The trip back home was pretty smooth. No troubles at the border, and it was nice to pretty much know what was going on. While we were waiting for the passports on the Nica side, a nice woman sat down next to me asking if I’d like to help her out with a “sorbet” which thoroughly confused me for awhile, and I wasn’t sure if she was trying to sell me something, because she didn’t appear to be carrying anything that might resemble ice cream. Eventually I figured out that she was saying “survey”, and agreed to fill it out and apologized profusely for being such a stupid no-español-speakin’ gringo.

The bus dropped me off at the San Jose airport around 3pm, I think. It became somewhat hard to keep track of the actual time because of the whole daylight savings time deal. For those that don’t know, Nicaragua has just recently decided to use daylight savings time because they think it might save a little energy. In actuality, because of the country’s proximity to the Equator, the time of sunrise and sunset only varies by about 45 minutes throughout the entire year. So it’s a bit of a joke that they’ve decided to use DST, and apparently many Nicaraguans believe it’s all some sort of government conspiracy. For awhile after the time changed, whenever a discussion was had that involved a specific time, the question of “is that real time, or is it new time?” would have to be answered. Costa Rica still does not observe DST, so traveling infrequently between the 2 countries can be a little confusing. I have since decided that daylight savings time is about the stupidest thing ever thought up ever. I am going to start doing things at whatever the hell time I want to and just call it Zach’s Convenience Savings Time and insist that everyone else follow that, it makes about as much sense.

I called the hotel when I got to the airport (international roaming is so handy!) and they were happy to come and pick me up in 15 minutes. So I sat down at the top of the parking structure where we caught the hotel shuttle the first time around and waited, trying to ignore the suspicious stares of the guards that were hanging around the “departures” entrance. Which was actually pretty easy to do. Especially because, as I found out the next morning, they didn’t seem to be doing much guarding at all. When I caught my flight the next morning, I blew by one of the guys standing at the entrance, and he seemed to want to ask me something, but obviously thought it would be too much effort to stop me, so he just turned his attention to a very suspicious looking cigarette butt lying on the ground instead.

Good god, Phoenix airport is a piece of shit, isn’t it? I mean, getting through the feds is always a pain in the ass when you are coming back into the country, but ferchrissakes! You walk out of the fed area and there is a complete and utter lack of available information about where your connecting flight might be found. I was bloody lucky that I happened to stumble upon some America West screens, or I would’ve been stuck there for who knows how long. And then you have to go through fucking security AGAIN! What sort of demented bastard designed this place?

Amazingly, I was able to get to my connecting flight on time and arrived back in P-town around 4pm. First order of business: step outside the baggage claim area and take a couple of deep breaths of pleasant, bug-free, non-humid oregon air. Second: cough and sputter a bit from inhaling a bunch of exhaust from all the cars idling outside the baggage claim waiting to pick people up. Third: go back inside and wait another 20 minutes for the carousel to even start distributing baggage. Fourth: get picked up by syd and proceed directly to Amnesia Brewing for some real beers. Ah, Portland. It’s good to be home.