four, and by the end only two. We travelled through major cities, beautiful rural areas, explored national parks, camped, ate in many different types of restaurants (from a 5 star Italian restaurant at the top of a mountain in Costa Rica, like Restaurante Mar and Tierra in Santa Elena, to truck stops at border crossings when we had no other option), and got to know each other (far too well). There are videos of our crew, the TREES tribe, dancing in the car, singing, making jokes, interviewing each other about the trip, and many other bizarre and wonderful memories. There are photos of us during our travel hiccup at the Nicaraguan border, which turned into a 28 hour ordeal, with increasing levels of despair displayed in all of them (one I refer to as the album cover, because everyone looks so angst-y), followed by photos of SO MUCH relief when we finally made it to Costa Rica.
I individually loved and cherished each country we went through but found that Nicaragua was by far the one that tested my patience the most. Upon arriving at the border we were told we would need to get the vehicle re-registered, go to customs, and border patrol, all as separate and time consuming events, but which was pretty customary on each crossing.. usually taking about two hours in total. We got there at 10am with the intentions of staying in Nicaragua that night, getting to Costa Rica the following morning/afternoon. Within the first hour they had taken all of our passports and were questioning the only person fully fluent in our group about the vehicle that we were travelling in, believing it to be stolen, although he had owned this vehicle for many years. This was believed to be true by the officials at the border because of a simple error of copying down the VIN number wrong made by an official at the previous border crossing. By hour six standing in the hot sun drinking water and coffee and feeling extremely restless, we were starting to worry, and still did not have our passports in hand.
By 8pm when the border was closing for the night, we were all at high levels of tension and stress, but trying to stay in light spirits, joking about “being stuck there forever” and that this was what purgatory must feel like. The customs (aduana) officer told us that we would need to go to the local police station before being allowed on Nicaragua soil, and that he and a police officer would have to accompany us. This meant a 30 minute, extremely tense, bumpy and windy ride in the pouring rain with 6 people packed into a truck that barely fit 5 comfortably. As we rode along making awkward small talk in broken Spanglish I had pangs of fear that we would not be allowed in at all, and the whole trip would be ended and we would have to go home, there was no other way for us to get to Costa Rica. Of course other thoughts of being stuck there without passports and accused of crimes having nothing to do with us went through my head, too, but the police officer was nice, and young, and well intentioned, just trying to do his job. The aduana officer was a bit more intense, very creepy, and kept asking in Spanish which one of the guys I was dating. Once getting to the police station they told us that only the owner of the vehicle was allowed inside and the rest of us were to remain in the car, guarded by the aduana officer. The truck alarm would go off any time you sat in it for too long and then tried to open the door, which was a huge source of laughter and amusement early in the trip, and then a source of extreme annoyance once our tensions were high, everyone exhausted, waiting for many hours at the police station. As we sat there, trying to remember to unlock the doors every time we needed to get some fresh air, or risk setting off the car alarm in the parking lot of a police station, Mario strummed feverishly at the ukulele, and I genuinely thought I might go insane, or kill him. We all had so much nervous energy and no idea what to do with it, trapped in a car in a parking lot.
Eventually they told us that they reconciled the mistake but that we would have to drive to the opposite border of Nicaragua that night, accompanied by the aduana officer for the whole ride, as our paperwork would take a few days to process and until then weren’t technically legal in the country. This was a 7 hour drive that we didn’t embark upon until 11pm. Eventually we got to the other border- around 6am. The border did not open until 7 so we were grateful to get an hour of sleep, and proceed on our way.
Unfortunately we soon realized this would not be the case. The aduana officer told us that we still were not allowed to leave the vehicle, so Kai, Mario, Mat and I all attempted to sleep in our seats in the truck. Kai crawled onto the bed of the truck. I attempted to sleep sitting almost fully upright in the driver seat. This whole time the aduana officer sat in a lawn chair in front of the truck, watching us. We still did not have our passports in hand.
Long story short(ish), we got through at about 10am the next morning, after one of the longest nights of all of our lives, and the paperwork to get into Costa Rica went about as smoothly as possible. Never in my life have I been so happy as to see the smiling face of someone saying “Pura Vida”, as I was that morning, the aduana officer on the other side graciously welcoming us into his country. So Costa Rica here we go!
We spent a few nights up in the mountains of Costa Rica before the festival, and slept like logs, or dogs, or however the saying goes. We slept better than we had ever slept before. After a great meal, great drinks, laughing about the previous days experience, our heads hit the pillows we were out like lights, grateful for a bed, a hostel, a shower, and freedom.
Following those days of exploring Santa Elena, eating great food and searching for the ever-elusive Quetzal, we were making our way to the festival. We saw a huge group of Scarlet Macaws in a tree on the side of the road and pulled over just to admire them for an extensive time. Such amazing, social, playful, and intelligent creatures, gathered in a huge group in a tree overlooking the Pacific, and Playa Hermosa, a place I would later revisit (little did I know at the time) my mom.
At the festival itself we ran into old friends and made new ones. We did yoga, swam in the ocean, ate and explored during the day, drank and danced at night, and every evening we watched the sun dip below the waves and thanked it with gratitude, along with 3,000 other friends and strangers dancing, singing or quietly enjoying on the beach. This was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever experienced in reality and in my mind. I danced in the rain and mud, barefoot, in a jungle downpour. I woke up to the sound of howler monkeys. I went to sleep feeling loved and fulfilled next to friends old and new. I saw the stars and heard the ocean crashing in my dreams, not to mention the music permeating every bit of my being while awake and asleep. I went to women’s ceremonies and shared bonds with other humans I didn’t know possible, from strangers yesterday. I cried upon leaving and our crew dwindled more. We retraced our steps through Central America, and eventually made our way home to T.R.E.E.S.
This current trip feels similar to the last in the challenges and excitement it has presented so far and I know it is only to continue. I have two more weeks on the road before settling down back in Big Sur, for a time.
Las Vegas is similar to a music festival in the idea that you can do whatever, and be whoever you want. Everyone is weird. Everyone is strange. We are all love, and light, and darkness.
I went through Page, Arizona stopping at Glen Canyon Dam and thought of Edward Abbey and his thoughts on human intervention in nature on my way here; I went to Horseshoe Bend and was in awe of its amazing beauty but also in awe of how many people came to snap a picture and leave. I have spent multiple days in Vegas now, channeling Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing. I have contemplated much upon this trip already and it is only to continue, how did we get here? With this blog I really want to share my travel stories, the ups and the downs, as well as my thoughts of humanity and our history, and future, as well as some weird facts and tidbits about creatures, plants and places I love and care about, and how to keep them protected for future generations (and for the health of our planet). Vegas is a weird place on many levels, there are things I love and things I really dislike about it, the main one being the lack of sustainability and eco-consciousness in such a massive place, but the one thing I know is here, you can feel it in the air, is the possibility to be whoever, and do whatever you want.