The Most Expensive Coke I Never Drank

I will post about our last day of ministry in Costa Rica a little later. I really enjoyed how we got to serve on Monday and would love to share those stories. But right now, I feel I should share with everyone the events surrounding my getting stranded in Costa Rica since word has gotten out through various means of communication. I know how easy it is for stories to change over the course of several conversations.

Monday was a full day of ministry and I was very thirsty before dinner. We went to Edwin’s (the leader of La Roca) house for dinner. His wife cooked us an authentic Colombian dish that was very delicious. I drank a small cup of juice that Christa made, but it didn’t really quench my thirst. Drew and I talked about going to the mart to grab a Coke Zero once we got to La Roca that evening, but ended up not going as we spent all of our time hanging out with the students one last time.

As soon as we got back to the hotel where we were staying, David Brown and I decided we would walk down the street to a mart to grab a drink. Drew decided he would stay back, so David offered to buy him a drink while we were gone. We walked to the mart across the street (maybe 500 ft. away) and asked if they took U.S. Dollars. The man replied no, but pointed to the Chinese Restaurant back across the street which was still maybe only 150 yards away from our hotel. We walked over and went in.

We walked by this Chinese Restaurant several times during the week and I have never seen anyone eating in it. It was the same on Monday night. We stopped in around 10:30 p.m. and it was vacant as usual. We asked if they had Coca-Cola Light (Diet Coke) and the man pulled out a couple of bottles. David then told him he wanted two regular cokes, so the man grabbed them as well. As soon as we had the drinks, we asked the cashier how much we owed. He struggled a bit, looked around his counter  a while and then went and asked for help. He came back and told us what was equivalent to $6 USD. David pulled his cash out to pay for the three drinks he was buying for himself and a couple of the guys back at the hotel, but I had a twenty dollar bill. It would be better for me to use the twenty on four drinks rather than just one, so I handed the man my money and told David that I would buy all of the drinks. The cashier couldn’t figure out what $20 USD was equivalent to in his currency (Colones), so I pulled out my phone and opened the calculator app to show him how many colones he owed me in return. I started explaining that my $14 USD change was equal to…

Ch-Ch…It was the sound of a gun cocking behind David and me. I immediately thought, “We’re getting robbed. This is really happening!” We’ve all heard about being robbed or others being in a place that was held-up by a gunman, but it was actually happening to me, in Costa Rica. We were being robbed at gunpoint.

The man started yelling stuff in Spanish as I turned to look at him. I saw 33 men carrying grenades, machine guns and a whole arsenal of weapons, okay, more like a gunman and two other men walking in; the gunman in the middle and the two other men on the left and the right of the restaurant. The robber on my side of the restaurant was tightening a hood from his jacket over his head. I had my wallet in my hand, so I quickly turned back towards the counter with my back towards the robbers. I stuck my wallet in the top waist band of my athletic shorts. The robbers would have to demand my wallet from me if they saw my brilliant swift move to hide it…. “Clank!” My heart dropped (no that was not the sound of my heart dropping), not because we were being robbed, David and I were not nervous or scared at all, my heart dropped because so did my wallet right through my shorts and it made a “clank” sound as it landed open on the ground by my feet. The cards in my wallet didn’t make it a quiet exchange! This was a miracle….The wallet landed open with the inside (where the money and cards go) facing the ground, but it also landed in the exact same direction of my foot. Something told me, “Nick, step on it!” So, I did.

The next thing I know, my phone is being snatched from my hand and as I look to my right, one of the robbers was going through my bag. He only had two cables pulled out, the charger to my iPad and the cable for my iPod, both of which were in my bag. My initial thought was, “Great! If this is all he grabs, I am doing good, my iPad is hidden!” Meanwhile, David is explaining to the leader that we, “No hablan español. No comprendemos!” He then slides his cash towards the robber and says, “Here!” The third robber went towards the back of the counter and the leader yelled something which stopped him, he grabbed my twenty dollar bill from the counter and the other two robbers grabbed our entire bags and briskly walked out of the restaurant.

I was immediately angry, and told David my passport was in my bag, for which he replied that his was too. Before you lecture me on not carrying that around, there is a long story why we had it at that time. I went to go leave to see where the men went, to get their license plate number if they were in a car, and to go after my bag; but before I could get out the door the owners of the restaurant slammed the metal security door closed. I told them I needed out to go get my bag and to get our passports. I told them to call the police quickly that the robbers had stolen our passports. The Chinese workers at the restaurant were not moving quickly, they were extremely shaken and seemed as if they were in shock.

When the police arrived they were ready for war. Their vehicles came speeding up to the scene and they quickly jumped out of their vehicles decked out in bullet-proof vests and automatic weapons. After hearing the direction where the assailants ran off to, several police jumped back in and sped off to hunt them down.

David and I looked down the street and saw some of the girls from our group coming our way, so we told them to hurry, so they could go get a translator for us. The police did not act like they understood us at all. We needed Edwin to translate to the police that we lost our passports. At first they didn’t believe us, but then quickly ran back to get Edwin and the rest of the guys. As soon as they arrived and I knew David would not be left alone, I left to go in the direction they ran off towards, desperately hoping they may have grabbed our computers and ditched the bags, five houses up the street Shane told me to come back that there was probably no chance of finding anything.

Neither David or I were worried about the “stuff” we lost. We were mainly concerned about our passports. It was sad to lose all of the videos and the pictures I had taken all week of our ministry with La Roca, but losing the actual items did not phase us. David lost around $2,000 in personal belongings and I lost around $1,700. A nosy man kept asking us what was in the bags and how much money we lost, etc. I finally snapped back at him that I did not care about the stuff that was in my bag, I only wanted to get home to see my family and that I couldn’t do that without my passport.

David mentioned going into the store to get our drinks that we purchased, but I didn’t want to go back into the store. As I mentioned earlier, the Chinese people seemed in total shock. One lady was sitting in the floor crying. They were a mess. This ended up being the most expensive coke I never drank. In that moment I was not concerned about the drink, I wanted to go after the morons who took away my ticket to get home.

Edwin, Jeremy, David and I went to the police station to fill out the report of the events that took place and to give a list of the stolen items. This proved to only be the beginning of a whirlwind last day in Costa Rica as we tried to get home.

The Most Expensive Coke I Never Drank Part 2…