So. I completely missed day 1.
I thought day 1 was Thursday, not Wednesday.
I was completely prepared for day 1 to be Thursday. I caught the 8 hour bus from Puerto Jimenez to San Jose. Got a 4 dollar cab from one bus terminal to another because it was dark out and I didn’t know where I was going. I caught the next bus to Liberia and arrived at 11pm. A cab took me around to knock on all the hotel room doors until one let me in. I was all settled in. With air conditioning. And a pool outside my room. And a trying-to-be-lukewarm shower. And beautiful wifi that allowed me to open up my laptop and see…frantic emails wondering where I was. Fuck.
The rest of the group had met up successfully at the airport hours ago and were now at some hotel in the middle of nowhere bonding and becoming best friends without me. And I had no clue how to get there. I rattled off a few emails to tell everyone I was ok. I made EasyMac on the bedside table in my camping stove because I realized I hadn’t eaten at all that day. And tried to forgive myself enough to fall asleep.
[Later, it turned out, other people had made a similar mistake. I thought the program was from the 9th-19th, others thought the 8-18th – when in actuality the 10 day trip was from the 8th-19th. Though we should have triple-checked on the website, our liaison had left the program months ago and no one had stepped in to continue the reminder e-mails. Still my fault. But glad I wasn’t the only one who had the oversight.]