Costa Rica Part 3: HOW MUCH WAS THAT GPS ANYWAY?!?!?!?!?

Day 5 – Thursday 12/11/2008

We woke up early, finished packing and had breakfast nearby....beans & rice with our eggs, of course. I was sad to leave Manuel Antonio and all the monkeys...it had been the best part of our vacation so far. Our time in Manuel Antonio had been filled with sunshine and fun. Oh well, onto the next chapter of the adVENture...

A few minutes west of Manuel Antonio is the bustling town of Quepos. We went downtown to do a little shopping and to stop into a pharmacia. We browsed through some of the touristy (read overpriced) shops and finally found a store with good prices on some nice wood pieces. We spent too much money there and decided we should hit the road after that.

We headed west and started looking for lunch options. After about an hour on the road we stopped in a charming beachside town called Jaco. We hit the shops on main street to buy a few postcards and ask around about a good place to eat. One shop owner told us to go to Clarita’s by the beach for some of the best food and freshest fish around. This bar & grill had a fun beachy spirit that we appreciated. There were funny (and somewhat inappropriate) signs all over that we laughed about as we enjoyed our tasty food. Bobby quickly realized there was Wi-Fi available so he synced up his laptop during lunch.

After our leisurely lunch, we were back on the road again heading north towards our final destination. After passing through a major intersection with a fork in the road we realized we had both just missed a group of signs with town names and arrows for the fork in the road. Understandably, we were both completely paranoid about missing any signs, so Bobby quickly turned around to go back for the signs. During the hurried turnaround at the busy intersection, Bobby went off the road a bit and into a grassy ditch. We quickly discovered that that “grassy” ditch was nothing but pure mud under that dead grass. Shit. Stuck. Bad Stuck. Can’t see the tire stuck. Sloppy, wet, boggy, suck you into oblivion stuck. Marianna trench deep stuck. You get the idea…

Bobby got out of the car and I crawled into the driver seat. He asked me if I knew how to “rock” a car. “Uh, No.” So he started giving me instructions on gunning the gas for a second and then letting off quickly in several intervals while he pushed. Well we did it, but that just dug us deeper into our mud hole. Bobby waved over some locals who were sitting across the busy street at a bus stop (laughing I’m sure). They sauntered over and helped push as I gunned it. A few more guys in a work truck stopped to try and help. One of the guys told me (in espanol) slower on the gas and slower off (opposite of what Bobby had instructed me) but that didn’t help either. We were really deep in this mud hole with both passenger side tires. Spinning the wheels was just digging the mud hole deeper and deeper. Great.

Luckily, the gang of guys around the car brought the attention of a passing dump truck driver who came to our aid. He backed up to the back of our car (on this really narrow corner of a super-busy highway near an insane intersection) and hooked some chains to our car. He pulled us about 20 feet to a concrete driveway so that all of our tires were completely out of the mud hole. I, of course, took pictures of this insanity.

We gave money to the dump truck driver and some of the locals that were still nearby to say thank you and to make up for their totally mud-splattered clothing. Bobby got in the car, smiled at me and asked, “How is that for an adVENture?”

I was still freaking out a little, but so relieved to be out of the mud and back on the road.

We followed what signs were available, and were doing great (mud-hole not included) until we got to the city of Alajuela. We quickly found ourselves downtown in this crazy Americanized cuidad during rush hour. There were no signs with street names anywhere, or signs for the next towns. We ended up getting completely turned around. If it hadn’t been for the full moon, we would not have known which way was up. We pulled out a tiny little compass (that was originally part of an emergency kit) that we thought we might need in the rainforest park. We were able to at least get our N,S,W,E bearings back.

(Ha!Ha! We did much better with directions inside the heart of the rainforest than we did on the major highways!)

So there we were going in circles in major downtown, rush-hour traffic. I was getting frustrated with the terrible maps that I was trying to decipher. Bobby was beyond frustrated with the crazy drivers and the non-existent signs. He wanted me to help him look for signs, while I was trying to show him possible routes on the three completely different maps. In the middle of all the confusion and frustration, we had to laugh at ourselves and finally ask the unspoken, million-dollar question:

SO HOW MUCH WAS THAT GPS ANYWAY?!?!?!?!?

Some signs with arrows for the Mall Internacional caught my eye. (Who would’ve guessed?) I thought we could possibly find an English-speaker there, and hell, it was an excuse to check out a mall!!! ;-) I was in need of a shopping fix. We finally made it through the traffic and pulled into the Mall parking lot. We noted that there was a banco, which most likely exchanged currency, so we headed that way. We passed all the shop owners calling us in their stores….just as if we were in a touristy Mexican marketplace or something. Very odd to see a worker at Foot Locker trying to coerce people into the store (in Spanish of course). We made it to the bank and I asked all around,

“¿Hablas inglés?”

