Pura Vida - Part 4

A Nightmare Worse Than Any Tick - Part 4 of 6

And if a tick wasn't enough of a nightmare, let me backtrack to our travel from Alajuela to Santa Teresa. Before I begin, I should probably say that our first two days in Costa Rica were really great. The first day we went on a canopy tour (zip lining) which was way, way fun. I loved it and can't wait to do it again sometime. That night we went to the San Jose Temple which was also lovely, that is once the taxi driver found it. You see, they don't use normal addresses. Instead, they indicate where things are located in relationship to where other things are located. Gerald told the taxi driver, "We want to go to the Mormon Temple, 600 meters west of the Marriott Hotel." That would have worked great if the taxi driver had any idea where the Marriott Hotel was. He didn't. Ultimately, we made it there and back again, but the next day, well, let me just start at the beginning.

People in Costa Rica, it seems, never care about getting paid. You know how here in the U.S. when you eat at a restaurant, before you've even taken your final bite, the server is practically jumping into your lap, handing you the bill and blathering, "I'll be your cashier when you're ready!" In Costa Rica, not so much. You have to beg for your bill. So the morning we were to leave Alajuela to catch the bus on the way to the ocean, I was scurrying around trying to eat the continental breakfast and pay my hotel bill. The host at the hotel had a different idea: "Relax," she admonished. "You are on vacation." Okay, fine. I will try to relax. Finally, she got around to taking my credit card to pay for our room, and we hopped a taxi to the bus station. And you guessed it. We missed our bus. By exactly ten minutes. Seriously. When would the next bus leave? In 2-1/2 hours. So we sat in the bus station for 2-1/2 long hours. One hundred fifty minutes. Ugh!

Finally, we boarded the bus and thought our troubles were behind us. About five seconds on this bus and I remembered vividly why I don't like traveling in Latin America. Their road conditions are so horrible and their buses so old and rickety that I get a headache within the first half hour. I like roller coasters; really I do. I like them because they last maybe 45 seconds. "Whew! That was SO fun! Do I want to do it again? Maybe one more time." But riding a bus that feels like a never-ending roller coaster for hours on end, bouncing and jarring up and down, side to side, relentlessly, isn't quite my idea of pleasant.

Shaken and jarred, we arrived at the ferry terminal where we were to ride the ferry one hour on our way to the ocean. Care to guess by how many minutes we missed that ferry? Yep, exactly 10! Care to guess how long before the next ferry? FOUR HOURS. I'm not exaggerating. Gerald, am I exaggerating? No, I'm not. Incredibly, though, I was still holding up fairly well. It helped immensely that there was a gentle rainfall that evening. I walked around the little town and felt the rain. I was happy. Mostly I was happy to be off that stupid bus, but I was happy. We ate at a restaurant and talked with a German couple. It was all good.

That is until we had to board the next bus after the ferry ride. Same story with this bus, only this time it was dark. What is it about dark that makes everything more unsettling? I was tired too, so much more tired than on the first bus ride. My attitude was deteriorating. Fast. After what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was probably a couple of hours, the bus simply stopped. Right out in the middle of the rain forest, it stopped. Ahead was a washed-out bridge, and the bus could go no further. We all had to get off, gather our luggage, and carry it around the washed-out bridge in the mud. How do you think my attitude was faring now? Whatever you're thinking, I'm sure it's worse. Then...then! There was a bus up ahead that was already filled to capacity, but they made all of us from the first bus pile on anyway, and off we went.

More bouncing and jarring, only this time we were standing on a bus, packed in like proverbial sardines. And I somehow got separated from Gerald. I could see him up ahead, but several people separated us, all speaking Spanish. I don't speak Spanish. I was so tired, so muddy, and so hungry, and I couldn't understand a thing people were saying. "Know signs" appeared occasionally. I should explain that "know signs" are what we call mileage signs because they let you "know" how much farther you have to go. My grandma and I decided this when I was a very young child, and nothing will ever change it because I loved her, and she loved me. One know sign read "Santa Teresa - 15 km." Their know signs totally lie. It does not take an hour to go 15 km, even on a stupid bus.

By the time we reached Santa Teresa, it was 9:30 p.m. Almost everything there closes at 9:00, but we found a grocery store and called a taxi to take us to our hotel. The taxi driver loaded all our luggage into the trunk and asked Gerald where we were going. "Gumbo Limbo Hotel," Gerald told him. "Ah, no, this taxi can't go there. That hotel is way too high up a steep hill. You need 4-wheel drive." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? So they sent another taxi with 4-wheel and charged us $10 just to drive up a hill. And what a hill it was! When we were looking at hotels online, this one looked especially wonderful, but it did warn that one needed strong legs because it was on a hill. "No problem, " I thought. "I'm in excellent shape. I do P90X. Duh."

And it's probably thanks to Tony (P90X trainer) that I could even climb the hill at all, but it was crazy. Like 1/2 mile straight up a rocky, muddy road. Gerald guesses around 400 feet of elevation, which, by the way, is more than the tallest building in all Montana! Strong legs needed? Ya think? Now it would make sense if our story ended here, right? We reach the top of the hill, check into our nice room, get some dinner, and relax. Oh no, not quite. The taxi could only take us to a certain point, where the road ended and the stairs began, log/mud stairs. We had to walk those stairs in pitch black. Apparently, electricity is quite expensive in Costa Rica, so they just don't use it. It was so dark! We were stumbling around dragging our suitcases behind us, tripping over things in the pitch black, animal noises everywhere. I felt like I was in a horror movie.

We could tell there was a hotel there, only because Gerald found a flashlight, but no one was in it. By this point I was done. So done. I sat on my suitcase and cried. Leaving me in total darkness in the middle of the rain forest, Gerald took the flashlight and went looking for signs of life...human life. There was plenty of non-human life around, trust me. He eventually found a door and knocked on it. An older man (60ish) came out wearing only a towel. He told Gerald that the hotel owner expected us five hours earlier (Really? Cause that's what we expected too), so he left when it got to be 10:00. The man had a key to our room, and he let us in. I crashed on the bed, sobbing uncontrollably. I'm sure the man thought I was insane, and do you think I cared?

After all this, it occurred to us that we were still starving, but that nothing was open down in town, even if we had the energy to walk all the way down that hill and then climb back up, which we didn't. So we went to bed without dinner.

We had other challenges during our time at the ocean, but nothing remotely close to the events of this particular day; even the encounter with the tick didn't come close. Pura Vida!

.........................to be continued........................