i woke up at 6am, the last time i would be waking up at the drake bay resort. the weather of course was nice, blue sky white clouds, which was ironic since we had 2 days of rainy weather, and now on the day that we're leaving, suddenly everything becomes nice. i didn't mind it very much, at least it'd mean our flight back to san jose would be trouble-free. i used the bathroom and took a shower. i then packed up my things: basically, throw everything into the duffle bag, and anything sensitive (like electronics, or items i'll need on the flight), i took with me in a carry on bag. we had our last breakfast, then went to the office next door to settle our bills: the additional trip to sirena, the bug tour, and the beer tab my father had ran at the bar. we had an hour to kill so we waited back at the lodge, packed bags waiting on the bed, counting down the minutes until we left.

8:30am came along and all departing guests waited above the loading dock, john and maggie, don and janet. it was going to be an interesting ride, since i sensed that john hates don. we got back our hiking boots after they spent a night in the dryer. we all got aboard the boat, which took us across the bay for our final beach landing, of which we've all become experts at. once we landed, further up on the beach was the SUV that'd take us through the bumpy jungle roads to the airplane landing strip. our luggages were stowed away on the roof of the vehicle. on our way there we even managed to pick up a hitchhiker, who latched on to the side of the SUV. he wisely decided to get off when the vehicle made it's first of several forays through mountain streams. 10 minutes later we got to the landing strip, just as soon as the plane was about to land. onboard i saw all the passengers peering with anticipatory excite at the jungle adventure they were about to have. we were like the seasoned veterans, battle scars and all, looking right back at them. it reminded me of when we first landed, when the roles were reversed, when we were the rookie jungle trekkers.

to be continued...

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