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Burn, Baby, Burn Your Way Through Costa Rica
What happens when 2 Canadians encounter wildfire on vacation
“Why go to Arizona for March Break when we can only pay $50 more for flights to Costa Rica?” I asked, well, informed Mark. In my determination to check another country off my list, I’d spent more hours searching the internet than I had sleeping.
“I’m in!” he responded, with his usual eagerness for holiday adventures.
“Why does it smell like someone’s making Guiness World Record sized smores?” I asked from the spot in the infinity pool where I’d claimed squatter’s rights. It was our first full day at our mountainside Airbnb near Playa Potrero. We’d checked groceries off our To Do list and now the 35-degree weather was eating away at any other motivation that had managed to tag along on this vacation. Even our novels were taking a nap.
“Check out the ashes everywhere,” commented Mark, sipping on his Costa Rican rum. Soot floated like lazy, mini-magic carpets onto the railings, tiled porch floor, and the surface of the pool water. I reached over and wiped a dark spot from his bare shoulder.
Green macaws zipped from branch to branch of nearby Calabash trees. Hummingbirds plunged their teeny beaks into bougainvillea buds. In the fields below us, cattle lazed in any shade…