Costa Rica  A winter trip to the Land of Mucho Gusto  February 2012      Louka Dlagnekov      Honza Rehacek      Yaris Toyota  Travel photoblog day 1: February 5  (Poaz volcano, LaPaz gardens) day 2: February 6  (Arenal hanging bridges, Baldi hot springs) day 3: February 7  (Arenal volcano hike, La Fortuna waterfall) day 4: February 8  (Arenal to Quepos, beaches around Dominical) day 5: February 9  (Manuel Antonio park) day 6: February 10  (beaches around Jaco, Pura Vida gardens)  Road & Nature Road Series I. Road Series II. Flora Fauna Greenscapes  Cutting board Nocturnes Verticals Outtakes Ourselves  External Louka's photos

Friendly warning:

Driving in Costa Rica is kind of like a potluck dinner. No, I am not trying to make a pun on the word "pothole", although God knows we saw quite a number of them (and our car knows we did NOT see quite a number of them as well). It's just that no matter how many maps you use, you never quite know where you are and which way you are going. So you just go with the flow and hope that someone in the caravan knows where they are going. Road maps are basically free hand drawings whose shapes are determined more by the artist's notion of what would be a visually pleasing curve rather than by the actual topography. Road signs are rare, weathered and often located behind opulent tropical bushes. Eventually we learned that the best way to get to, say, Eldorado was to slow down, roll down the window and holler at the nearest non bandido looking stranger: "Por favor, Eldorado?", while vividly gesticulating in the perceived Eldorado direction.

Acknowledgment:

Due to a glitch at the Hertz agency, our originally booked car was given away, and we had to make do with a little Toyota Yaris from a neighboring agency. The apparent doyen of the Budget park which we got had 80,000 km on its odometer to begin with. And let me stress that 80,000 km on Costa Rican roads and unroads is roughly equivalent to 6.7 light years on US highways. This veteran of rough roading rarely started on the first attempt - it usually needed two to three, but sometimes five and a well meant curse to boot. On more than one occasion it also sprayed my precious flip flops with unspecified engine liquid. It did not have any hubcaps, and, in general, felt rather worn. Yet, despite all of this, it faithfully took us wherever our whims commanded - which was often well off the beaten (and asphalted) path. It may have coughed, it may have clanked, it may have wheezed, it may have rattled, it may have clattered, it may have panted, it may have jolted, but at the end it carried us to where we wanted to be and never really betrayed us. For this little miracle we would like to thank the following deities: Tenoxitlan, Cabrakan, Ekehuah, Gukumatz, Kukulkan, Quetzalcoatl, Itzamna, Ahmakiq, Huracan, Camazotz, Tezcatlipochtli, Huitzilopochtli, Chalchiuhtotolin, Atlatonan, Chalchiuhtotolin, Chicomecoatl, Coyolxauhqui, Macuilcozcacuauhtli, Oxomoco, Tepoztecatl, Tloquenahuaque, Xochiquetzal, Yacatecuhtli, Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, Ixtlilton and Atlaua. Nice job, guys!

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