The lost parents saga...

12th Feb. 3pm. On a later flight to Costa Rica.

Our plane to New York was delayed so we've missed the flight to Costa Rica that we were supposed to meet my parents on. They have no idea of any plans...

Luckily Michelle stopped me being arrested and probably hung as I swapped an agressive few words with a typically officious and self important american passport control fool who didn't realise the importance of me ignoring him and using my mobile to try and get a message to Richard in the hope that they would think to phone him from a landline (their mobile does not work abroad). I only had Rick's mobile number by the amazing chance that he had sent me a text the day before to my new phone .

With guilt and regret for not having planned for this happening, we joined the worlds slowest queue of other people who had also missed their connection. Finally we ended up in a hotel at 4am (in our heads) with the possibility of 2 hours sleep before getting up at 1am (local time) to get a bus to get a taxi to get a plane to get another plane to get us to Costa Rica 14 hours late, 36 hours after leaving Brighton.

Sat here now on the new flight to Costa Rica, with no idea where my parents will be waiting, it will be stressful trying to find them. Oh, and I hope our luggage made the last connection. And the hire car is still available...

1) Did they see the chap from hotel Brilla Sol holding up their names? If not they dont even know the hotel name so cant meet us there...
2) Did they speak to the airline to find which flight we got on? Would the airline even tell them? If not, they can't meet us at the airport...
3) If they did both, Will they wait for us at the hotel or in the airport? Where in the airport?

What will we do if we can't find them? They need to think to ring Rick who knows the plan to meet at the hotel.

Travelling can be not much fun at times!

Written afterwards. 13th Jan, 10am (UK time)(3:30am local time!)

...and the unthinkable option was... what if they dont see the pick-up chap from hotel Brilla Sol, ...and the airline can't tell them anything, ...and they have a scrap of paper with an old email from us with the name A DIFFERENT hotel on it?

But it turned out the hotel put Angela and David INSTEAD of our names. And almost irrelevantly on the BACK of the sign, not the front. So even though they saw the sign it was was for THE WRONG HOTEL. Hotel Pura Vida was the only thing they thought they knew for certain and the chap spoke no English to enter into dialogue. So our only hope was dismissed as a red herring.

So after much initial scratching of heads by taxi drivers who had never heard of Hotel Pura Vida (no address or phone number on the scrap of paper) they finally taxied their way across town to (one of 3 Hotel "Pura Vidas" in San Jose) to wait there for us. When they got there there was no booking in our name.

And we were heading off to hopefully collect the hire car to then go to Brilla Sol to meet them there... (The new plan B as we were too embarrassed to acknowledge the original plan B!)

Obviously collecting the hire car wasn't straightforward, but that was expected. I got a bargain price and they keep the price cheap by having only a few staff and they don't know what they are doing. It got sorted eventually and we headed off to pick my parents up from Brilla Sol. I've seen plenty of mental-driving South American countries, but it's the first time I've actually driven personally. Obviously Hotel Brilla Sol is miles away, and we have a hopeless diagramatic map like you would get printed on a serviette. The hire car company chap said we should stay at a different hotel because Brilla Sol is 'difficult to find'.

He was right. We didn't even know where to get off the Pan-American highway - there are no sign posts here. We asked a few locals to point us in the direction of the village it was vaguely near and we progressed into the random world of the outskirts of San Jose. We thought we vaguely knew where we were on our diagramatic map but a junction appeared that wasn't marked. Left or right? We went left following a sign to another hotel as we thought they may know where we were and where Brilla Sol was. We didnt find the promised hotel, but by frightening chance we stumbled across a tiny "Brilla Sol" sign that pointed down a side road the opposite way to what we expected. We had accidentally stumbled on the correct area, but from the wrong side of town. If we had chosen right, not left that would have been disastrous. But by fluke we were there and we anxiously expecting to be greeted by my relieved parents and we could head off to our next destination 4 hours away.

That sinking feeling when your only hope is dashed is rubbish. "They are not here. They never arrived last night. We waited at the airport for 2 hours for them".

Right then. Plan C phone rick. He must have a message from them to relay to us. He's our ONLY common ground. International calls from Costa Rica are practically impossible. $10 secures us 2 mins to Ricks mobile. He hasn't heard from them.

Plan D. Check email. They could surely find a way to email us. They did - but couldn't remember my email address for certain. Steve or steven on holiday? .com or .co.uk? They tried 3 options. Two of the options bounced but "steveonholiday@yahoo.co.uk" worked. Or so it seemed to them. Unfortunately my email is "steveonholiday1@yahoo.co.uk" so when I checked my email I had nothing. They may have emailed Michelle? Nothing there either. Well, at least whoever Steveonholiday is will soon find out that some other steve on holiday has lost his parents in Costa Rica.

Plan E ring the big hotels close to the airport. Marriot, Best Western etc. They must have just stayed there last night and will be expecting us to arrive on the same flight 24 hours later?

Luckily the reception staff at Brilla Sol could see our predicament and were fabulous. They phoned all the big chains near the airport. No joy. They phoned all the small ones near the airport. On phoning one of them we got the message "Yes, they are here!" Finally! Where? Can I speak to them? He hands me the phone. The person on the phone said "what name was it? Hayes?" "No, Haigh". "Ah, no, sorry". Hopes dashed. They then phoned every hotel in the Lonely Planet. No joy. 25 calls later, we gave in. We were going to have to try Plan F - go back to airport and hope to stumble across them, try speaking to Continental airlines and wait near arrivals for the 21:30 flight.

It was 16:55. First we had to cancel the hotel we had booked for tonight which we now weren't able to go to. The reception staff did that for us too. When he put the phone down he said that someone else had just called to cancel that reservation for tonight! At last a link. And it was only 10 minutes ago so he is going to try and trace the number of the call and phone us back. Amazingly his phone captures numbers and it had a record of the phone number who phoned at 16:44 to cancel. Our chap phoned that number. After a moment of speaking spanish he looked up and smiled with joy "they are here" he said pointing at the mouthpiece of the phone.

They were at a hotel the other side of town which we were originally going to book but changed our mind. We had not bothered updating them with all the intricacies as we would be meeting them in New York. We had forgotten we had ever sent them a version of the plan at all - so confident were we that would meet in New York.

Holding back the tears of joy and relief I had a quick conversation with a mother who was trying to hide her distress/joy. Still in survival mode it was quick and efficient "Stay there. We will come to you." "You'll never find this place" "I bet you a tenner I will" "Get a taxi" "Dont worry we'll find you. We're about 20 mins away apparently".

An hour later we arrive - following a taxi... They are waiting outside. Strangely holding a large whisk. Must be the international meeting symbol. (or a really wierd key fob!)