There’s still plenty of time to write your entry to win a FREE Costa Rica vacation!

Costa Rica Pages is proud to announce that Jennifer Blair has been chosen as our first Travel Writing Contest monthly winner thanks to the outpouring of responses and votes on her submission “The Heart of a Mountain”. Her short story about a hiking trip in Belize illustrates the physical and mental struggles that we all face at one point or another when challenging ourselves beyond our limits.

Jennifer is an aspiring travel writer who spent her youth living in Turkey, Greece, Texas, Alaska, Maryland and Tennessee. Her job as a production supervisor on feature films has also taken her all over the world. When not traveling, she lives in Los Angeles and shares a home with her two cats, Gracie and Molly. Look for her travel tip in an upcoming issue of West Ways Magazine. In the meantime, be sure to visit her travel blog: www.jenniferblair.typepad.com

The Travel Writing Contest monthly winners are chosen based on their ability to engage the reader. This is measured by the number of comments posted on each submission as well as the vote ranking and number of people that vote on the submissions. Jennifer, along with our June and July winners, will receive a 10% off coupon for any Costa Rican vacation package purchased through our travel affiliate, Costa Rican Vacations.

All authors are also eligible for our grand prize, a free 6-night vacation for two to Costa Rica. Submissions will be accepted through August 1st and the grand prize winner will be announced on Monday, August 4th. The contest asks readers to reflect on a travel moment that inspired or changed them in a short 300 to 800 word essay. Here is Jennifer’s story:

I am close to hyperventilating, my heart racing and I ask my tall, dark guide to stop for a moment, give me a chance to catch my breath. Like a leading man in a romance novel, he comes to me, taking my hand and pressing it over his heart. “You see,” he says, “my heart beats fast as well.” His brown eyes pierce my soul. “We all have our mountains to climb”.

Standing on the side of a Belizean mountain, drenched in sweat, I would have laughed except for the magnitude of truth in that greeting card moment. David, my guide, who has only learned English in the last seven years, sees beyond the exterior of this plump forty-year-old American woman who is struggling up the side of his mountain. He has glimpsed the metaphorical mountains in my life and with that simple acknowledgment, has given me the courage to continue.

I don’t know where we are going, except to a cave, nor how long it will take to get there. While we rest, David spins tales of his family, how they had to walk through the jungle to get to town before the road was put in, how a jaguar killed his favorite horse and the guilt he harbors for not preventing it. He wants to show me how to pick the leaf off of an allspice tree and crush it, releasing the aromas of my grandmother’s kitchen.

Thoughtfully, he asks if I am ready to keep climbing. I plant my walking stick firmly onto the trail and move forward. Fifteen steps later we are at the mouth of the cave. If I had looked hard enough, I could have seen it from our resting spot. For a brief moment, I wonder why David didn’t push me to finish when we were so close.

“We all have our mountains to climb,” he had said. And he knew that no matter the speed, we would get there, one step at a time.

Custom design your Luxury Vacation to Costa Rica with Costa Rica Vacations
This post's rating:

Related Stories

Filed under: Travel on June 4th, 2008