Finally, one of the customer service women told me she spoke a little bit of English. Good Enough. I showed her my maps and pointed to the town we were trying to get reach. About an hour later, we walked out of the bank with a hand-drawn map feeling very confident that we would be able to find our way to the Peace Lodge.

We had to pass back by the same stores on our way to our car and sure enough, those same store workers were still trying to persuade us to go into their stores…..but this time in English. Of course.

Clearly, every tourist should just know that you are supposed to find the stadium and follow that road through a long winding residential area to get out of Alajuela and head to the town of Vara Blanca. Who needs signs?!?! People in Costa Rica just know how to get where they want to go.

We made it to the Peace Lodge just as it was getting dark. We checked into our magnificent room, showered, and dressed for dinner. We were starving so we ignored our reservation time, and headed to the dining room. They seated us quickly and we finally started to relax. We feasted on delicious wine and tasty fish. After dinner, we decided to go back to our room and fill up the outside jacuzzi. It was a clear, beautiful night…a little chilly, but nothing to worry about once inside a nice big hot tub.

Day 6 – Friday 12/12/2008

We woke up late and enjoyed room service…breakfast in bed. Now this is the life!

We noticed that the sky was clear so we dressed to go hiking at the nearby Poas Volcano. We drove about 20 minutes on a twisty winding mountain road to almost the top of the volcano.

By the time we got to the park entrance, it was completely foggy and misting rain. We layered up and ventured to the top of the volcano. It was a nice long walk…a bit chilly for my bones, but tolerable. We chatted and laughed the whole way.

We made it to the top of our cloud-covered volcano and looked out at the viewing point…..at clouds. We couldn’t see any part of the volcano that must have been just in front of us. All we could see was white.

We took another long upward path to the “natural lagoon” part of the volcano. Yet another viewing point with more clouds. We laughed at our mala suerte (bad luck) and took a few pictures of the clouds and our hidden volcano lagoon.

We trekked back down the mountain and eagerly found the café serving hot cocoa. I felt chilled, so it was the best tasting hot chocolate ever!

We went back to our hotel for lunch, and to enjoy the wildlife at our resort. We spent the afternoon admiring monkeys, butterflies, jungle cats, and exotic birds, and we hand fed the hummingbirds. All Very Cool!

It misted and rained all day. By dinnertime the rain was really coming down, so we opted for room service. We decided we wanted to have dinner in our warm room next to the blazing fireplace. We were just done being wet and cold for the day.

We did get back out of the room later that night to check out the big hot tub. We had it all to ourselves, and enjoyed relaxing and listening to the rain.

The rain came down hard all night.

Day 7 – Saturday 12/13/2008

We got up and went to the dining room for the breakfast buffet….beans & rice with my eggs…of course! YUM!

We spent the rest of the day inside our cozy room. We watched and listened to the pouring rain outside, read books, watched TV, and packed our bags.

We rented two movies from the front desk, one Sci-Fi for Bobby…I of course fell asleep. And the other one I picked - Moulin Rouge. I didn’t have to twist Bobby’s arm too much since the selection was not great, and he had not seen it but had heard lots about it. He could not believe how crazy the movie effects were, I think the movie kind of gave him a headache. Not me….I fell asleep again.

We got out in the rain one more time to run up to the dining room for dinner.

After dinner we shed our clothes and got comfy on the massage tables for our two-hour in room couples massages. WOW! Those two hours were amazing…I might be totally ruined now for a normal 60 minute massage.

Side Note: the masseurs in Costa Rica are way less worried about a person’s modesty than they are in the U.S. I could never fully relax because I was always wondering where Arturo’s hands were going next…. He never crossed the line, but he often came right up to the edge of it. Bobby even had to “adjust” one time when Sonia got a little too close for comfort.

Even so….Totally worth it!

Day 8 – Sunday 12/14/2008

We woke up early the next morning to a bright, clear day. We hurried to the dining room for breakfast. One more time: beans & rice with my eggs! All through breakfast we debated our options. Should we take an hour and go see the resort waterfalls? That was the main tourist highlight of the Peace Lodge and due to the rain, we had not made it to see the waterfalls during our three days there. OR, should we save that extra hour for our drive to the airport? That was the option we were leaning towards since we knew how our luck had gone on the Costa Rican highways the entire trip.

Nope, we threw caution to the wind and made a run for the waterfalls. We cruised through the waterfall area quickly and took lots of pictures as we flew past. The time I had spent drying my hair that morning was completely pointless. We were drenched from both the overspray of the waterfalls, and the sweat from running through the humid, damp waterfall park.

We showered and got ready quickly. When Bobby checked us out of room, he got specific directions for the quickest route to the airport. We made it to the airport in plenty of time, and felt good that we had managed to fit in a run/hike through the waterfalls that morning.

Home Sweet Home – we got home at 9:00pm that night. We were so tired, but not too exhausted to not give our furry kids we missed so much lots of kisses and hugs before we fell into bed.

AHHHHH, so nice to be back in our own bed!

I am now thinking that The Amazing Race might not be for us....

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