Rollin', rollin', rollin'... Though the streams are swollen...

Monday, Dec 10

I got a late start out of San Isidro de El General but hey, I got a few important things laundered and dried and piled on some more of that delicious Gallopinto. Especially with that yummy sauce which they tell me I can get back stateside. The road down from El Sid was a great drive and really easy. More Sodas along the way so that I could nurish my new Fanta grape soda addiction, although I am disappointed that there is no Mountain Dew and there are no Chicharrones. I'm still keeping my eye out for the later.

I've stopped to move my share of turtles out of the road but this was the first time I'm pulled over for a tarantula. This guy was mellow.

I also stopped to give some two legged mammals a ride. The first was a British ex-pat who was walking down the road with some new stove parts. Evidently her current stove crapped out during Tea Time and she was then compelled to do something about it, e.g.; walk several miles to pick up some Victorian era parts to work it out. Some people just have different problems. The others were a couple of local kids who needed a ride further down past Dominical. More smiling and nodding and shoe-horning the combined 25 words of English and Spanish we shared into some kind of conversational aggregate. We all had a good time. This stretch of road between Dominical and Puerto Jiminez was a real snoozer so I'm going to edit that right out and no one but me will have to suffer. What I will mention is that the turn off to go towards Carate was very strange and without the GPS maps from  NavsatCR I never would have made it. I had to twist and turn through some seriously stony roads through a poorer district and eventually wound up bouncing down this crazy, straight, tree lined rocky road with pastures on both sides, though to the east were some bucolic hill scenery and to the west was the Pacific ocean. It felt like driving through a quarry and let me tell you, if something in that kind of a road is a pothole it's not your normal pothole. You negotiated with it.I know I did

The road... Holy crap. The Road. I attempted to collect the slightly scary messages the Garmin was displaying for me for later review;

ALERT: Dangerous bridge ahead
ALERT: River Crossing 4x4 Only
ALERT: X Crossing Ahead, You take all responsibility
These are real. I kept waiting for;
ALERT: Beware, here Be Dragons

In all honesty I hadn't seen roads like this since our place in Lasqueti, BC. At times this was pretty much a logging trail, at other times calling the road a logging trail was a kindness. Really. It turns out that most people take a 4x4 taxi or boat/fly in. I crawled in on four wheels and a prayer.

This video was from a spot where there was some gravel to stop on and watch other crossers.

The one below wasn't the last one either.There was at least one more that twisted down into funky little rapids and a good opportunity to practice avoiding boulders. When I started getting close, the crossings started to get closer together and more steep.

 I finally made it up to the hotel and a bunch of folks came out to greet me. I had been advised before I came out that if I was driving myself up I should make sure I came during the day and I can certainly see why. They were stunned that I made it. I was stunned that I didn't bruise Gordito el Terios. The little 4x4 wasn't really a strong puller but when you're driving a 5 speed at least one of the gears is "first". I spent most of the 32km in 1st & 2nd. There were no less than 6 "river" crossings and more like 8 (I lost count), some were actually pretty impressive although none required a snorkel. Some of the uphill and downhill sections I actually could have used a spotter. Not one big rock bruised the bottom of the Terios and no plastic was injured in the filming of this feature.

At any rate, I made it. I was just in time to shower and sit down for their dinner. A nice wrap up to an awesome drive that was (so far) the high point of the trip.