It's a twelve-hour flight from London, it's 2 days before new years eve, the 2nd loneliest night of the year. My flight has been delayed nearly 3 hours by strong headwinds and a slow turnaround in London. The delay has the knock-on effect of helping miss my connecting flight to Tambor, a small airstrip close to the west coast. Several other travellers are in the same boat, we decide to band together and pool resources. A rival airline has another shuttle flight due to take off in the next 20 minutes, we board a bus that takes to the terminal, stopping at the foot of steps of the light aircraft. The airline official calls out several names, none of which are mine. We are informed that there's another aircraft just about to land and that will carry us to Tambor.
I sit with my fellow band of travellers and watch the light aircraft taxi then fly off into the sunset. No sooner has the plane disappeared when another identical light aircraft taxis into view. We all rise to our feet in anticipation of boarding our flight, the relief is palpable as the shuttle passengers disembark.Then the airline official breaks the bad news, the shuttle will not fly again tonight. It transpires that Tambor airstrip has no runway lights and a flight at this hour would mean landing in the hours of darkness. This, after all, is the tropics and darkness fall like a hammer.
We are ferried back to the terminal, and the options for onward travel are explained to us; we can stay overnight (at our own expense) and take the 1st available flight or, they can arrange ground for us. The decision is unanimous, we will take the ground transport. We are told it's a 4-hour journey, but having done the journey before, I know it to be closer 6.
My fellow travellers are boarding the minibus and I'm still waiting for my surfboard and bag, after a terse conversation it turns out that my bags managed to make it aboard the first shuttle flight. After a heated exchange, the airline official assures me that my bags will be delivered to my hotel ahead of me. I clamber aboard the and settle down for a long journey. An hour and a half later and we are aboard the ferry for Paquera, the only problem is it doesn't leave for another hour and its a crossing of almost an hour, I find an empty bench to rest my head and drift off. The next I know I raise myself to be greeted by stern faces, the once empty area is and I've been taking up a whole bench, I imagine them cursing the 'gringo' whilst I slept blissfully, oblivious to their insults.
I meet up with a minibus and once again clamber aboard, still groggy from my slumbers. This is the leg of the journey I hate the most, 2 hours of dirt roads through the jungle, climbing hills and descending along pot-holed tracks that barely pass for roads and in the dark to boot. To be fair the road from Paquera to Cobano is nowhere near as bad as I believed, the fact that I'd left my flat in freezing cold London over 24 hours ago and still hadn't reached my destination was starting to take its toll. As was my susceptibility to motion sickness, sitting in the back of a cramped minibus as the driver negotiated hairpin bends I began to succumb to waves of nausea. I tried to focus on the road ahead, taking deep breaths, trying to escape its grip. Then, I noticed the Tambor airstrip as we sped past, only a sign giving away its location, it's true I thought, no runway lights. I took relief from the knowledge that I was in touching distance of my destination, another 40 minutes and I can crawl under a net into a nice soft bed.
It was midnight local time, I had left my flat exactly 26 hours previous, I greeted Christophe, the hotel owner with a hug, he handed me a key and wished me a ' '. Opening my room door, I smiled noticing my 2 bags had made it ahead of me, I fished out my toothbrush and cleaned my teeth, I'm sure I was asleep before I got into bed.
The light streamed in through the netting as I was awoken by the chatter of the howler monkeys that made their home from time to time in the hotel's garden. I slipped out of bed unzipped my board bag and pulled my small wave board, a quick coating of tropical wax and before I knew it my toes scrunched in the sand. The only thought in my head as I paddled out to the lineup, those 26 hours were worth it.
