Highway to Heaven

It's not easy to relax even though we are retired. San Jose was hectic and we did our usual museum thing, but Colina Del Mar required that we chill. Up a very steep drive and far enough from town that walking was a half-day affair for us. So we read, wrote, crocheted and lounged about the pool waiting to go to the turtle sancutary. Unfortunately, Brian could not get reservations so we missed seeing that event. But the next day, Friday, we decided to drive down the coast and maybe see some animals and birds.

We headed out of Samara south east past a lovely public park and beach, the turtle reserve - until the road looked bad - so we turned north - in hindsight probably not a good idea.

At first it was fun to see the fauna and flora - a herd of pure white brahma cows, farms of newly planted cacao trees, and the occasional iguana crossing the road. But as we continued on, the road got worse, narrower and steeper - we kept climbing. It seemed like an endless climb - steeper and steeper and from our paper map we had no idea exactly where we were.

We eventually reached Zapotal high on a volcano top in the interior of the pennisula. I had white knuckles and Larry was pushing ahead on pure adrenaline. Thank goodness he was driving as I was a basket case. We argued over which way to turn and he final headed back to a fork in the road that we hit earlier. Remembering I had my phone, I finally pulled out Google Maps to see where we were. He continued on his instinct but I supplemented with technology. (Though he is a trained cartographer and early adopter of GIS -he would rather use a good old fashioned paper map.)

The next many kilometers were rough, steep and winding. This made the drive on the Transfargasian Highway in Romania seem like child's play. When we finally were near Hojancha there were a lot of road crews so we new this nightmare had to be ending. From Hojancha the road was paved back to Samara and we ended the evening with a BBQ in town.

It was a beautiful sunset over the Pacific and tonight we will sleep well for our journey tomorrow to Monteverde.