~Los Extraños Perfectos~
~The Perfect Strangers…Los Extraños Perfectos~
By Erin
Esquer
It was the first time, in a long time,
where I was doing something for me. My life is a continual cycle of
servant leadership, where I am constantly attending to the needs of
others. My son, my Airmen, my friends, my family, they all heavily depend
on me to be whatever it is they need and I don’t mind it at all. I do
believe in my heart of hearts that I am operating out of the purpose that has
been placed on my life but I am still figuring out how to successfully balance
all of my responsibilities while maintaining good emotional, mental, physical
and spiritual health. This upcoming trip was exactly the type of reset I
needed in order to establish that balance. The past couple of years has
presented some traumatic, emotional, sensitive times for me and I feel as if
I’ve navigated them on auto-pilot, not really facing the emotions associated
with the events, but simply just handling business.
We
had two minutes now until the official countdown into the New Year and I was
holding some fireworks in my hand. After taking my eyes off of the
statue, I looked around at all of the people that were on the beach. The
locals and the tourists were gathered on various parts of the beach with their
fireworks as well, ready to ring in the New Year together. In my
immediate area, I had the pleasure of looking at the faces of those who spent
the past couple of days making Nicaragua one of the best trips I had ever experienced. When I looked around our circle, I saw
this beautiful mixture of people from different countries, different
backgrounds, different ages, different lifestyles and different seasons in
their lives. Within the past six days, we managed to cohesively come
together like a family and kick off the year 2020 as if we had known each other
all of our lives. It’s kind of hard to put into words, what this actually
meant to me, but the best way I can say it is that it was the most awesome
representation of what the world should look like. Essentially we were
“The Perfect Strangers” in a country that was foreign for most of us and yet we
gravitated towards each other with no hesitation on account of race, gender,
occupation, or religion.
One minute on the clock and we were ready to countdown. Everyone got their fireworks ready and Ashley pulled out her phone to start filming. My heart started beating really fast in anticipation of the fireworks going off and before I knew it, the countdown was on. All I could hear was “5…4…3…2…1…. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!” We set the fireworks off and watched all of the lights flash across the sky. It was an amazing atmosphere with great energy from everyone. Once the fireworks were done, Ashley recorded us as we huddled together to say “Happy New Year.” Afterwards, I asked each person in the group to say one thing that they wanted to accomplish this year which proved to be another way for us to get to know each other better. I mean, who doesn’t feel closer to someone when you understand what their goals or their hopes and dreams are? It was nice to hear everyone share their answers and simply be authentically them. If you were to ask me months prior if I would have imagined myself on a beach brining in the New Year with a complete set of strangers, the answer definitely would have been “No.” I didn’t expect any of this at all and I felt completely blessed to be right there amongst my “Perfect Strangers.”
I
strongly believe in giving credit where credit is due or giving someone their
flowers while they’re still alive. I want to take this opportunity to do
that for my “Perfect Strangers.” I often hear from others how I’ve been
inspirational to them as I’ve shared my story and testimony along the way, but
this is an instance where I was on the receiving end of such inspiration.
Each person uniquely added to the reset that I was experiencing and I’d like to
take the time to share each of their impacts on me. I can’t start without
acknowledging my girls, Ashley and Kia, who were responsible for making this
trip happen for me. Had they not invited me to tag along, I wouldn’t even
have this experience to write about. Meeting Kia for the first time on
this trip was the beginning of a sisterhood that I see growing deeper bonds as
we travel more and make memories. For Ashley and I, this was our first
time traveling out of the country together so it was a special time for us to
add even more memories on top of what we’ve experienced over the past twenty
plus years. Aside from these beauties, there was a very accommodating
taxi driver from Managua, two gentlemen from Canada, two young ladies from
Costa Rica, and a husband & wife from Costa Rica who will all forever be in
my heart.
~The
Taxi Driver~
The
next evening, he picked us up from the hotel and took us out to Masaya which is
where the volcano was located. I started getting excited as we were
making our way up the mountain and after we parked at the top, we walked over
to the area where other people were looking out. From the moment we
looked over the ledge, we saw nothing but this red glow coming from below and
we saw the lava moving around. It was honestly one of the best things I
had ever seen! I couldn’t believe how close we were to real lava and how
bright red it was. Carlos was smiling the whole time and I think he felt
our excitement. Of course, we decided to take several pictures and we
even took some with him as well. When we planned this trip, we had no
idea we’d be seeing a volcano and Carlos made that memory happen for us. 
