We ate breakfast this morning at the hostel, another fine meal provided by the Mayan Monkey Hostel. I could get to like hostels with bars. Yes, they’re a bit more lively, but it’s hard to beat $11 for breakfast, dinner, and a place to rest my head.
We meandered our way to the bus station, this time by a less circuitous route than the one yesterday which involved crossing three arms of a very busy roundabout. A short bus ride later we arrived at the airport and were on our way home.
On the flight I met Brent. Brent was on his way home after a two and a half year trek around the world. He and I spent the flight to Ft. Lauderdale trading stories. Brent had decided to see how many different beers he could drink as he circumnavigated the globe, with a final total of 1,536. He was quick to point out that he hadn’t had that many beers, he’d had that many different beers.
Many of his stories included dealing with border crossings along the way. As we both prepared our Customs paperwork for the U.S., one of the fields requires listing all the countries you’ve visited since leaving the U.S. Brent had spent two weeks to three months in each country,and filled in the box with, “65 countries,” wondering how that would play out. He was disappointed as we went through Customs that they didn’t even look at his response. His only problem was at airport security, where they held him up for his tax-free tequila.
From there we went our separate ways, him to Ohio, and us to RDU. There’s some irony that our most expensive day this trip was the trip home, including two meals at airports and the Uber home. I have the usual trip summary left to prepare, to savor the trip just that little bit more. We have only to rescue our poodle from durance vile tomorrow to resume life’s usual course.