A Close Call in Costa Rica: A Traveler's Nightmare

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I’m a petite woman in my mid-thirties, and for several years my job had me traveling constantly. Most of it wasn’t glamorous. It was airports, hotels, rental cars, and trying to catch up on sleep whenever I could. One thing frequent travel teaches you is to pay attention to your surroundings because not everyone you meet has good intentions. This happened a few years ago when I was sent to Costa Rica for work. I’d never been there before, and I remember being blown away as our plane descended. The water and coastline looked absolutely breathtaking. It honestly felt like paradise. During the flight, I ended up sitting next to a well dressed man who looked like he was in his mid 40s. He seemed very friendly and said he was here on business. We spent part of the flight making small talk about work, travel, and where we were from. At one point he asked if I’d ever been to Costa Rica before. I told him it was my first time and that I was only staying for a few days. Eventually the conversation turned to hotels and accommodations. He mentioned where he was staying and asked where I was booked. Without really thinking about it, I told him the name of my hotel. When we landed, we went our separate ways. By the time I checked into my hotel, I was exhausted. Work had me traveling almost nonstop that year, and I felt like I’d spent more time in airports than at home. I got to my room sometime around five in the evening, dropped my bags by the door, laid down to rest for a bit, and completely passed out. The next thing I remember is the room phone ringing. I looked at the clock and saw it was a little after ten at night. Since I wasn’t expecting a call from anyone, I ignored it and rolled back over. A few minutes later, it rang again. Thinking it might be important, I finally answered. The woman on the line introduced herself as the front desk clerk. She sounded polite but slightly uncertain. She asked if I was expecting my husband. That question woke me up immediately. I told her I didn’t have a husband. She paused and explained that a man was downstairs claiming to be my husband and was requesting a key to my room. At first I thought she must have the wrong guest. Then I asked what the man looked like. As she described him, my stomach dropped. It was the same man I’d spent several hours talking to on the plane earlier that day. According to the front desk employee, he had confidently told them that his wife had already checked in but that he’d misplaced his room key. Thankfully, hotel policy required them to verify the request before giving him access. I asked if he was still downstairs. She told me he had already left after being denied a key. The second I hung up, I locked every lock on that door and barely slept the rest of the night. I still had meetings scheduled over the next few days, but the entire trip felt different after that. Every time I walked through the hotel lobby or returned to my room, I found myself paying attention to everyone around me. I kept wondering if he was nearby or watching from somewhere. Thankfully, nothing else happened. I never saw him again, and there were no further incidents for the remainder of the trip. But years later, I still think about that phone call. What bothers me most is that I never found out what his intentions were. People don’t generally pretend to be someone’s spouse in a foreign country because they have good intentions, and there really isn’t an innocent explanation for trying to gain access to a woman’s hotel room late at night after meeting her only once. Sometimes I think about the fact that I ignored the first phone call because I was exhausted. If I had ignored the second call too, I honestly don’t know what would have happened. Maybe the front desk would have continued following policy and refused him anyway. Or maybe they wouldn’t have. What I do know is that one hotel employee taking a few extra seconds to verify a story may have saved my life that night. And that’s something I’ve never forgotten.