Afterwards, we went to dinner together and thanked Carlos for taking us. During the conversation, he asked what are plans were for the next day and if we needed a ride anywhere. The next day we planned to check out of the hotel and make our way to San Juan Del Sur. We arranged the shuttle to San Juan Del Sur prior to us coming to Nicaragua so I told him that we already had a ride. He seemed a little sad when I told him that and it was obvious that he was hoping to be able to drive us. He showed me a picture on his phone of this amazing statue of Jesus and when I asked him where that was, he said it was in San Juan Del Sur. Anyone that knows me, knows that I love Jesus and the picture he showed me completely spoke to my heart. He saw my reaction and he told me that he could take us to the statue and then to our next resort if we wanted him to drive us. I was beyond words and when I told the girls that Carlos was willing to take us to San Juan Del Sur, they were all in as well. Again, it was so much more than we even planned for. The next morning came and we packed all of our stuff up. We got some breakfast and then grabbed our luggage so we could head out. Carlos was ready and waiting to take us on our next adventure and we were very excited. Somehow, Kia managed to find a Wal-Mart on the way, so Carlos was more than willing to allow us to stop and grab a few things. He approached everything with a smile and while we shopped, he pushed the shopping cart for us and I think at one point, he may have been holding one of our purses. It was like he took pride in being able to help us and it was a nice change for me. As someone who is used to doing that for others and not necessarily having it reciprocated, this was a wonderful feeling to be taken care of.
We left Wal-Mart and made our two hour journey down to
San Juan Del Sur. As we started getting closer to the statue, I could see
it off in the distance and I felt my spirit rising. We were about to see
Jesus on the mountaintop and Carlos was responsible for making that
happen. When we reached the top and parked the car, we had to hike a
little up the mountain further in order to reach the statue. We were so
mesmerized by the view just walking up the stairs to the statue and once we
reached the top finally, I do believe we all had that “took our breath away”
moment as we looked out over San Juan Del Sur below and Jesus right above
us. I honestly just wanted to cry because it was so amazing and
unexpected all at the same time. We took our time walking around the area
and there was a little chapel right underneath the statue that I had a chance
to go inside and say a quick prayer. After we took a million pictures and
videos, we headed back down the mountain to the car. But we definitely
made sure to capture a good group photo of us with Carlos because he was the
one that made this whole encounter happen and we were sincerely grateful.
Once we made it to our resort and we had to say goodbye to Carlos, he mentioned
that he would be available to take us to the airport if need be. We gave
him a big hug and thanked him for all of his hospitality. Carlos
completely epitomized hospitality and humility. He made us feel safe and
secure which is something I can truly appreciate. Muchas gracias Carlos!
On
our first night in Managua, after we had dinner with Carlos, we returned back
to the hotel with a plan to get in our bathing suits and hang out by the pool
for the night. We made our way downstairs and found a few open lounge
chairs by the pool. The area was lit up beautifully and there were a few
people out eating at the tables and relaxing. We noticed that a DJ was
setting up and the vibe was just cool and calm. We decided to take some
pictures by the pool and kick off our night of relaxation with a few
drinks. We were laughing and talking about how our day had been so far
and what plans we wanted to make for the next couple of days. While I was
sitting there, a young man with a hat on came over and asked me if we were
Americans. I smiled really big and probably laughed a bit too, but I
answered him and told him “yes.” He laughed as well and said he was glad
to know that we were Americans because he hadn’t heard Americans in the last
three weeks which definitely peaked my interest. I needed to know
more! I started asking him all sorts of questions and hopefully I didn’t
come off too interrogating, but he already seemed pretty interesting to
me. He was telling me how he and his best friend were traveling through
all of the Central American countries and they started their journey in
Guatemala and were making their way down to Panama. I have to tell you,
this was impressive to me because it is something that I would absolutely love
to do and I admired them for doing it. I asked him his name and he said
it was Tarik. He was there at the hotel trying to get a rental car from
the rental car office we had there. I asked him where his friend was and
he said that he was over in another part of the hotel. He told me he
would go grab his friend and come back so he could introduce him to us as
well. Right after he walked away, another guy named Luis approached us
and invited us over to his table where he had food and drinks. There was
a young lady that was at the table with him and they wanted us to also join
them because he said he noticed our energy earlier while we were taking
pictures by the pool and figured we’d be fun to hang out with. We agreed
to join him and the young lady, named Emily. While we were sitting at the
table with them, Tarik and his friend came to the table and joined us. He
introduced his friend, Rob, to the group and we all sat and enjoyed each
other’s company. After further discussion with Tarik, he told me that he
and Rob met each other in the 6th grade and of course, this completely
blew me away since Ashley and I had also met in the 6th grade.
I couldn’t believe the similarity and it just seemed like the more we spoke,
the more comfortable we were all getting with each other. We had so many
things in common but yet we were all so different as well. Tarik and Rob
grew up together in Canada and Tarik talked about
how he was both
British and Egyptian. I enjoyed the diversity of our group and we were
only on night one! Somehow, our plans for the night changed and we ended
up going out to a discoteca together.
