Where in the World is Smithee?



Where in the World is Smithee???

Friday, January 4, 2013

December 27 - Travel Day

We awoke Wednesday, December 27 to thunder and rain.  The clouds were low and the hills around us were quite misty.




You could hear the Howler Monkeys across the valley hooting and staking out their territory.

We finished up packing and then headed into town for breakfast at the bakery.  Excellent breakfast.  I'll have to remember to give the bakery a good review on TripAdvisor.







Outside, the formerly dusty road was pretty much slimy clay.



I saw the first BMW I'd seen in Costa Rica that morning, a f800gs:






Time to head back to Nido de Aguila and get the bags and head for the ferry.  We'd decided to take a 2:00 pm ferry, which we hoped would get us to Puntarenas in time to get on the road and make it to Santa Ana by dark.

A couple shots of the road leading to Nido de Aguila.  You can see why you wouldn't want to try to get up there in a standard, low-slung 2wd car:



Rita and her party were leaving that day also.  Rita and her daughter were heading north on the Nicoya Peninsula and Danni and Elena were headed out to the ferry and then taking a bus home to San Jose before leaving the next day for Panama for a few days.  They were talking about taking the bus to the ferry, but I offered to give them a ride.  Actually, I offered to take them as far as the San Jose airport, but they concluded they'd be better off getting an inter-city bus from Puntarenas which would take them right into downtown San Jose.

Rita and her daughter:



From the ferry dock in Paquera:




One of the ubiquitous dogs that seem to be hanging around everywhere.  This little guy was wandering up and down the line of cars waiting for the 2:00 pm ferry.


We had a mishap exiting the ferry.  They'd parked me on the lower deck, snugged in on the right side.  When I was leaving the ferry I heard a snap and saw that I'd broken the right rearview mirror off on some obstruction.  It was hanging by the wires that operate the electric mirror apparatus and I thought it best to try to find some duct tape to tape it up.  Stopped at several stores in Puntarenas looking for cinta adhesiva with no success.  Best I could come up with was scotch tape, which would not have worked.  We made the drive to Santa Ana with the mirror hanging against the car, dangling from the electrical connections.  Not a problem, as it turned out.

The timing worked out just about perfectly.  We made it to the airport area, a few kilometers from the Aloft Hotel just as it was getting dark.  By the time we got checked in and settled, the traffic on Ruta 147 had cleared enough so we didn't feel like we were taking our lives in our hands by crossing to go to Soda Tapias for dinner, so that is what we did.  The three of us split two orders of the Pollo dinner, which comes with rice, black beans, and papas fritas.  Yum!!!

I'll do another post about turning the car back in to Wild Rider and catching our flight out to head home.