Following a day of body surfing and not much else we decided to head out to La Fortuna, one of the most visited places in Costa Rica. La Fortuna boasts an active volcano and an entire city complete with a large church beneath a lake. Look it up.
We initially inquired about taking a bus, but found that only shuttles were available. We opted to rent a car. I made a deposit and was told they would pick me up at nine at my hotel the following day.
The driver was prompt and we soon left with him to the office which was on the outskirts of Quepos near the airport. A small lot was populated with three or four cars and an office which was a converted shipping container. I managed to convince the clerk to give me several upgrades for free, he didn't even bother to ask me if I wanted the numerous options, $7/day for a replacement key and emergency gas service, $20.95/day for some insurance coverage that was already covered by my credit card. The tricky part was getting out without showing a driver's license. That is a long tale that I won't detail.
Back to the hotel, Karl captured a few screen shots of maps of our route on a pretty bad WIFI connection. With that and a low detail map we headed out, there was no GPS to be rented.
I can't do justice to the clusterfuck that followed. Our first leg was to Jaco. Signs were literally one hundred meters apart. Hotels, restaurants, casinos. Leaving Jaco the signs were nowhere in evidence. The way out of town was unmarked. The maps were very low resolution. The roads had no signs. The GPS on my phone showed me a general area of the country but only very major roads. One particular intersection we drove through five or six times. Dirt roads, rutted. It became dark. Repeatedly the roads disappeared around tight curves on mountain switchbacks or due to the road precipitously falling off. At one point we found ourselves on a road that was unpassable and had to turn around and ended up getting stuck.
A muddy and gravelly simple incline was insurmountable, the front wheels on the little car just spun. Had I had a driver I could have pushed it out but Karl has never driven a manual. We gave it a shot, but the smoke of burning rubber quickly called that attempt to an end. Had the wheels made purchase he doubtlessly would have ended up wrapped around a tree while panicking. Deep in the jungle on an unlit road we locked up the car and started to walk. Presently we came upon a person who easily pushed us out. Thirteen hours later I finally stopped at a nasty little place and we retired nowhere near our destination that was ostensibly but three hours from our origin.
We initially inquired about taking a bus, but found that only shuttles were available. We opted to rent a car. I made a deposit and was told they would pick me up at nine at my hotel the following day.
The driver was prompt and we soon left with him to the office which was on the outskirts of Quepos near the airport. A small lot was populated with three or four cars and an office which was a converted shipping container. I managed to convince the clerk to give me several upgrades for free, he didn't even bother to ask me if I wanted the numerous options, $7/day for a replacement key and emergency gas service, $20.95/day for some insurance coverage that was already covered by my credit card. The tricky part was getting out without showing a driver's license. That is a long tale that I won't detail.
Back to the hotel, Karl captured a few screen shots of maps of our route on a pretty bad WIFI connection. With that and a low detail map we headed out, there was no GPS to be rented.
I can't do justice to the clusterfuck that followed. Our first leg was to Jaco. Signs were literally one hundred meters apart. Hotels, restaurants, casinos. Leaving Jaco the signs were nowhere in evidence. The way out of town was unmarked. The maps were very low resolution. The roads had no signs. The GPS on my phone showed me a general area of the country but only very major roads. One particular intersection we drove through five or six times. Dirt roads, rutted. It became dark. Repeatedly the roads disappeared around tight curves on mountain switchbacks or due to the road precipitously falling off. At one point we found ourselves on a road that was unpassable and had to turn around and ended up getting stuck.
A muddy and gravelly simple incline was insurmountable, the front wheels on the little car just spun. Had I had a driver I could have pushed it out but Karl has never driven a manual. We gave it a shot, but the smoke of burning rubber quickly called that attempt to an end. Had the wheels made purchase he doubtlessly would have ended up wrapped around a tree while panicking. Deep in the jungle on an unlit road we locked up the car and started to walk. Presently we came upon a person who easily pushed us out. Thirteen hours later I finally stopped at a nasty little place and we retired nowhere near our destination that was ostensibly but three hours from our origin.
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