Theft

Although I dont particular fancy reliving this hell, I suppose I should do the duty to my readers of recording it.

I woke up feeling, quite good honestly, could have happily stayed a few hours more at Jorge's 5 star hotel he calls his familys home, I was served a huge heap of pancakes and syrup for breakfast. I have started to feel awefully American since Ive been here, I am a traitor to my kind! At any rate, we went to the bus terminal, and sat around waiting for the 9am bus from San Jose to Liberia. I felt quite accustomed to bus journeys at this point, having spent an aweful lot of my time on them over the last few weeks. Jorge told me the bus would be direct, and would take something like 4 hours. And I thought, Ha, Ive been through 8 hour ones, I can survive this!

What he said was direct was the least direct bus Ive ever seen, stopping at least 5 times before wed actually got within 10 minutes distance from the San Jose Bus Terminal, but I reckoned maybe it would be direct once it was out of San Jose, in these cultures, they are very flexible in making personal arrangements with passengers. Pick me up there, drop me off there. Consider it done. But my my did it heat up in that bus quickly, I put my bag in the rack above my head, not that I actually had room or the space to keep it on my lap. Now I try to think about my options, I suppose I should have just endured the lack of comfort, and kept it by me. Anyway, in the heat, and the crowd, and the humidity, the only way one can endure that kind of distance in those conditions is by falling asleep, which I continued in doing. Unfortunately, when I got up at Liberia, my bag...was gone. Disappeared. Now it is beyond me how they managed to smuggle something so big and so heavy smoothly and without anyone noticing. I lost it. I couldnt think straight.

"SOMEONES TAKEN MY BAG. Oh s***. Oh s***." I started hyperventilating when it dawned on me that it had my passport and my money and my plane tickets...as well as all my other possessions. If only my head had been clear, maybe I could have done something hollywood like, such as asking the driver to close the door, and searched everyone on the bus. But I didnt. I stumbled off the bus and was met by the very calm looking Matthew Fielding, assistant director of Tpa Costa Rica. I was like, my bags been stolen my bags been stolen!!!! I could barely breathe, let alone even notice my surroundings. It was all a blur. A hazy blur. He swept me into a taxi with a smile. He then took me to the local restaurant, Paso Real, I had felt hungry for some time on the bus, but my appetite had just vanished and was replaced with a bizarre nausea, as the full scale of what had happened manifested itself in my realisations.

It would be a hassle, but not the end of the world was all Matthew could say, whatever that meant to me then, I could hardly even imagine. But the idea of someone using my identity seemed strangely abusive, someone going through a passport control pretending to be me... I also realised that my diary had been stolen. It disturbs me how someone might right now be flicking through the pages of my personal thoughts. Its a great loss. In there I had recorded my Mongolia journey, and my experiences there. But I hope that memory doesnt fail me at 19!

 The feeling of insecurity, I feel so abused in ways I didnt imagine I could just from a stolen bag. All I could say to Matthew was how I could not imagine why someone would do this, I would never ever take something from someone like that. It was more the choice to do something like this than the actual theft that disturbed me the most about my imagined criminal.

I also realised just how precious some things are to you, how significant a passport is to your very existence, your identity and your freedom to live where and as you wish.

 Matthew then took me to the police station where we created a list of the valuables stolen. I feel like I have been ripped of that last little bit of confidence and spunk. Like I have lost a layer of skin. I feel strangely naked to the world.