Tarik
and Rob were such gentlemen and made the night incredibly fun for us.
They were witty, polite, respectful, hilarious and laid back which made things
seem so natural. They were telling us that their next destination was
Costa Rica and we told them that our next destination was San Juan Del
Sur. We formed a group chat on WhatsApp and decided that we were going to
keep in touch about our travels because we were all getting ready to experience
things that we figured would be worth sharing. We had an amazing time
together dancing, laughing, talking, and eating. They asked us what our
plans were for the next day and we told them that our taxi driver Carlos was
taking us to the volcano. They said that if were weren’t too busy
afterwards, maybe we could all get together again one last time before we all
went our separate ways. I specifically remember Tarik telling me that he
too enjoyed our energy and was glad that he came over to talk to me earlier that
day because he and Rob enjoyed hanging out with us. I let him know that I
appreciated him not being intimidated to come talk to us and that we enjoyed
ourselves as well.
The next day came and
we were all sharing pictures from the day. The guys went to a beach and
we headed to the volcano later with Carlos. Once we got back to the
hotel, we were pretty tired so we called it a night and laid down. The
guys wanted us to come hang out with them by the pool that night but we were
just too tired. They mentioned that they were considering rerouting their
plans a bit so that they could possibly join us in San Juan Del Sur to hang out
with us some more. Just thinking about how Carlos wanted to tend to us
and now having these guys want to spend more time around us as well really had
me thinking about the fact that our presence was very welcomed there and it was
a great feeling. I think most people want to feel like they matter to
others and we felt that right from day one. Once we made it to San Juan
Del Sur, they checked on us daily and we kept our communications alive through
the group chat. We even video chatted with them one night and it was good
to see their faces. They let us know that they were definitely coming to
San Juan Del Sur because they wanted to bring in the New Year with us.
And they did not disappoint because they showed up in San Juan Del Sur just
like they said they were. Rob came down first and we spent one of the
evenings having dinner with him and hanging out on the beach for bit.
Ashley left one of her purses at our hotel in Managua and Rob was gracious
enough to bring it with him. It was so sweet of him to do that and we
decided to buy his dinner to show our appreciation. The next day, Tarik
came down and we all got together for New Year’s Eve. Our family was all
back together again and it felt wonderful. Once we made it through the
countdown on the beach, we headed to one of the local bars and had so much fun
together. When it came time to end the night, I honestly struggled to say
“goodbye” and felt myself getting sad because I have no idea if we’ll ever see
each other again. These two best friends captured my heart in different
ways and if I had to sum up the impact that they had on me, I would say that
they inspired me to make memories wherever I go in the world. I’m excited
to hear more about their travels!
~M&M~
Before we arrived in Nicaragua, we
arranged a few activities that we wanted to pursue while in San Juan Del
Sur. One of them was a Catamaran ride and boy did we look forward to this
day! We got ourselves ready and made our way into town. It was the
first day that we left the resort and actually headed into San Juan Del
Sur. We got something to eat and then started walking over to the Marina
to get ready to board the Catamaran. While we waited to board, we noticed
a large crowd of energetic young people who were obviously ready to party with
the large amount of alcohol and snacks they had piled up near them. My
friends and I looked at each other and wondered if they were going on our boat
because if so, we were definitely in for some excitement. A young lady
standing next to me leaned over and said, “I wonder if they are going on the
same boat as us!” I couldn’t help but laugh since my friends and I just
said the same thing to each other. We chatted for a bit and she
introduced herself as Milena. She had a friend with her, Monica, and they
were from Costa Rica. They were on their own mini vacation and had
intentions of enjoying as much of the beach as possible. Funny enough, we
instantly connected with them and said that we would all hang out together on
the boat. It was just another natural flow of connection that happened
and we welcomed every bit of it. By the way, once we started boarding, we
realized that the younger crowd we were wondering about, ended up boarding
another boat instead, however, we were determined to keep their energy level on
our boat as well. Once we boarded and got ourselves situated in our
spots, it was time to set sail! As we departed the marina, we could hear
the song, “La Canción” by Bad Bunny and J. Balvin playing over the speakers and
it just completely set an incredible mood to relax on the boat. We all
had our phones out as we took a ridiculous amount of selfies, Boomerang videos
and group photos. The wind was blowing just right, the sun was out and the
vibe was cool. Milena and Monica sat right by us as we sailed to our
destination and we continued with great conversation, lots of laughter and time
to get to know each other better. Once we reached our destination, the
anchor was set, and we had the option of going into the water or hanging out on
the boat. I ended up taking a little nap while Kia and Ashley went
snorkeling. When I woke up, there was ceviche, guacamole and plantain
chips available. We all sat around the food and laughed together.
