Road back to Costa Rica

Considering the late night we had, it was no wonder we also woke up late… all of a sudden, Andrea was up to her old tricks, insisting that we had to be out the door before 11am. By 10:55 we had everything piled up in the van in the courtyard (we did park the van behind the fence considering the incidents of the night before, plus even the night guard got a ride instead of having his own car parked after the attempted break in). Aaron got a bit annoyed as he couldn’t even have one purple cup of coffee before taking off. We were even joking with taking the van outside and continue on partying, but I think we all just wanted to leave the purple madness behind us. We loaded the van, and carefully drove out of the backyard, though running over one of the purple rocks on the lawn. We headed towards the downtown of David, frantically looking for an elusive address – good thing that Brendan stopped and asked for directions a few times; otherwise we would have never found that place. While Audrey went to get her passport, finally, Aaron and I went off to explore the streets of David, looking for cigarettes but running into tables that sold anything but: watches, DVDs, Cds, wallets, batteries, everything you could think of… It was easy to get lost in that madness of things, and we returned to the van empty handed. Luckily, Audrey fared much better than us, she had a brand new passport and that meant that we were on our way back to Costa Rica.

We drove out of David on the Inter Americana. Because Brendan was told when he entered Panama that he needed to be there for three months (? Why I don’t know?), he rightly didn’t want to pass through Paso Canoas, one of the busiest of all border crossings in Central America. Instead we drove north, veering off the Inter Americana towards Volcan, the closest town to the Rio Senero – Sabalito crossing in the mountains. After a quick stop at a convenience store for some refreshments, we made the drive up into the mountains until we reached Volcan, close to the Costa Rican border. We quickly realized that there wasn’t much to do around town, unless we wanted to engage on a six or eight hour hike to one of the peaks. We made our last shopping trip in Panama, knowing things were much cheap than in Costa Rica, and then we started down the road towards the border crossing. Along the way we saw a sign for the Acropolis restaurant, what the guidebook said was the best Greek food outside of Greece, anywhere. We chatted with the really nice owner, and admired all the pristine pictures of Glorious Greece on the walls. We continued on our journey, passing coffee fields as we climbed into the mountains. The Panamanian side of the border is Rio Sereno, while Sabalito is in Costa Rica, though you’d be hard pressed to tell where one ends and the other begins. This has to be the most laid back border crossing I have even been through.

Upon leaving Panama we had to show our tourist visas – though I was never given one when entering the country. As for Audrey, she didn’t have hers since her passport had gotten stolen and was traveling with a replacement. Both of us had to pay ‘fines’ for not having visas, and then the customs agent started to ask our professions – he got to Aaron and he stopped and gave him a long look. He had said that he buys and sells guitars, stared at the customs agent trying to figure out what triggered such a reaction. After a moment of silence, he then revealed that he was also a guitar collector – and shared a good laugh with him. On the Costa Rican side, things were very relaxed and laid back as well; the agent had to call in our names and passport numbers since they didn’t have computers there. We needed photocopies of the van documentation, so we walked across the street back into Panama to find the only convenience store that had a photocopier. Then back into Costa Rica… I have never gone back and forth so often across a border without anyone saying anything. We left the border behind us and suddenly we were reminded we were in a different country – the road condition right away told us we were in Costa Rica. We continued along the bumpy road, having to stop several times for directions so we can retrace our way back to the interamericana. We had to cross more mountains before descending on Neily, and we took a break towards the summit so that we can admire then entire valley below us and the cloud cover above. Just before that we drove right through the cloud forest, sometimes not seeing more than a few meters in front, barely enough to keep turning with the road. But here at the top the view was much clearer: we could see all the way to the Pacific, as the last rays of sunshine disappeared beneath a cloud. Not just one cloud actually, and soon after it started pouring rain. We were able to make our way down the mountain by following other cars right in front of us, so we would at least have a ‘heads up’ about which way the road would be turning.

Eventually we arrived in Neily, and after dealing with the narrow streets and even ending up the wrong direction on a one way street. We wanted to stop somewhere in town to get a bite to eat, but we settled on a Marisco restaurant right outside of the city. I was a place frequented mainly by locals, which was already a good indication of the quality and value of the food – and we were not disappointed. We had dinner while Brendan was chatting up with some of the locals, getting the inside scoop on the latest road conditions and closures. By the time we left it was already getting dark, so we were worried about the fact the van was popeyed, especially once we reached a checkpoint and got pulled over. Brendan started already justifying the problem to the officer, who really just wanted to see our passports to make sure we had the proper documentation (in the past the Costa Rican police has arrested people for not carrying their passports, or at least copies of, on them while around town). Of course we conveniently forgot to mention Suzie, and she did a very good job of staying quiet. To pass the time along the way to Dominical, we started playing road trip games, to keep ourselves entertained and to make sure we were all wake – I stumped everyone when I picked Slash for the guessing game.

After a fairly long road trip day, we strolled into Dominical after 8 in the evening; not knowing where the rest of our crew was staying, we decided to cruise around the two main streets, looking into restaurants since it was dinner hour. At about our third try, we saw the trio jump out from their table, we stopped the van and got out. We had a reunion as if we were separated for weeks and not just one day, an all around positive vibe. After catching up on our separate previous day adventures, we moved the van by the hotel, where I would be sharing a room with Dana, Paula and Danne, while Brendan and Audrey would be sharing the van, and Aaron camped out on the beach. We all settled in and then got together on the patio of the hotel, where we had a few drinks, shared stories and took pictures. Danne told us about his misfortune while surfing; a 12 ft. came down and crashed on his rental board, breaking it in half – he even brought the board out and posed for pictures to prove his point. He was dealing with it fairly well, considering how much he had to pay for a supposed ‘unbreakable’ surf board, but it made for one hell of a story.

Later on in the evening, we all wanted to take the party to the next level, so we headed to one of the bars in town, which was hosting a reggae party. We navigated the dark alleys in Dominical without a problem, and spent a few hours listening to good music, dancing and meeting people at the bar. Amongst the most interesting was a guy who felt compelled to share his whole tragic life story with us. That in itself would not be a problem, but he had had way too much to drink and it became too emotional, to the point where he broke down crying; my knowledge of soothing Spanish words is still in its infancy, so I couldn’t do much else but offer a few words of support. With that overwhelming experience behind us, we decided it would be best to return to the hotel. While most went to sleep right away, I spent some time on the beach, staring up at the stars, and watching the huge waves against the light given off by the almost full moon.