Costa Rica is an wonderful destination for both a wedding as well as the honeymoon. I'll be the first to say I think we did an amazing job with the planning and execution of this whole endeavour. I have been recently listening to Chalene Johnson's podcast (you know the face of Turbo Jam) and she reserves the phrase "thebomb.com" for particularly awesome things. Well, if you like big waves, adventure, rain forests, wildlife, nice people and good food then Costa Rica is THEBOMB.com
We hitched a ride with a friend of Rob's, Steve. As we pulled away from our hotel in Tamarindo we were drunk on the love and excitement from our big day. Well let's be honest we were probably still a little drunk from the open bar we paid for.
We didn't have any idea the adventure we were about to embark on. Our goal was to get to our first Honeymoon spot of Santa Theresa in about 3.5 hours. I had read about the roads on trip advisor and was expecting a bit of a bumpy ride. Although, according to the reviews we were suppose to hit the choppy dirt roads around 50 KM from our hotel. As we turned south from Jicaral we went over a bridge, just then Steve commented that he thought we may have taken a wrong turn. However, the GPS seemed to be guiding us down the road we were currently on, so we all just blew it off. We immediately started climbing a very steep, very rocky, very degraded dirt road. I didn't think this was right, but I had heard the roads in CR can be very bad so I tried to relax and nurse my hangover.
As we got deeper into the rain forest the road became more and more overgrown and the ups and downs got steeper and steeper. After an hour of this I began to wonder how this Mitsubishi 4x4 was not overheating. Rob informed me that a diesel engine was very resilient. This drive continued for another 3 hours and it got more and more awesome. I had never been on such a steep grade before or driven such a desolate wooded stretch of road. We drove through streams. We drove over embankments and through the middle of roaming cow and goat herds. The trees surrounded us and grew thicker as we drove deeper, and deeper and deeper.
As the GPS kept on guiding us down this road we were lulled into a sense of reliance on the accuracy of the GPS. If the satelites cut out then we would have been screwed. The road was very narrow and the brush was very thick. I contend that if we would have come across a downed tree we would have had to reverse all the way back to Jicaral. At one point I needed to make a stop to use the outdoor bathroom. I heard the screaming howler monkey's in the distance and had flashes of the mythical chupacabra jumping out of the woods to eat me. Obviously that never happened, but it very well could have if it was dark outside...
The last stretch of the drive we had to cross a stream that came all the way up to the bottom of the door, this was by far the deepest water I had ever driven through. 4 hours later, a total of 6 hours after we left Tamarindo, we finally reached our destination a little shaken and stirred from the bumpy ride but happy to have reached our hotel by sunset. The drive was definitely part of the Costa Rican adventure I was looking for. I guess the term "get lost in Costa Rica" is pretty accurate. What a fun adventure and definitely a drive to remember! Thanks Steve!
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