Milena and Monica were asking us what our plans were for New Year’s Eve the
next day and since we hadn’t really solidified anything yet, other than knowing
we were coming into town from the resort, they asked if we could plan to hang
out together. They heard about a place called “Arribas” that was supposed
to be the place to be so we all decided to go together. We exchanged
contact info and added to our vacation family once again. For the
remainder of the boat trip, we were inseparable! At some point, Milena
referred to us as a “Latina Crew” and I was certainly all for the unity. 
It was fun and exciting to meet all of
these wonderful strangers who we seemed to have an instant connection
with. Once we got back to the Marina, we gave them hugs and let them know
we’d be seeing them tomorrow. The next day, I messaged Milena and let her
know that we were going to do dinner first and then we’d meet up with them
afterwards. To our surprise, when we got to dinner, Milena and Monica
were there eating as well and we didn’t even realize we would all be eating at
the same restaurant. Since they were there before us, they finished up
and then told us to contact them once we were done and they’d come back to hang
out with us. We finished our dinner and they made their way back to the
restaurant so we could head out for the rest of the night to bring in the New
Year together. We finished off the night lighting fireworks together,
laughing together, dancing together, having some wonderful conversation
together and starting a new decade together. They extended an invite to
come to Costa Rica and hang out with them some time and I plan on making that
happen someday. What these ladies brought to my life was a complete sense
of girl power! It didn’t matter where we were all from, but they embodied
the spirit of unity amongst women and what a beautiful picture that turned out
to be for us right there at San Juan Del Sur.
~Man
and Wife~
It was the Catamaran that brought us together. While
Ashley and I stood at the front of the boat, hoping to get someone to take our
picture, we saw a couple that was taking turns photographing each other.
We asked if they would be willing to take our picture and they said
“yes.” We then offered to do the same for them which they appreciated.
As we got to talking, they were telling us that they were husband and wife,
vacationing from Costa Rica. Their names were Natalya and Manolo and they
were awesome! Here we go again, we had an instant connection with them
and were telling them how we had just met Milena and Monica who were from Costa
Rica as well. We ended up introducing “M&M” to our new found friends
and there birthed another addition to our vacation family. Manolo and
Natalya were so personable and they asked us about life in America. It
was refreshing to speak about our cultures and how life in our respective
countries looked. The exchange of information and ideas was priceless and
the more we talked, the more we seemed to connect. A part of me just
enjoyed watching how they interacted with one another as a couple. They
shared their love story and I was very impressed. In a way, I admired
their union and thought to myself, “This is exactly how I want me and my future
husband to travel and enjoy the world together.” They too asked what our
plans were for New Year’s Eve because they were trying to figure out something
to do as well. Lucky for them, we had just made our plans with “M&M”
so we invited them to join us. I had to take a step back for a moment and
reflect on how effortless it seemed for us to easily link with all of these
individuals. Here we had a husband and wife who expressed how they loved
our energy and wanted to be able to spend more time with us which reminded me
of our two Canadian best friends who also said the same thing about us.
It just seemed kind of unreal to have that type of impact on people so quickly,
but it was a great feeling, more than may ever truly know. As we wrapped
up our time on the boat, Natalya and Manolo told us that if we were ever in Costa
Rica, to let them know because they would love to host us. It was sincere
and genuine which made it even more special to hear. For New Year’s Eve,
we were able to see them briefly at dinner, but we ended up spending the
evening in different places. Although we didn’t get to bring in the New
Year with them, our time together was invaluable and we’ve been fortunate
enough to still maintain contact with one another. When I think of them,
I smile because they represent everything that I am hopeful for and my heart is
happy knowing that I was blessed to encounter them.
If I ever have the opportunity to cross
paths with any of these individuals again, I will be eternally grateful.
They all came into my life at a time that I didn’t even realize I needed it.
Two and a half months before I went on the trip, I took a complete break from
social media and withdrew from people altogether. I was in an introverted
phase where I didn’t have the desire to be around a lot of people outside of
work. I believe that all that time operating on auto pilot was starting
to catch up to me and I needed quiet in my life. In August 2019, I was
sitting at a funeral for an Airman that I hold near and dear to my heart who
passed away unexpectedly and while I tried to make sense of what happened, a
week later, I was faced with another tragedy where I lost another Airman.
Shortly after, I had several different sensitive matters to handle and when
Ashley made that phone call in October, I knew I needed to say “yes” to Nicaragua.
Before I left, I prayed that I would be replenished because I have poured out a
lot of myself to others over the years and pouring from an empty cup is not
healthy. My “Perfect Strangers” not only soothed my soul, but refreshed
my spirit and wherever they are in the world, I want them to know that I will
always have the utmost respect and adoration for them. Thank you from the
bottom of my heart! 
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