It was spring break of my sixth grade year and my family was taking a vacation with some family friends to Costa Rica, a country in Central America. I used to hate flying in planes because it gave me huge headaches. Unfortunately our flight was early in the morning, so this meant I had to deal with a huge headache for the rest of that day. This was only the beginning to the worst vacation of my life.

The first day on the trip was definitely the best for me. I woke up headache-free and excited to do what was planned for that day. My friend and I played at the pool for a couple hours because it is really hot in Costa Rica because it’s close to the equator. At about 3 in the afternoon we took an hour drive to a national park. We took a hike through the forest seeing many cool wild animals. At the end of the hike we got to play on the beach. Fortunately I was feeling great and really enjoyed our first day. Here’s when it all went wrong.

The day after that my dad, my friend, and his dad, and myself where going to go deep-sea fishing. My mom thought I might get seasick so she gave me a pill that wouldn’t get me nauseous, but her biggest mistake was that it was a drowsy pill. I fell asleep the entire trip because of this and missed us catching a fish. Luckily I woke up in time for us to cook and eat the fish. This was a little upsetting for me because I love fishing.

Day Three was definitely the scariest day of all. We planned to go zip lining. Once we were at the top of the mountain I realized I was scared of heights. There were about 14 stops on the way down the mountain and each stop was a tiny plank of wood suspended over a 50-foot drop. This was terrifying. All that I could think about was: me falling off and dying, which made my experience much worse. Luckily I managed to get down the mountain in one piece.

The next day was the absolute worst day. We went white water rafting in category 5 rapids, which is the most dangerous category in the world. The only thing I could think about was: me falling off and drowning. I fell out at one point, which didn’t help at all, but when I did I accidentally swallowed some water. I believe this is what made me sick. I felt fine all the way home, but it finally caught up to me the next day.

Finally it was the last day of this horrific vacation. I woke up feeling very ill and didn’t want to eat anything or else it would make me vomit. Our flight was late at night so it was going to be a very long day I could tell. As the day went on I threw up multiple times, once in the hotel, once in a restaurant, and last watching the sunset at a fancy hotel up in the mountains. Over all this was the worst vacation of my life and I hope this never happens to me ever again.