Last Day

Well its Saturday Sept. 20th, our last day here in Costa Rica. I have had a blast but do find myself looking forward to being back in the states with all you, and doing the things that are normal to me. I wanted to write before now but Internet down here is all guess work and the last place we stayed which was the best hotel we stayed at, had service but not in our rooms and it would come and go at the worst of times. I am back at Rafa's house on his dial up, but will try and catch you all up...I may have to finish once I get back though. Also the pics will have to be posted once I get back, we have taken over 700 pics. and it has taken between 10 min.- ?? to download one pic.. I promise they will be worth the wait though. Anyway on to what we have been up to.

Tue. 16th Sept.
We left Alajuela after a couple cups of coffee at a local coffeehouse I adopted...its no GOVAN's but its all I could get. I did stake out 'my' table and that's the only place I sat when there. There has to be something of consistency in one's life. :-)
I was doing the driving since Kevin's knee is still messed up (he thinks he may to get surgery when back home) and all the cars here are stick shifts. I asked Rafa why and he said because they are easier to work on for all the mechanics up in the small towns who don't have all the fancy tools etc. to work on cars, so they keep em as simple as possible. Anyway, we were heading south to Dominical, we had just got down out of the hills and was cruising along on some really nice paved roads when I came over a hill and there were 2 motorcycle cops flagging me over. OH GREAT!
They said I was doing 90 kph, and showed me the radar gun to 'prove' it (I probably was but have no idea) they spoke good English and asked for my passport, I handed them a Xerox copy of my passport and Tn. Drivers Lic. (we left our originals at Rafa's house since passports will sell for as high as $5,000.00 down here, so its best not to carry the real thing.) He looked it over and was fine with it but asked me to get out and come across the road to their bikes (I think this was to keep Kevin from hearing anything) He told me he could write me a ticket which would cost me $175.00 and 2 points on my lic. back in the states, OR I could pay him $40.00 cash and be on my way, now I have no idea if the first thing is even true but I knew where they were going so figured why make an issue and give them a reason. I chose option B, I pulled out my Colones but got mixed up on the conversion, since some people quote prices in Colones and some quote dollars, so I pulled out 40,000 Colones (about $80.00) when I realized he said $40.00, he saw me catch it but it was too late, he saw the 40,000 and said that was the amount. I forked it over and we were on our way.

We drove through some great scenery along the coast, with Palm Tree farms all over. We stopped at an ocean town called Quepos (Kay-pose) and had lunch. Just outside of Quepos we hit another gravel road and shortly came to a dead stop behind a bunch of other buses, cars trucks etc., we were at a bridge and they were doing work on it. We sat for about an hour when finally we got the go ahead. This bridge was a single lane rusted steel and probably the roughest I have been over. We got to the other side and found a line far longer than ours waiting. As we got to end of the mile long line, things got wild. The road was amazingly wide, 4-5 lanes, but as we cleared the waiting traffic we turned into one giant lane as everyone fanned out across the wide road and romped on it! Everyone was bobbing-and-weaving their way around coffee table sized pot holes, large rocks jutting up in the road, and cutting off anyone they could. It looked like a scene from Mad Max, I found myself caught up in the moment, driving 60 kph on a road I would normally drive 20 kph on. Oncoming traffic had to dodge their was through as best they could. I got passed by a pick-up truck with 2 Ice Machines in the back and I never could catch that guy. After a couple miles everything thinned out and got back to normal. After about 2 hours we got to pavement again but drove right past Dominical...yes its that small, and off the main road so you don't really see it.

We continued south and arrived a small town named Palma Del Sur, it was getting late and we were to meet the Tree Farm manager for Kevin's trees in the morning so got a small cabin there. It was really a pretty cool little cabin, but as we parked in front the desk clerk told us we had a flat tire. Sure enough, rear passenger had picked up a nail someplace. So we got our bags in and I dug out my canvas overalls, didn't know why I had packed them at the time but now I do, so we headed out to change the tire and of course...it began to rain. Kevin got out the triangular reflectors and set em while I worked on the tire, he had a good time taking pictures. It didn't take too long so then it was time to go eat.
We went down the street to an open-air place and as I opened the door there were 2 little girls who seemed to appear out of no where like ghosts, they started asking for Colones. I pulled out a coin and as I was giving it to one of them, the other saw Kevin getting out and ran for him. Then both were hitting him up, he pulled out 3 coins gave each one and was going to pocket the 3rd, but they started with UH! Colones! So he gave it to them and they were gone as fast as they appeared.