A Date with Disaster

 

Let me try and explain this day. All day we've been joking about how exactly to blog what happened and I'm not sure I'll do it justice, but I'll try and recap the day. The day started off well enough, with Jason waking up at 4am and me at 5am. We left Drake Bay at 8am to get a ride to the airport. On the way there we caught up with Canadians that we dove with the other day and decided to split a cab when we arrived in San Jose in order to get from the little airport to the big airport. The flight was fine and the transfer successful. We got to the big airport, got set up with the rental car company, transferred to the rental car location, and all was well. Until we actually got in the rental car. I'd like to blame Jason for the disastrous day because, always trying to save a little cash, he reserved a manual. I'm the one with the inter-american driver's license (fat lot of good it actually did me), the one who is the best in the world at stalling manual cars, the one who won't throw up on mountain roads if I'm driving, and the one who will totally freak out in the middle of a busy intersection if I have to downshift in a manual, so I drove. It's been at least 5 years since I've driven a manual and even then I was horrible at it (you should ask my friends from high school about me driving manuals... sorry again for that, Marci). So I'm ridiculously nervous pulling out of the rental car place because we're sure to be found out and afraid they'll revoke our rental if they see I can't drive it. We pull out at about 11am and take off down the road. We have to stop at one light, then one short stop sign, and then onto the highway. We got 4 kilometers down the road (somewhere around 2 miles) before the car started sounding funny. We thought the road was bumpy but it looked OK and something just didn't seem right. We pulled over as soon as we could and Jason got out to check the right rear tire - and it was shredded.

We thought how in the world could this have happened in just a few minutes of driving? We didn't pass any construction zones and the tires looked fully inflated and fine at the rental car place. Apparently it's a common scam in San Jose for somebody to slash the tires of tourists then follow them to where they eventually pull over, then ask if they need help changing their tire. Everybody is really nice here and generally trustworthy so that wouldn't be a weird thing if somebody offered to help you. If you let them help you, one of them will be changing the tire and keeping you occupied while the other will steal your luggage and things out of the car. We had heard about the scam before (it's even in the literature they hand you at the airport when you arrive) and just 2 minutes after we pulled over two guys stopped and asked if we needed help. We shooed them away and probably 5 minutes after that other people did the same. But we never suspected we were prey because when we stopped twice briefly we didn't notice any people around the car. However, it was the right rear tire and we were turning left and I was looking at the road and Jason was looking at the map, so it's extremely likely.

We called the rental car place and said since we were so close we wanted somebody to come and change the tire instead of using the spare in case it happened again. While we were waiting for the worker to come the policia stopped to see if we were ok and then more came - at one point there were 4 policia, the worker, and us on the side of the road. The policia was sure it was caused by someone slashing us and they thought we had had things stolen from us. Luckily we knew not to let anybody help us. Here's a picture of the policia checking out the shredded tire.

 

After that delay we were on our way again, getting detoured around construction, totally turned around about 4 times in San Jose looking for the highway to Limon, and we finally had to ask for directions. Now I remember that if you ask somebody a question in Spanish they'll answer you in Spanish. Problem is I have a hard time catching what natives are saying but I finally understood where to go with the help of universal hand gestures. I should just note that getting stuck in traffic while driving a stick in a city like San Jose goes in my book as one of the worst possible things that could happen to me. A genuine nightmare.

The drive over to the Caribbean side was absolutely beautiful. We passed over mountains and through a rainforest, past miles and miles of pineapple and banana plantations, and along beachside roads. We did see a major accident in the rainforest and a man was being put into the ambulance when we passed. We stopped at a restaurant just on the other side of the rainforest, El Yugo, for a late lunch and local sites. After a couple more short detours we finally arrived, 9 hours after we started, at La Costa de Papito. We have a private bungalow with a mosquito net over the bed. I have a feeling we better use the net. We can't see everything where we are yet but I bet it's beautiful. I can hear bullfrogs right now. We are off for one day of diving at the barrier reef tomorrow and when we get back we'll take some pictures of where we are now. We'll be here until Friday, then we'll brave the drive back to San Jose.

Oh, a funny side note which put the icing on the cake for this day.... we stopped at a town about an hour away from where we are staying to top off the gas. They pump for you in CR and we only needed about a quarter tank. The guy started pumping and Jason went to throw something away. When he came back I looked at the pump and it was on about 25 liters. I thought surely that seems like a lot for only 1/4 tank. Jason thought nothing of it and the guy kept pumping and pumping and pumping and soon enough the total reached EIGHTY-EIGHT liters of gas. He finally noticed when he stopped his conversation with a friend and was thoroughly confused. We ended up driving away (with his permission) and not paying for the gas we received. The tank was filled but he thought nothing had pumped. So we may have also broken the law in CR as well today.

And finally, Flat Joshua and Flat Everett are well known by the Costa Rican policia now! The police were very nice and agreed to pose for a picture with the ninos. I'm sure the crazy Americans are the talk around the police station in San Juan tonight.

 

That was a risky picture to get for the Flats. The policia was really not sure what to think of the girl who can barely put together a sentence in Spanish anymore.