OK, there are some things that, despite my best attempts at logic and reasoning, I just cannot explain.
When we finished our adventures in Mexico, Lee and I moved to the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, to a little hamlet called Manuel Antonio. It’s a beautiful mountain town with steep cliffs and gorgeous beaches. Moving there was the culmination of a dream to live in the rain forest and open a little restaurant and B-n-B.
We rented land that already housed a dilapidated restaurant and some defunct bungalows. After months of cleaning and face-lifting, we finally opened a tiki-bar style eatery with some super cute, luxury-camping bungalows in the garden out back.
People started streaming in.
They came from all over. Australia, South Africa, Israel, India—all over Europe and South America. We were thrilled with the diversity of guests we were able to entertain.
We offered live music—a mix of old rock and Latin calypso. We served home-made burgers topped with things like pineapple and bacon, or mango and blue cheese. And we offered the best chocolate-chip cookies in the country.
People came. And they stayed.
Often folks would book a night or two and stay for a week. Or they would book a week and stay for three. The music and laughter went long into the evenings, occasionally sending me to bed while Lee stayed up to manage things.
This was one of those nights.
We had a little house of our own out back with a bamboo wall separating it from the ruckus of the party. I left Lee with our guests and retired to its friendly arms and to my bed. It was getting late, just past 12am. I was exhausted as my day had started with cutting veggies and prepping the kitchen before 6am. Ten or twelve people were still hanging out and chatting with Lee. I could hear them as I pulled the covers up to my chin, glanced at the clock sitting on the little table next to my bed—it was 12:23am—and drifted off to sleep.
I dreamed. Often the sounds of the night slip into my dreams. Music swirled around in my head and I saw myself dancing. One dream flitted to another and another until finally I woke up feeling a little disoriented and achy.
Lee had not yet come to bed.
The sound of talking had not changed. The music still floated in from the restaurant beyond the wall. I looked at the clock again. It was 3:12am. I was surprised and a little irritated. He usually hustled everyone out and closed up no later than 1am. After all, we did have to do it all over again the next day.
Reluctantly, I climbed out from under the warm covers and dressed again. I ran my fingers through my hair so as not to alarm our still-happy guests, and I made my way back out to the fiesta.
Lee was in the middle of some story and a couple of tourists were laughing. The music was still blaring. Nothing had really changed since I'd left. The same people were sitting up at the bar. The same silent news channel was still doing charades on the flat screen TV.
"Are you getting everyone home soon?" I asked Lee privately when he'd finished his tale.
He seemed a little surprised at my irritation. "It's not that late," he said.
"It's almost 3:30," I informed him. He didn’t believe me.
I know he loves company and has a tendency to forget about time, but almost three hours was a little extreme. I tried to hide my disapproval and told him I would go get my cell phone so he could verify the time.
3:25am. He still didn’t believe me.
We checked the time on the TV. The same. He asked several people he'd been chatting with. They looked at their respective watches and cell phones. The same. Puzzled looks and confusion began to paint people’s faces. It had just been twelve-thirty, just a minute ago. There was no way it could be after three. It just wasn’t possible.
Somewhere between twelve and fifteen people lost three hours that night. None of us had any explanation for it. I had slept. I felt like not much time had passed, but I was still struggling with the grogginess of half-sleep. I could not confirm my experience but for the clock that lied (spelling correct) by my bed.
Our guests however, were shocked, as was Lee. The music was turned off and voices mumbled quietly. People packed their things and said good-night. Cars drove off and guests walked back through the garden to their bungalows. Lee and I closed up the kitchen.
No explanation was ever offered other than the one no-one wanted to admit. We time-traveled.