Finding comfort in my Costa Rican Laundry room

I am a true backpacker in every sense; I try to make the most of every experience.  In regards to accommodations, as long as my backpack is safe, it doesn’t really matter.  To be honest, I am going to pass out anyways, as long as it’s not on a street corner or in an alley; I’ll be fine.  

In comparison to some of the true ghettos I have crashed in, my Costa Rican laundry room was an Oasis.  In Nice, it was a cockroach invested cubicle with a dirty mattress on the floor, no air conditioning, and mysterious grease stays everywhere.  We had only one rule, never turn on the lights at night, because the sight of that many cockroaches was like the horror movie Arachnophobia redone to be even more grotesque.  The true dump in Northern Spain, had what I thought looked like gang graffiti on the wall.  Let’s not even talk about what the communal bathroom looked like in Rome; it’s a memory to painful to relive. 

I thought we might have to sleep on the beach our second night in Santa Theresa.  We begged the owners of Playa Carmen to find us a room for another night.  “Well, we have a laundry room”, is all she said.  “O.K. fine, we’ll take it.”  Not sure what to expect, we went out for a day at the beach.  When we returned, we were delighted to find two nice beds, a clean and spacious room, two fans, towels, and private bathroom; the only notable difference was two laundry machines in the corner.  It was actually quite nice, it exceeded all of our expectations; they went out of their way to transform a laundry room into a little Oasis for two desperate travelers.  We probably could have found another place to stay after New Years, but after we both got laid in the laundry room by two cute Tico girls, the Laundry Cabin became a funny joke and home sweet home.  Looking back it was probably the weirdest, yet coolest place I have ever stayed.  The journey in life is always what you make of it.  To Quote Kahlil Gibran once again: “”Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”