Although we always travel with a destination in mind, the spaces in between those destinations are half the adventure.
Our destination this time was the surf town of Santa Teresa, on the Pacific coast of the Nicoya Peninsula. The road from Arenal rose into the fog shrouded mountains and the incessant rain washed our car. The temperature dropped into the sixties, imparting a comfortable feeling of Pacific northwestern spring rain.
From Punta Arenas, we ferried across the Gulf of Nicoya to Paquera and drove from there to Santa Teresa. Costa Rica abolished its army in 1949 and made plans to invest most of its former defense spending in education, infrastructure and the environment. None of this money went to roads. Having already wasted comparisons to wars, weapons and natural disasters on past roads, all I can say is that these roads were worse.
A shirtless blond guy standing while driving a four-wheeler shrieked past us on the hill leading into Santa Teresa. At the town entrance, the road became mud, hair became long and shirts were very much optional. Although only perhaps three kilometers distant, it took us another 20-30 minutes to arrive at our AirBnb. The town’s road was a crumbling wave of mud, half frozen into place while breaking.
Brightly painted driftwood slabs advertised happy hours, cafes, yoga or sometimes just pointed the odd traveler in towards another distant destination, or perhaps back towards home. Despite the affected rough appearances of the surf bum crowd visiting Santa Teresa, shops were stuffed with top brand clothing and boutique hand-made souvenirs, all at prices typical of any successful American city.
The only things easier to find than yoga mats and surf lessons were Argentinians. Santa Teresa, it turns out, is a major holiday destination for Lionel Messi’s compatriots, to the point that many have even set up businesses there.
The rain dampened both the street and our desire to wander the town. The downpours turned the mud street into a thick, wet clay, that sucked our flip-flops down to it and sent mud spattering up our legs with every fought-for step. Although largely denied blue sky, the rain let up enough for us to wander the beach and sample some of the beachside bars and restaurants.
Driftwood littered the beach and lagoons swelled to overflowing. No one appeared deterred by the less-than-ideal holiday conditions. Surfers wandered from one end of the beach to the other in search of some perfect spot along that long beach break. We threw ourselves into them, but although the storm clouds provided a thrilling backdrop, the storm winds and swollen streams emptying into the sea made for choppy waves. We laughed and called it good exercise anyway.
Marine Life
Taking advantage of one sunny day, we booked a snorkeling trip at Isla Tortuga, just off the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula. An all-day affair, we rose early to catch a bus that brought us bouncing down the shattered road to the town of Playa Tambor, from where we jumped a boat to Isla Tortuga.
My seasickness notwithstanding, the ride out was almost too beautiful. White cliffs broke through the coastal jungle and plunged into the sea. Pillars of rock thrust upwards from the water and sagged into picturesque arches. Dolphins swam alongside the boat, playfully breaking the surface. I wondered if I could hit one of them with vomit.
Painful experience and a regulator full of vomit has taught me that getting in the water doesn’t always cure seasickness, but it worked this time. Although the recent storms had made the water murky, we found plenty of life in the shallower waters near rocky islets protruding from the sea. Puffers, sergeant majors, parrotfish, damselfish and even a jewel moray eel jockeyed for space beneath the waves.
The parade of wildlife didn’t end at the surface of the water. Our ride home was interrupted by a group of howler monkeys traveling along telephone lines. They contentedly picked leaves, occasionally making their loud and deep-throated howling growls. The rain picked back up, but we had wine in our AirBnb and our erstwhile travel companions John and Jenna were there to share it with us.
Eleven River Crossing Road
We’re not going to make it.
Jordan spoke what we both thought while we stood in the middle of a river, the water just past our knees, feet planted on a bed of smooth and gravely rocks. We looked at our car, parked on the shore and then across to the other side of the river. We had only three and a half hours remaining to get Sue to the airport in Liberia and this was already our sixth river crossing and the deepest yet.
Don’t say anything to Mom, she added.
The road that Google sent us down best approximated a recently active seismic fault line. We hadn’t gone over 20km/hr (~12mph) since turning onto the rocky and muddy jungle track. Google had suggested that this route was faster than driving the coastal road around the peninsula, but we now had our doubts.
For the past half hour or so, we had painstakingly negotiated an endless series of rocky ravines, sometimes balancing the wheels of the car on either side of deep ruts in the road, only occasionally scraping the undercarriage over a rock.
The river crossings started off small but had grown progressively larger. At river crossing number six, we had a pretty good idea that even if we made it across, our way back was not guaranteed. While I went back to the car to re-measure the exact depth we could manage before flooding the engine, Jordan found a path across the creek that was only exactly the width of the car, with a 1-2 foot drop-off on either side.
Jordan marked out the path and I nudged our car forward and across, under the watchful eyes of my wife, my mother-in-law and a group of three Argentinians who had also chosen to trust Google. Once on the other side, everyone remounted the car, breathed a sigh of relief and off we went towards the next crossing.
The river crossings quickly became routine. At each one, we would swear in exasperation, I would park the car some distance back, Jordan would wade through the creek and mark a path and across we would go. More often than not, we would be no sooner out of the water, then I would throw the car into low gear to climb some deeply rutted hillside, swerving erratically to avoid large and jagged rocks the whole way.
Against all odds, we not only made it to the airport in time for Sue to catch her flight, but also in almost the exact time that Google had estimated. We felt exhausted, but happy, yet also sad to see Sue go. Given the multi-year nature of this voyage, however, we hope to see her in another strange and exciting part of the globe.
